Internet advertising now accounts for 3.9% of the total spent by advertisers.

Analysts said that increasing take-up of fast Internet connections was partly responsible for the switch from more traditional forms of advertising.

The question for small business owners is why are they failing to take advantage of marketing their business, products and services on the Internet, that is pound for pound cheaper and more targeted compared to marketing on radio and other traditional forms.

Small business surveys reveal that most small business owners never consider the Internet as a marketing medium for their business. Their experience of the Internet post "Internet bubble burst" is almost nil. It appears many small business entrepreneurs lost faith with the Internet and simply gave up. Despite the fact that the Internet has changed post the "dot-com boom" many entrepreneurs still refrain from even considering the Internet as a marketing and advertising channel.

Most businesses give up before investigating whether to try marketing on the Internet even though it's the ideal medium for entrepreneurs who are working with small budgets to acquire customers at low cost.

Paul Pilkington, the director in charge of the study, said: "The Internet is coming of age. Advertisers understand how accountable it is as a medium, and how they can much better target their advertising than they can, say in outdoor advertising"

The study showed that Internet advertising is most popular among financial services companies, followed by recruitment and travel companies.

The automotive industry has also increased its spending. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade body that commissioned the research predicts that online advertising would be higher than spending on outdoor advertising in the next few years.

The message is clear, UK small businesses should not be sitting on the fence they should be active users on the Internet. They should be active users of the many advertising and marketing techniques used by small businesses in the USA. These techniques include pay-per-click advertising, banner advertising, co-registration, traffic brokers, organic search, joint venture marketing, publicity (PR), affiliate marketing and viral marketing (or affinity marketing).

They should use tools for tracking and testing their ads to increase conversion rate so as to optimize their return on investment (ROI).

The Interactive Media research Group (IMRG) in their first annual report published recently said it expected 4m more Britons to shop online this year, taking total shoppers to 24m, more than half the UK's adult population. IMRG also states that consumers are expected to spend 35% more buying a host of items from clothes to CDs.

Such is the pull of the Internet, large retailing groups - Kingfisher, Argos, Dixons, Tesco and Boots are spending money on developing their internet offering.

If ever there was a time for small businesses to get on board and start advertising on the Internet it is now NOT tomorrow!

At Small Business Resource we are helping many of our clients to market their products and services on the Internet. We apply a systems approach that focuses on traffic generation and traffic conversion. We can help you optimize your ROI.
Furthermore, we guarantee our service at take away much of the risks.

You want to implement the many marketing strategies mentioned above just send an email and we'll do the rest.

David
small business resource