Swansea Business

Swansea Business: Prospecting For Profit

Any Swansea business could do with more customers or clients but in a world of ever increasing expenses, regulations and guidelines it has become more expensive to market your goods or services than ever before using traditional methods.

Having said that it has now become easier to find new customers and clients if you know where to look and how to use the new mediums.

I say new mediums when in fact the internet has been around since the 1990′s in a commercial sense but it is now growing at an extraordinary rate. Every Swansea business needs an online presence in the form of ‘Local Listings’ and a basic website.

Why?

In the past when searching for a product or service we would have turned to our copy of Yellow Pages and looked up what we needed. For those of us with young adults or teenagers we will recognise straight away that they rarely if ever use the Yellow Pages.

Swansea Business Prospecting Tools

In these competitive times people search for their information on the internet.

What is even more eye opening is that the Kesley Group reported that 74% of users perform local searches on the internet.

It goes on to say that 43% of search engine users are seeking a local merchant to buy something offline.

Every Swansea business needs to understand this if it is going to evolve and compete with its marketing strategies. We as business people need to tailor our marketing to capture some of these searches before our competitors do.

In the early days when the internet had not long started in its present form purchasing online was slow as people learnt how to use the internet and to build up trust with using your credit cards online.

Now it’s a multi-billion market as technology and security has shown how easy it is to find what you need online.

What most businesses in Swansea fail to realise is that these consumers go online and are searching for information. If they can find the information, goods and services locally because your website shows up on page one of the search engine results, they will usually buy from the local merchant.

Google Helps Businesses In Swansea For FREE!

Google understands this which is why, when a customer starts searching online, Google will identify their I.P address (computer address) and if there are local merchants available show them in the’ten pack’ at the top left of the page.

Talk about a bargain, how much would it cost us, as a local Swansea business to advertise on the front page of a newspaper or magazine in the top left corner where your customers eyes will first land!

What’s more remarkable is that your Google Local Listing is free!

Over the years we have all used Yellow Pages, the Evening Post, The Wave, leaflet drops, banners hanging over railings and anything else we could do to get noticed and increase our customer or client base.

Now we have the advantage. More money is now spent on internet advertising than on T.V. advertising.

Why?

Take traditional media. You place an advert in a paper, magazine or radio and the majority of people either do not notice or were not interested. That’s an expensive advert!

Now, take a look at how it works on the internet.

For a start, the person searching was looking for information on something you do, your service or product. When they typed in the search query on Google they were looking for something specific and Google only displays relevant results so if you fit your business will be displayed in front of a hot prospect.

Of course you need your local listing, website or pay per click advertising campaign optimised to ensure your business shows up on the first page when the prospect is looking, but unlike all other forms of advertising you only show up in front of your market!

This is target marketing and very inexpensive for any Swansea business no matter how big or small.

When it comes to how expensive is this form of advertising well for a start its online 24/7, websites are inexpensive compared to say a one off newspaper advert and pay per click advertising, the adverts you see at the top and down the right hand side of the search engine results page, only cost you if someone sees your advert and clicks on it!

Talk about cost effective!

Now you can see why Swansea business marketing budgets are moving away from traditional and being spent on more cost effective marketing strategies.