Location, Location, Location

It’s an old saying about choosing where to establish your business depends on these three criteria… but it’s one reason why many retailers choose to locate in large shopping malls.

But I’m not there… and I still get around 13,000 people every week visit my store.

I’m on the Mid North Coast of NSW in a small village (some 8000 people in the district). In the last week, I had over 13,000 unique people visit just one of my “shops”. In twelve months time, I will have a mere 676,355 people visit my “shop”. Twenty five per cent of my visitors are “locals” and the rest are overseas tourists!

Not bad for a small village, eh?

Where is that shop? I bet you want to locate right next door to me! Right now!

Well… I feel I’m going to disappoint you when I tell you where they are… because then you’ll feel my comments won’t to be useful to the average SME (small to medium enterprise).

But hang on… who am I? IBM? Telstra? I wish!

I am but a humble small business person. My clients cover all age groups… from teenagers to seniors… and I’ve got quite a good ratio of males to females. I deal in providing information for consumers and for business, and my “shops” are located on the Internet.

And while my “shop” has been online for quite some time (that’s one of the reasons why so many people ARE visiting it), a “new” online business should be realistically able to pull in around 1000 visitors a month fairly quickly (say within 3 months or so).

There is a huge misconception that the Internet is mainly the realm of large multi-nationals because of its global focus. That if you get onto the Internet, you’ll reach absolutely squillions of people around the world!

That couldn’t be further from the truth! Sure… it’s global, but you wouldn’t get millions. You couldn’t handle it, and you probably wouldn’t want them either.

But it’s also local!

Using recent ABS figures (2006-07) 64% of Australian households had home Internet access. Now work out how many “locals” are in your target area… probably quite a significant number of people!

When you’ve got that target market - equivalent to the circulation of an average suburban weekly newspaper with a wider geographic - to aim a marketing campaign at, using the Internet starts to make sense.

The reality is that many SME’s have already established a solid local Internet identity, reaching into the homes of just those few hundred people who are their local customers! To them, the Internet is a valuable business tool and is being used extensively for marketing and communication - locally!

Despite reports from some magazines that the “average” cost of a business web site is around $200,000 (maybe Big Blue and Microsoft might pay that, or more, and it might certainly be more true in the USA) the average Australian SME can develop a successful commercial presence on the Internet to meet their immediate basic needs, from as low as $1,000 a year.

What business uses can the Internet be put to? How about some real life examples…

* tender information is made available on the Internet to SME’s.
* a cable assembler liaises with overseas component manufacturers/suppliers.
* a hotel/convention centre promotes its facilities and takes bookings.
* a furniture manufacturer keeps its distributors informed of price changes.
* a travel agent accepts bookings and makes holiday arrangements.
* an electronics mail order house makes 10,000 items available for on line shopping.
* publications report on business issues/happenings.
* local Chamber of Commerce advertises its events, region and members.
* a credit union keeps its members informed and provides quotes for insurance and access to account details.

… to name just a few ways it is being used… and at no great expense to do so…

Using the Internet, existing customers, potential clients, sales reps, staff in remote branches, suppliers, distributors and agents, can all communicate with you quite cheaply, and very effectively, provided you get it done right!

The benefits of this type of marketing and communication tool to SME’s from any industry will only increase with time, most likely exponentially!

The Internet is today’s business tool, and you really should start it working for you today!

However, like any business tool, the Internet has its own set of limitations you must be aware of, if you have any chance of succeeding.