The explosion of media options in the last 5-10 years is giving small businesses options they did not have in the age of mass media, mass marketing.
The recession will drive a continuing growth in alternative media at the expense of the traditional media, the growth is inexorable.
Small businesses now have the opportunity to connect with their markets in ways impossible a few years ago, meeting specific very narrow markets that may be geographically spread. Access to the “Long tail” of marketing, is creating markets that did not exist 10 years ago.
Small businesses with a “narrow but deep” market potential are no longer restricted by geography. Look at what my friend Jonathan Hatcher and his wife Alyssa are doing with their fantastic berry jam products grown and made on their farm in he NSW southern highlands. Their products have great appeal to the small , widely dispersed group of people who value the emotion that goes into each jar of jam.
A web site is hard pressed to deliver the physical stuff that makes the mouth water over food, the smell, the visual impact as it cooks, the passion of the cook, and so on.
What the web is great at is delivering the “story” of the product to an audience, and when well used, the audience are those who watch the site for things that build on and illuminate the story, because it is a relationship with some intimacy that they value.
A web convesation can be iterative, progressively honing in on the factors that are of importance to the makket of one, you.
I must admit I wasn’t ready/compelled to buy when I looked through. Why do I want this jam and not my regular variety? Clearly the product is very ‘good’, excellent if you will, award winning! But I don’t know what it tastes like….
I do agree that there is an increased opportunity through this media, but in modst instances it is not mange, not managed properly, or is not managed for “the sale”
Your friends have agreat web site and it looks up to date, and it told me all about where product was etc, but it never asked me for an order??? Maybe it is a marketing tool but not a selling tool………….maybe I am just too old for the stuff………..