Here is a great article from Chris from SmallBusinessNewz.com that is proof that online business economy is different than physical business economy in my opinion. Read what Chris has to say.

Are You Advertising a Need?

If you’ve been reading SmallBusinessNewz for a while, you may recall an article I wrote earlier this year about branding a need. The basic point of this was that one effective advertising strategy is to make potential customers realize that they have a need, and that your product is the solution to that need.

I was reminded of this again today as I read an article by Svetlana Gladkova at Profy who talked about online advertising, and how it will be affected as our economy worsens. She provides a very thought-provoking analysis on the subject, comparing it to what advertising was like in the great depression.

Surprisingly to some of us who weren’t around back then, advertising actually did pretty well according to Gladkova:

There was quite a number of examples of successful brands during the Great Depression, including Chevrolet cars, Camel cigarettes and Procter & Gamble (that gave birth to the phenomenon of soap opera during those hard times). And all of them relied heavily on advertising because they realized that they needed advertising to create and maintain brand loyalty. They simply pretended there was nothing particularly wrong with the economy and consumers still had money to spend - and this proved to be the right approach for them.

We should also keep in mind that advertising is one of the measures to demonstrate to consumers that the company is healthy. After all, not all the consumers have a daily habit of tracking stock market behavior to know what’s going on - yet when they see a company spending money on advertising, they think everything is fine with the company.

Contrary to what some might think, online advertising is still doing pretty well. Spending is up 15.2% in the United States according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. In the United Kingdom, it’s up 21%.

Even though there has been a lot of news recently about layoffs in Internet companies, ad sales are still growing as iEntry CEO Rich Ord points out. The bottom line is that online advertising is not likely to go show any major drop off in the foreseeable future. If anything, I think it will continue to grow, particularly as online video continues to grow in popularity and Google seems determined to expand it’s advertising efforts all the time.

Online advertising is a global medium and lets businesses reach global audiences, and targeted ones at that. How many other forms of advertising are as effective in either of these categories? When it comes to a weak economy, it is just important to note that people’s “needs” may change.

About the author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network. Subscribe to SmallBusinessNewz RSS Feeds.

Build more credibility…While not always deservingly so, larger companies tend to capture more trust and credibility than the unproven small business.

It can be difficult to compete with the big boys, but there are steps you can take to make your business seem bigger than it really is.

Branding

The best way to appear as large as possible to your customers is to form a well-known brand. Make sure you have a solid logo and get it out there where people will begin to recognize it. Use social media marketing, search engine optimization, and every other form of promotion you can think of to get your brand seen. You want your image to be burned into your customer’s mind. When that happens, chances are they won’t perceive you as a small company.

Design

Make sure your web site is designed in a professional-looking manner. Large companies (while I’m sure there are exceptions) do not tend to have poorly designed sloppy looking sites. A good design can build credibility and overshadow the appearance of being a small business.

Keep it Professional

MSNBC notes that keeping in touch with customers through direct mail, maintaining a professional sounding voicemail, and creating a professional looking signature file for your email correspondence are good ways to make your business seem bigger.

The New York Times has a fascinating case study on an entrepreneur who achieved success in real estate through making her business look bigger than it was.

The bottom line is that if you present your business in a professional manner, you will not give your customers reason to second-guess your credibility and size will likely not be taken into consideration when it is time to do business.

About the author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network.