With the advent of the Internet,you can’t escape the fact that an Internet marketing strategy plays a vitalpart of the marketing plans for any small business. In fact, Web site marketingis an important part of just about any business, small or large.

However, it can be dangerous toput up a Web site and just hope that people will go there. It’s dangerousbecause you will lose income. Why spend money setting up a site if you aren’tgoing to get a return on your investment?

You have to let people know, inevery possible way, that you have a Web site. This has to be part of anyInternet marketing strategy you develop. This is actually a very basicmarketing principle. Customers are not necessarily going to go online and look foryou; you have to look for them.

Promoting your Web site online andbuilding traffic is the subject of thousands of Web sites, e-zines, books,courses and seminars. Using the Web to promote your site, however, assumes thatyour customers are Internet surfers. Believe it or not, there is still a largepercentage of the population that is not as savvy with the Internet as we wouldbelieve. In fact, I find this to be true in my business dealings on a dailybasis.

What about the large percentagesof the population who are not online? They will only find out about you throughtraditional marketing and public relations media.

So, here are some traditional waysto make your Web site known:

• Direct mail (prominently displayyour Web site on every document)

• News releases to targeted media

• Stationary and business cards

• TV, print and other advertising

• Catalogs, fliers, billboards,etc.

• Telemarketing (make the sitepart of the script)

The main principle to remember: AnInternet marketing strategy includes any and all means of getting your Web siteknown and visited by targeted prospects.

I have seen the greatest successin off-line Web site promotion with direct mail, and specifically, direct-mailpostcards.

Let’s face it – marketing isexpensive. And, to make matters worse, many business owners spend thousands ofdollars on so-called ‘experts,’ only to fail and then become gun shy frommarketing in the future. The reason for failure could be a multitude of things,but it almost always comes down to simple elements that can be easily fixed.

Did you know that, according to a2006 survey by the U.S. Postal Service, 39% of households find advertising mailinteresting? And, in that same report, only 9% of households find e-mailadvertising interesting, compared to a measly 3% for telemarketing? Moreimportantly, a business owner needs to know how all these advertising mediawork together and which one is right for his/her specific business.

Some of the smartest CEOs in thenation (I met many of them at an Inc 500 Conference.) do not know how tomarket! Wow! If those CEOs – who run the nation’s fastest-growing privatelyheld companies in the nation – do not know marketing basics, how can we expectstruggling small business owners to know them?

Instead of putting up with yearsof trial and error, consider marketing training – boot-camp style. A boot campis an intense way of learning about a particular topic.

One example is a Power MarketingMania Boot Camp that will be held Mar. 30-31 in Clearwater, Fla. Marketingexperts, representing nearly every aspect of marketing, will speak abouttopics, such as:

• The truth about direct-mailmarketing

• How publicity fuels marketing

• Our-of-the-box marketing ideas

• Search engine optimization

• Developing a Web site gearedtoward increasing sales

• Internet and e-mail marketing

Learn more about this boot camp byvisiting www.powermarketingmania.com.

Boot camps are designed to helpbusiness owners create action plans to implement tailor-made strategies fortheir businesses, which ensures results.

There is no silver marketingbullet anymore. Educated business owners need to be educated marketers tosucceed in this over-inundated advertising world. You need to be smart, able tothink outside the box and not go broke while doing it.

– By Joy Gendusa, founder and CEO,PostcardMania