Can companies survive without a footprint in the online market?

When I was a kid the 90’s, computer systems were north of $1,000, hard drives were pushing 200MB, yet the internet was piquing interest around the globe. One of the few companies I remember providing internet access was AOL Online. Few people believed the internet was more than it was, yet AOL believed in it enough to provide a consumer-based hourly service. I was one of the privileged youth to embark on the quest of 28.8k connection speeds to stream cartoon images to my Windows 95 powered system, but little did I know how the internet would evolve into a marketing giant.

We all sit back and laugh at the things that transpired in the past, but the truth is that these things helped pave the way for new technology, new systems, and new streamlined processes. If you’re a company in this day and age, and feel you’re not “big” enough for any form of e-marketing, I pray you reconsider. With the saturation of smartphones and mobile technology, people can check their e-mail almost anywhere, anytime, effectively increasing awareness of your product offerings.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become such a large factor for any business, as there are firms solely dedicated to get your page on the forefront of search results. Google is the largest search engine on the web today – getting your website on the first page of any popular search term will increase traffic, prospectively increasing business.

Social Media is changing the way companies operate. Almost every major ad has a blurb, usually including “follow us onFacebook and Twitter” in order to gain more followers. Statistics show that more than 50% of active users log on to Facebook on any given day and mobile users install apps more than 20 million times every day (fb). Every month, more than 500 million people use an app on Facebook or experience Facebook Platform on other websites (fb). With that said, it’s sometimes more effective to operate through these mediums since there are a large number of users using Facebook and Twitter to stay updated as opposed to traditional e-mail.

For example, Couch is a company that has a unique offering of handmade vinyl products made in the United States. They send out newsletters occasionally, but a majority of their traffic comes from their followers on Facebook, which they update internally. Whether you have a large budget, small budget, or no budget, get connected – these tools are in place to be used!