Our local high streets are in trouble with many small local busi­nesses clos­ing due to fall­ing sales and increas­ing com­pet­i­tion from super­mar­kets, chain stores and inter­net retail­ers. But it’s easy to blame external factors for busi­ness fail­ure and, to their credit, many of the small retail­ers that I talk to are look­ing for­ward and want improve the way that they present their busi­ness. They under­stand that they have to dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves, demon­strate their expert­ise, engage with their cus­tom­ers and provide them with a great cus­tomer ser­vice experience.

Photo From kevin­dooley

For many small retail­ers, part of the mar­ket­ing plan is to cre­ate a pres­ence on the inter­net, usu­ally start­ing with a basic web­site and occa­sion­ally mov­ing toward on-line selling. So, ima­gine your­self as the owner of a small shop and try a few google searches for inform­a­tion on inter­net mar­ket­ing. Plenty of art­icles that are short on prac­tical advice, any num­ber of inter­net mar­ket­ing courses and a sprink­ling of grand ideas. Much of this inform­a­tion also assumes a more than passing famili­ar­ity with the inter­net that many shop keep­ers don’t have, in my experience.

I think that what small, high street retail­ers need is more zero-based, prac­tical advice on inter­net mar­ket­ing. These busi­nesses are hungry to cap­it­al­ise on the poten­tial of the inter­net to improve their reach and inform new and exist­ing cus­tom­ers but they lack good inform­a­tion and help. There is still a big oppor­tun­ity here.

Can you help by point­ing to good resources for small retail­ers on inter­net mar­ket­ing and how they can apply it? Links to art­icles, case-studies or events are much appre­ci­ated. If you have any please post them in a comment.