Why Internet Marketing is Essential for Indian SMB's Now?

There is a fact that

"Internet has fundamentally changed the way people find, discover, share, shop, & connect"

A research by a leading communication and research agency Fleishmanhillard shows that in Canada, internet is now more influential overall in making purchase decisions compared to the family and friends.


And, in India, these stats are even more surprising. Influence of internet in purchasing decisions is almost double of the influence of family and friends. The main reason behind this is the internet adoption rate in India, it is growing at a year on year rate of 26%, 2nd after China. India currently has more than 120 million internet users (3rd Largest in the world) and the number is expected to be tripled by 2016.

Below are some facts and figures why small Indian businesses now really need to harness the power of internet marketing.

• More than 40% of net users in India rely go online for product research and price comparison before buying.
• The current internet penetration in India is only 10%, so there are even bigger opportunities in the near future.
• Only 1% of internet users in India has the broadband subscription which too is expected to grow with the help of several government initiatives.
• The current contribution of Internet to Indian GDP is 1.6% or $30 billion which is also expected to be $100 billion by 2015.
  
  
• 71% people agree that online consumer reviews of products/services make them more comfortable that they are buying the right product.
• 86% of people skip TV advertising but internet advertising can not be skipped if done the right way.
• Internet marketing costs at least 70% less compared to the traditional outdoor and print advertising.
  
  
• Almost 61% percent of global internet users search engines to research products online.
• The average daily number of searches on Google is more than 500 million and 15% of those are unique searches which are never seen before.
• Ranking high on search engines is no longer optional, it’s critical and is going to be more critical in future, better to start now.
• Internet users spend 3X more time on blogs & social networks than on email.
• 1 out of every 7 minutes online is spent on Facebook.
• In the last year and a half, they've developed and published free websites for over 175,000 SMBs from over 8,000 Indian cities using Google's "India Get Online" program.
• India is the fastest growing SMB market for Google AdWords.

So, the stats above are enough to justify the need of good web presence for each small and medium business. Below are the most popular internet marketing methods that can be implemented to market a SMB on internet.

1. Search engine optimization.
2. Paid advertising (Google Adwords, Facebook Advertising, Direct Banner Ads).
3. Social media optimization (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube)
4. Blogging
5. Content marketing
6. E-Mail marketing
7. Affiliate marketing

 So, what are you waiting for? market your business online now!