12A Figuring Out Buyer Behavior

The segment that I am picking is in fact small businesses who struggle with and or want to being marketing online, starting out with those in my area.

After reaching out to small businesses from my hometown, I managed to get a few sufficient interviews for my blog. Two of the smaller business owners that I interviewed told me that they do in fact struggle with online marketing, and one other business owner explained that the only online marketing they had done, was very limited. Their needs of a solution are pretty much constantly, but come out especially during holidays or special events. When they want to get the word out that they are having a special deal on pizzas to help support the local high school rowing team, for one example, they only relied on fliers and the high school kids social media to spread the word. Of course this produces some results, but with the right marketing, even more customers would come into their store. These people search things such as "business advertisements," "local ad sales," and "how to advertise locally online." Of course family and friends are consulted, but they can only do so much.

From these interviews I have learned that, not all but, some local businesses are still struggling to expand using the internet. They are doing well enough without the use of the internet, for the most part, but could be so much better off if they knew how to market themselves and their brands. For instance if they implied tactics such as search engine optimization (SEO,) or for one of the businesses, just simply register their shop on Google and Apple maps. Their information search seems to be shallow, and if they really want to improve their business, they should learn how to advertise themselves, which is lot of time and money, or look for online marketers, which can cost some money, but the added revenue from the increase in customers will heavily outweigh the costs. They are aware of their situation, but are unaware of the solution.