We live in a different age...the age of the Internet.  If you're small business is not on the Internet it does not exist in the minds of a growing consumer base.  The first place that the vast majority of people go looking for information when they need to find a product is the Internet.  After finding the information on line they may make the purchase online or go to a retail location.   The emerging consumer base is growing up in the information age and their desire for quick access to information and fast delivery of service is growing.

There are many advantages to placing your small business online.  These are the top 10 reasons your small business should be online.

1.  Branding: 

You cannot effectively brand your small business if it is not online.  For a small business, staying offline and branding the business through word of mouth, mailing campaigns and tv commercials is an expensive and slow process.  Most small businesses will be out of business before they can brand their businesses that way.  Word-of-mouth spreads faster on the Internet.  Email marketing is far more inexpensive than regular mail.  A video online is far less cheaper and will reach a larger audience.

2.  Marketing: 

The Internet has made marketing inexpensive and effective for small businesses to market themselves.  The Internet puts small businesses and large businesses on an even playing field when it comes to online marketing.  You can market on a small budget and reach tens of millions of people.  Through Social Media, email marketing, blogging, Link Exchange, etc. small businesses can effectively market themselves with just an investment of time.  Through the Internet small businesses can run their own marketing campaigns without an ad agency and reach tens of millions of potential consumers nationally and internationally.

3.  Credibility: 

Having an online presence for your small business brings credability.  Consumers believe that your business is real if they can go to your website and find key information about your business.  Having contact information about your business such as a phone number, email address and a physical address of the business makes people believe that the business is legitimate.

4.  Access to Customers Worldwide: 

The Internet is worldwide.  You can reach consumers from every country with access to the Internet.  This is a very large consumer base that was only available to multi-national corporations.  Now, even a startup can reach an international consumer base simply by having an online presence. 

5.  Peer Reviews: 

Peer reviews are increasingly playing an important role in helping consumers decide which company's products to buy.  Consumers prefer the feedback from other consumers rather than the spin provided by companies about their products.  Peer reviews take place on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Amazon, Ebay and countless other blogs.  You can even place this feature on your own website.

6.  Better Customer Service: 

Having an online presence for your small business enable you to provide better customer service.  When customers have a question or a problem with your product they want instant response.  The Internet moves at the speed of light and consumers want to be served that fast.  They want to quickly find and order what they want and they want it delivered just as quick.  And if there is a problem, they want it resolved very quickly.

7.  24/7 Availability: 

Placing your small business online makes it available 24/7 to any consumer anywhere in the world (in different time zones).  Being available 24/7 lets customers place orders when it is most convenient of them.  It doesn't mean that our business have to be open 24/7.  But, to the consumer it may appear that way. 

8.  Competitiveness: 

Small businesses that are online have a competitive advantage over other businesses that are not.  Online businesses can reach a larger audience, market more effectively, be responsive to their customers and be available 24/7.  All of these things make them much more competitive.

9.  Less Overhead: 

An online presence with a small retail foot print will be far less expensive than a large retail foot print with no online presence.  You can sell virtually any product from an online presence.  Which means you can work out of your home, or  have an inexpensive storage location for your products and process the shipments when orders are received from your online store

It is very easy to measure the effectiveness of your online presence.  You can use Google Analystics to measure how many people are visiting your website.  You can easily capture data on how many purchases are being made of specific products.  If you conduct an online marketing campaign you can easily measure the response to it.  You can easily measure promotional campaigns by having the customers use that promotion code when they make a purchase.