Often, they have barely enough capital to pay the staff and keep the lights on, let alone advertise in newspapers or on television and radio. But the Internet is relatively inexpensive, the cost of computers aside - and, those who have taken the digital leap say, it offers what conventional methods of marketing usually cannot: a targeted approach to reaching potential customers.
"We started with e-mail blasts and improved upon it," said Jeff Mead, vice president of operations at the Kokes Organization, a developer of 55-plus communities in Ocean County. "We dove into social media: Facebook and Twitter. We had to get on board to compete. We couldn't ignore the technology."
Nor should any small business, said Melinda Emerson, a Drexel Hill entrepreneur, small-business coach, and author who practices what she preaches when it comes to digital marketing. Better known as SmallBizLady, she has 115,000 followers on Twitter, 5,000 on Facebook, and 2,500 on LinkedIn.
"Social media is the best thing to ever happen to small-business owners," Emerson said, calling it "the great equalizer."
What astounds her in this increasingly Yellow Pages-less age is that more than 50 percent of small-business owners still don't have a website. Of those, Emerson asks: "Can customers find you? Your website is your front door."
Indeed, consumers have come to expect a digital presence - websites to coupons - from most businesses, said Anita Campbell, a small-business consultant from Ohio and founder and editor in chief of Small Business Trends, an online publication.
