In the past, business owners needed to have large budgets for promoting their wares. The higher the budget, the more they could afford to spend on promoting their products. Naturally, larger budgets enabled them to promote their brands in larger areas. This, in turn, meant that they could hope to attract a larger number of prospective customers. The internet transformed the marketing landscape significantly. It enabled smaller companies to compete as equals. This is especially so when it comes to attracting clients from across the globe. With more and more people making their purchases online, business owners cannot rely solely on their offline marketing strategies. They will need to complement these offline strategies with online ones.

Business owners need to focus on formulating online-marketing strategies because:

• Their customers are on the internet and are increasingly looking for service providers on the internet
•  The competition is on the internet, which means that if you don’t have an online presence, you could be losing a number of clients to your online competitors
•  Unlike offline marketing strategies that are costly and time-consuming, online marketing is cost effective and targets your customers directly
•  It is significantly easier to evaluate and monitor your online marketing strategies
•  You can mix and match an assortment of online marketing strategies such as Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising or SEO for forging constructive relationships with your target audience and,
• These strategies can help small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) compete with larger corporations for a share of the market