Online Marketing: Big or Small? "To Be or Not to Be" in the New Marketplace:

Selling is still about relationships, but some things have changed. There are many ways to establish these relationships, from the low-overhead independent who goes to every Chamber of Commerce breakfast and is involved in local politics and who spends little more than business cards cost, to the niche marketer who has an inside track to a profit because of a knowledge of the market, to the mass marketer with multiple heavily branded offices full of clones wearing the same blazer who seeks to dominate a significant share of a marketplace: there is more than one way start a relationship. Here are some new ways you may not have considered:

Start an opt-in email group consisting of everyone you know - provide tips, links, recipes, whatever it is that you can offer for free to cause the relationship

Start a community resource group online: provide something to your local community that draws people to you, for example: donate your time to the local Chamber of commerce or a local charity to gain free exposure

Provide a website to someone else: for example: we at Coracle Inc. have several lenders and realtors who advertise together to target the same customers; we have groups of local medial specialist who advertise together (oregonmedsource.com); we have non-profit charities we donate advertising to in order to gain exposure as sponsors

Network with other businesses who target the same customers: one of the most successful campaigns I ever saw was Pizza Parlor next to a health club. By giving out each others coupons, they doubled both their totally unrelated businesses (you see: everybody eats Pizza, has guilt, lives in a home, and buys automobiles, regardless of how you meet them!)

Surprising as it may sound, innovation, human editing, and quality content are more in demand now than ever, in spite of information overload, quality information is always at a premium; and it always involves human beings.

People thrive, not machines; and it is because of what they bring to the table that they are seated. The same is true online.