resistive starfish: Why franchise-owning women should get wise with web marketing ...

Statistics compiled last year show that almost a third of small businesses are now run by women ? an increase of over 10% since 2008. With so many women trying their hands at entrepreneurship, one of the first things they need to consider after starting up a business or buying into a franchise is how they can approach the marketing side of their enterprise.

With the Internet being the fastest growing form of media in history, it is no wonder that so many entrepreneurs, both male and female, turn to the web for the bulk of their marketing campaigns. Web-based marketing is versatile, effective and often cheaper than more long-standing methods, such as print, television and radio advertising.

Why is internet marketing important?

The days of searching through telephone directories for company names, addresses and contact numbers are all but over. Today, almost two thirds of people make the Internet their first resource for seeking out local products and services. It therefore makes a lot of sense for business owners to use it as their main focus of marketing as well.

How can it help me as a franchisee?

For a franchisee, web marketing can be particularly useful as it can help make sure that a particular branch of a franchise makes the best use of its location. Consider how often people will use Google and other search engines to find a local business simply by searching for a service (e.g. hairdressers, butchers) followed by the location in which they are looking for it. Those businesses that strive to get themselves on the front page of search engine results in these circumstances tend to reap the benefits through sales and custom, and franchisors should ensure that all their individual branches are ranking highly with Google, Bing and Yahoo ? not just the company name as a whole.

What types of Internet marketing are available?

As far as the above is concerned, the most important aspect of online marketing is search engine optimisation, or SEO. It refers to making sure that a site has the right content, layout, web design and keywords to get the attention of search engines. It is the most important element of online marketing, since over half of web-surfers will not look beyond the first three search engine results before finding what they want.

Franchisees should not underestimate the role of social media in promoting their business, especially since some Internet users say that they check out companies on Facebook and Twitter before they use their website. Franchises with locations around the country can tailor their social media feeds so that each outlet has its own, attracting local customers in a way that a single umbrella website for the franchise may struggle to do.

One other popular method of attracting website visits is through pay per click (PPC), whereby links to certain parts of a website will be hosted elsewhere, and the company only pays when the link is clicked. This is a resourceful system that encourages targeted web traffic and makes it easy to track success.

How much does it cost?

This really all depends on how much the business owner is looking to put into the online marketing campaign. In any case, it?s well worth looking into getting a professional web marketing company to assist, and many entrepreneurs who do so are surprised at how affordable it can turn out to be.

Some business owners find the entire online world confusing and time-consuming, in which case a marketing company can take the web side of their business out of their hands. Others prefer to be more hands-on and leave the technical side of their website to the experts, while still maintaining control of much of their website.

Whatever the situation, most online marketing firms allow entrepreneurs and franchisors to select a package on a sliding scale, allowing for varying levels of control of the campaign on the business owner?s part.

Rebekah Griffiths works for Engage Web, an internet marketing firm based in the UK.