Internet = Catalyst in levelling the field

Internet is one place where the small players can compete effectively with the big fish. Unlike television or print advertising, a huge budget isn’t necessary to make an impression and attract traffic. Guerrillas know that the Internet is the one place where even small businesses can have a large presence. The key thing on the web is to ensure that people visit your website and stay there long enough to do business. To achieve this objective, one needs to be innovative and regularly churn out new ideas.

Large companies possess certain advantages .Chiefly, they have the financial muscle to subsidize banner advertising on high traffic sites, and they can afford to refresh their content often. This enables them to draw new visitors and convert them into devotees. The small companies can level the playing field somewhat by contacting other small- and medium-sized related sites and arranging to trade Web links.

 

In this video Big-Commerce co-founder Mitchell Harper shares an extremely effective Twitter guerrilla marketing tactic that can be used for attracting hordes of followers and customers to ones online store. Twitter has over 100 million users now and many are searching for the products companies sell online, and this video tells how small companies can increase their sales for virtually nothing.

The big companies have some major disadvantages also. They have more levels of management that have to approve every new marketing decision. They often react late to changes happening in the field due to official procedures involved. It often happens that people at the top are out of touch with the technology and advances of the Web and they may put up resistance to newer and untried ideas and technology. The smaller companies can take advantage of this to stay ahead in this race for continuous innovation.

   

The adjacent picture lucidly brings out ways in which small companies can get public attention and notice by displaying their objectives and special characteristics on the web and by also pointing out their unique selling points.

In this video, we see a web-design and internet marketing consultancy owner sharing his views on smart marketing ideas and guerrilla marketing. He is basically proposing that their is a need for a more thorough and comprehensive study of guerrilla marketing on the Internet, as per views of many Internet marketers and analysts who suggest that innovative marketing techniques will shape the Internet of tomorrow. 

There are many other advantages to being a guerrilla marketer on the web. The smaller companies can have the same level of exposure as bigger ones, and that too at a moderate cost. Also, the small companies don't have the tremendous overhead that their bigger competitors have. As a result their profits don't have to be as high to succeed. They may be able to get up and running on the Web before many of their larger competitors. The entry cost won’t prevent them from experimenting and learning as they move ahead.

To summarize, it would be fair to say that the web cannot reduce the margin between the financial power of corporations and small businesses. However, it does provide an excellent opportunity for the bold and enterprising entrepreneur to expand a business successfully. Hence guerrilla marketing on the web can be effective for small companies in fighting against the bigger players, and staying competitive and alive.

Manish Kumar Verma

Marque

IIM Rohtak