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People who do local business marketing struggle with where to draw the line in terms of businesses to contact. For example, I grew up in a small town in southwest Nebraska that had a population of 2000 people. Do these small town businesses really need small business Internet marketing?

To answer that question you need to look at how these businesses are currently promoting themselves. I see this basically being done in three ways.

1. Local telephone book.

2. Local newspaper.

3. Local radio.

The primary benefit to promoting your business in a local market is announcing what specials you are currently running. I know for a fact that there is a big push in small-town businesses to get people to shop locally.

It certainly is easy to shop online no matter where you live. However, every time you do that you hurt a local business if you could buy the same thing from them.

Even if you spend a little bit more money to drive down to your local retail store, it's something you must do if you expect a business to be there next year. Based on that I do think small town businesses need some form of Internet marketing.

It is still amazing how many businesses do not have a website. Small local businesses need a website every bit as much as any other offline business regardless of where they are located.

As more people use the Internet for various things it's only natural for them to shop online. If you have a website you can constantly update it to reflect whatever promotion you are currently running.

You can put your website address in your local newspaper advertising. You can put it in the local telephone book as well.

The website becomes a place where people go to find out what specials you are currently running. It also gives you a chance to sell things online that you might not sell at your local store.

I see more local businesses doing affiliate marketing than ever before. This is a great way to develop a new profit center for your small business that it wouldn't otherwise have.

Regardless of the size of your business, and the size of the town you are in, every business needs Internet marketing in one form or another! If you expect to survive and thrive in the coming years you must be able to compete not only in your local market but on a worldwide scale as well.

Internet marketing is the best way to do this and it is imperative that you get your business in the game!