I have spoken with a number of small business owners lately and had some interesting conversations with regards to investing precious dollars towards marketing.

The first thing I do when looking for more information on a company is to go to the internet and specifically, their website. A company website tells me a lot about how they view marketing and frankly, whether or not  they using it to the fullest capability. If I do not see a prominent area on the home page where it requests a name and email address from the site visitor, I cringe.  You want an opportunity to give the website visitor something of value (a free DVD or report), as well as the chance to correspond with them in the future. The marketing law of seven, states that you need seven ‘touches’ with a potential customer before they will consider buying from you. If they leave your site without any way for you to reach out to them, how are you going to get the other six ‘touches?’