Seth Godin made an interesting blogpost earlier this week called Is it too late to catch up? He provides a list of ten things you should start doing if your business has no online presence at all, as if the last fourteen years have just passed you by. His suggestions are practical and inexpensive (mostly free). Interestingly, given our post last week about the trend towards ‘in-house’ marketing, he strongly recommends that you don’t delegate the work to consultants or agencies, arguing that if you are going to get good at this, the only way is to do it yourself.
But it’s his closing shot that really leapt out at us:
The problem is no longer budget. The problem is no longer access to tools. The problem is the will to get good at it.
This is suddenly the situation with online retail. The tools are readily available – at minimal cost compared to a few years ago. Free open source ecommerce software, pay-as-you-go email marketing, free analytics tools, scaleable hosting. What’s needed is a strategy – and the will to make it happen.
We can provide a proven strategy for niche online retailers. Can you provide the will to get good at it?