As a local business owner you realize the opportunities available on the Web, but you probably do not have the time or money to invest into a full blown web presence. The obstacles and costs in building a web site keep many local businesses on the sideline.
But as a local business there is an opportunity to exploit the marketing power of the Internet at little or no cost, and it does not require a web presence.
Through email marketing you can have a direct conduit to both your customers and prospects. You may think email marketing is complicated, but that is a misconception. If you are already using email to correspond, then you are quite capable of advertising through virtual mail. In fact, if you are communicating to your customers through email, in a sense you are already marketing online. You are probably aware that a small amount of customer communication can be very profitable, and email can generate considerable income.
All you need to do is start collecting customer emails, and send them occasional promotions or sale updates. The email advertisements do not need to be coded in html, plain text messages are quite acceptable....