Affordable Online Solution to Small Business Marketing Constraints

Girl Shop Spot provides a turnkey marketing solution that is both highly affordable and easy to manage.

St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) May 13, 2009 -- For small businesses that need a truly affordable and effective way to market their products or services, Girl Shop Spot (http://www.girlshopspot.com/) delivers an online solution. These days owners are faced with the double whammy of tiny budgets and a bad economy that hinders their attempts to establish or increase their visibility, grow sales, and develop their customer base. SEO and social networking alone are tools that while popular are also time and effort intensive to manage, and can divert entrepreneurs from their important operational responsibilities. That is on top of creating and managing a website and offline marketing activities. The impact on owners can be overwhelming -- in terms of costs, resource allocation, and achieving success.

On the other hand, online shopping, while stalled this year, is here to stay for the foreseeable future; as much as $500 billion in offline purchases were influenced by the internet in 2007 alone (eMarketer). Research firm eMarketer predicts online retail sales will contract slightly this year, then rebound in 2010 and resume double-digit percentage growth from 2011 to 2013.

Senior eMarketer Analyst Jeffery Grau predicts online sales will grow by 9.8% in 2010, 13.3% in 2011, 11.4% in 2012 and 10.3% in 2013. By 2013, he projects e-commerce sales will total $203.5 billion (http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=29655).

The trend is undeniable, but how can entrepreneurs be truly successful in the new sales environment?

Girl Shop Spot has developed and continues to refine a centralized online marketing tool for start ups with or without a current website. The GSS Pay-Per-Interaction™ (http://www.girlshopspot.com/advertise.aspx) advertising model allows small business owners to affordably multi-task with marketing:

a) Advertise for just pennies on the dollar

b) Track every single paid interaction

c) Promote the business as well as its products/services

d) Interact on a number of levels with prospects and customers

e) Test market pricing, products, services, and messaging

f) Centralize existing and separate marketing activities

Shop Spot owner Colleen Pool, owner of Nellie Beane in St. Charles, Missouri, has been with Girl Shop Spot for a year. "I like GSS because it's a very affordable form of advertising and has the potential to connect with many customers I wouldn't reach otherwise."

To optimize the success of her Shop Spot (http://www.girlshopspot.com/1136), Colleen currently incorporates the following touch points:

· Images (up to 27 available; Colleen has 9)

· Must Haves (Colleen has 9)

· Pricing (Colleen has 3)

· Specialties

· Direct website link

· Tag search

· Owner's bio

· Business card

In addition to driving sales, Colleen's Shop Spot has increased Nellie Beane's visibility online. For example, with one of her search terms, "designer straw purses," (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=designer+straw+purses&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=designer+straw+purses&fp=ry0_Tod3DXA) GSS generates a page one result on Google. The term also results in a page one, rank 1 for the Shop Spot on MSN. And these are just two examples of the Shop Spot's results with embedded SEO capability.

In essence, Girl Shop Spot is marketing shorthand for SEO and sales success (https://my.girlshopspot.com/memberregister.aspx). It's also easy for small business owners to set up and manage, easy on the pocketbook. And now GSS has been voted 12th in the StartupNation 2009 Top 200 Leading Moms in Business.

For more information, please visit www.girlshopspot.com.

For additional press information, please contact Ardith Lowell at Marketing Communications Think Tank at solutions@mcthinktank.net or 208-284-7266.

About GirlShopSpot.com:

Girl Shop Spot (http://www.girlshopspot.com/) is an online shopping resource for today's modern woman created by a woman who, like many others, is a businessperson, wife, and mother. The site is designed to be an online one-stop resource for one-of-a-kind finds, boutiques and specialty stores, and fun local shops and services that are normally hard to find. Most importantly, the site promotes the growth of small businesses by providing a well-designed, easy-to-use, technically sound, and affordable online marketing platform. GSS is a member of the Better Business Bureau.

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