Small business owners and professional service providers often know next-to-nothing about marketing. I know this is true, because after owning several businesses which spanned everything from financial services to retail stores, all I knew how to do was place ads in local media.

Newspaper, radio, television and magazine advertising was my idea of marketing. Sure, every so often I’d send out a press release, if there was an event to publicise, but aside from that I didn’t have a clue.

Then the Internet blossomed. I looked at it as just another kind of advertising vehicle, and that impression was bolstered by the reps from all of the media I had been advertising with. They all were flogging online ads on their respective websites. Some even offered “online marketing plans” which were almost entirely composed of different styles of paid ads, bundled together.

Results from my offline ads were slowing down. Even ads in the papers which used to bring immediate results stopped producing. So, I dove in and spent thousands on Internet advertising. I should have thrown the money into a sewer. I had no idea what I was doing, and tried to use the same approach which once worked in my offline ads. The results were nonexistent. » Read more: How Internet Marketing Education Can Work For Small Business Owners