Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Internet marketing. But my agitation towards marketing professionals who bindly advise trusting business owners to ditch their traditional tactics and head for the web is rapidly growing.

In an article I recently read, "Mr. Door-to-Door Salesman" was told to spend his time "setting up a website, a blog, an online presence, so that when people are looking for exactly what you sell, they find you." Although this seems like good advice, this breaks one of the basic rules of marketing - delivering the right product at the right price in the right place using the right promotion. And to do this, you need to understand your product and your market.

Consider the following situations:

• People only begin shopping around once they've realised they have a need. They won't come looking for you or your products, not through blogs, websites, or any other online presence. You'll have a better chance of creating a need by knocking on their door.
• Some products need to be smelt, felt, touched or tasted before being purchased. People buying these kinds of products are more likely to head for the shopping mall than reading about it on a blog.
• Some people won't make the effort to find a product or service. If logging on to a website and searching for information seems more effort than paging through the Yellow Pages, your online efforts will be lost.

The point is this: How would anyone know what marketing tactic is the right one unless proper research was done? If you're a business owner looking for sound business advice on how to spend your marketing budget, be weary of anyone telling you that you only need an online presence - unless it's backed up with proper consumer research, And if it means that in the end you'll be hiring an army of door-to-door salesmen to satisfy your customers' needs at a profit, don't let any marketing professional tell you that you're wrong.