This week, SmartBiz published three front page stories that had one common threat: They extolled the existing—and we would say growing—tie between technology and marketing.

We didn't set out to create a three-story package, and the commonality only occurred to us afterwards.

The first story Optimizing Customer Contact With EDP deals with the use of Enterprise Document Presentment to present a consistent and automatic presentation of materials to customers in any format and across any channel. The second story, The Hidden Value of the Virtual PBX explains how such software can buttress marketing efforts. Finally, Service-Oriented Architecture: The Next Wave of Reusability explained how developers can grab useful bits and pieces of programs and combine them into a more effective whole.

The goal of this post is to point out that something is going on that is being overlooked. It's assumed that the Internet and related technologies have revolutionized how small companies find, communicate and sell to their clients. The other side of the coin is that all the businesses that take advantage of these new approaches by definition become technology-based. More simply, it's hard to compete without using the Internet, and it's impossible to use the Internet without becoming technology-savvy (or retaining people who are).

It's pretty obvious when stated in that manner. However, we wonder how many companies out there resist technology. More importantly, we wonder how many resist emerging marketing tools, such as search engine optimization and CRM, which build on that technical foundation.

Carl Weinschenk is the Editorial Director of SmartBiz.