Intuit, the makers of QuickBooks and Quicken, made some moves today with marketing in mind. Starting in 2007 releases of QuickBooks will contain tools that allow small businesses to easily access Google offerings such as Google AdWords and the local directory called GoogleMaps

Intuit and Google have just announced a strategic, long-term alliance to help millions of small businesses address their number one concern attracting new customers. For the first time, the more than 3.7 million small businesses using QuickBooks will have the ability to easily promote their businesses and products online using a variety of popular Google services built into select QuickBooks 2007 offerings. more

In addition, Intuit acquired StepUp Commerce a service that helps small businesses easily list their inventory on the web.

“The purchase of StepUp helps QuickBooks solve one of the biggest challenges for product-based businesses — customer acquisition,” said Brad Smith, senior vice president of Intuit’s Small Business Division. “With StepUp’s services QuickBooks users will be able to significantly expand their reach by quickly and easily making their products searchable on the Web.” more

This is an interesting pairing and at first glace looks like it has the potential to expose many small business owners, even those without a website, to the power of the Internet as a marketing tool.