According to the latest research, over 3 billion people have access to the internet on a regular basis. That is almost half of the world's population. So I think we can all agree at this point that the internet isn't just a fad anymore, and while it may evolve, it certainly isn't ever going away. 85% of consumers in America are now using the internet to find and decide where they will buy the goods and services they need. Interestingly enough, it is the businesses that are behind the times when it comes to getting their brands online. Many businesses are still spending thousands of dollars each and every year to advertize their products and services in print media. The most popular print media for business is still the Yellow Pages or its various competitor phone books. So it is interesting to note that in 2013 people were only using the phonebook 12 % of the time to find the goods and services they needed. That 12% is about 6% only 2 years later and becomes less every day. The reason is simple and it is the number one reason for taking your hard earned marketing budget out of print media and putting it into the internet.
1.) Accurately Track The Visitors To Your Website!
Print media is one dimensional. It just sits there and cannot tell you how many people have looked at it today or whether they bought from you or from a competitor. With a business website, absolutely EVERYTHING is trackable. We can know how many people are coming to your website 24/7, and where people came from to get to your website and whether or not they used a search engine to find you and which search engine they used and what words or phrases they searched for to find you, and which pages they looked at on your website and how long they spent on each web page, and whether or not they clicked on images or articles or whether they became a customer and bought something and so much more. Each of these things tells us invaluable information about our customers and our potential customers and about what is working on your website to drive sales and what is not working or may be driving potential customers away. Print media costs much more than a website and it only provides a fraction of the visibility and functionality. So my advice to business owners reading this is to immediately suspend all expenditures for print media and put it into a website if you don't have one and if you do have one, then take that marketing budget and put it into online advertising through Google or Bing or Facebook.
2.) Your Website Is Visible 24/7/365!
Your business success relies on how visible the business and the branding are to a world filled with potential customers. So whether your brick and mortar is on the corner of Nowhere and Boondock Streets or on the busiest street in a large town, you need the visibility provided by a virtual brick and mortar that never closes and is accessible to everyone, everywhere, all the time. If you do not have a physical business location and work out of your home or a small shop or office that doesn't provide for customer visits, then a website is even more critical. And this takes us to our 3rd most important reason to have a website for your business.
3.) A Well Designed Website Provides Instant Credibility!
Even if you have a physical storefront somewhere, it can only add more credibility to your business and to your brand image to provide the convenience and accessibility of a website. However, studies have shown conclusively that if your website looks like a cookie cutter site and does not distinguish you in a positive and professional manner from your competitors, then it only takes a fraction of a second for a potential customer to click on that competitor and for you to lose the sale. It is important to understand that your customers are going to have the same worries and concerns about shopping online that you have. Is it safe, is this website secure, can I trust this business to protect my information? If the website looks like it was built by your cousin in high school, or pages and pictures don't load, or links don't work, then it is unlikely that you or anybody else would feel comfortable trusting that website with their online purchase.
4.) Doing Business On The Web Is More Cost Effective!
There are so many things you can do for free on the internet. Social Media sites are free, even for businesses. Each social media site provides a different type of content and appeals to a different type of consumer. By taking advantage of these free resources and maintaining a professional and consistent brand image on each one, you can dramatically increase the ability to funnel specific types of consumers from your social media sites to your website where you can funnel them towards a purchase of whatever it is they need right now. The social media sites help us to prequalify potential customers coming to your website. Each social media site has its own demographics. Particular age groups and education levels and more, so that we can target the different demographics from specific social media sites by providing content on them that appeals to that audience and a different type of content that appeals specifically to our audience on other social sites based on the demographics specific to those channels and the content they support. Tracking your customers and potential customers is also free through tools like Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools. By the way, Bing and Google are the only two search engines that matter anymore and Google does 90% of the searches on the internet.
5.) Low Maintenance Costs
Changing the information on your website is easy and inexpensive and if you can do your own website edits then you don't even have to worry about the costs of employing a webmaster or a web design and management company. The key to keeping your customers and potential customers coming back to your website is the same as what must be done with each of your social media sites as often as practical. FRESH, UNIQUE CONTENT! Without fresh content that is truly unique (not something copied and pasted from elsewhere) your website and your social media sites will become stagnant and boring. Not just to your visitors, but also to the search engines. You need to be creating unique content for them on a regular basis. Which is to say, at least several times a week! With the low or no cost reality of managing content on a website and social media sites, the worry of cost disappears and then all we have need is our imaginations and our determination. Being creative is easier than it sounds. Most of us are in business because we have a passion for the products or services we offer. The internet is the perfect outlet for the creative passion that helped you decide to start your own business in the first place.
6.) Dramatically Improved Customer Service
When your customers need help with a product or the results of a service, they do not want to wait. Providing them with the ability to access frequently asked questions (FAQ's) or help and troubleshooting information will help to further set you apart from your competition. Simple and free tools are also available that can even allow you to be informed on your computer or your smart phone when a customer enters your website. This can provide you with the real time ability to see exactly what pages they are going to and how they are remaining on a particular page. If you see they are going to the help pages, you can send them a text message and ask them if they need any help, just as if it was a customer physically standing in your brick and mortar store.
7.) Being Able To Compete With Regional, National & International Businesses
When you have a website, you have every opportunity to be just as successful with it as those much larger businesses and corporations. Their larger revenues and profits really don't provide them with any capabilities that you cannot bring to bare for your online business. You can find somebody with the skills and abilities to do anything that the people working for the big companies can do. For a fraction of what those big companies are paying their big guns. A website can go a long way to leveling the playing field for you and your business and when it comes to those businesses that you are competing against by proximity, just having a website can put you light years ahead of the competition. Most small businesses DO NOT have a website or even a social media presence on the web. This puts them at a great disadvantage compared to any of their competitors that are taking advantage of the indispensable marketing resources.
Sewell Consulting charges only $50 per web page for design work and $15 per hour for incidental technical labor. To learn more about hiring Sewell Consulting, please call (540) 737-8898.
Jared Matthew Sewell
