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Having your own web site has many benefits:
- Accessible 24-hours a day - Detailed
information is accessible to your clients
and potential clients 24 hours a day.
- Unlike advertisements in newspapers and
magazines, and other pieces of paper, your
website can't be thrown away or lost!
- Make information available to work
colleagues accessible from anywhere at any
time. (Pages can be password protected.)
Save money - Save yourself the cost of
printing a full color brochure - much more
can be included on your website and it can
of course be updated at any time, so saving
re-printing costs.
- Save on advertising costs - keep your
adverts small and include your website
address - your website can contain much more
information than any advertisement. Attract
new clients - Attract new clients by putting
your website address on your business card.
People you don't have time to talk with at
length can view your website in their own
time.
- Make your business known about by more
people - the number of people with internet
access is growing all the time.
- You will be easy to find by people who
are looking for your type of goods or
services, with your website location address
in classified sections of the most popular
internet directories. Effective for any
market Websites are equally as useful for
businesses looking for local customers, as
those appealing to a national or global
market.
Here are 12 reasons why businesses
without an online presence are missing out
on a goldmine of potential customers:
1. Technology To Compete—In bygone days,
a small business usually lacked the
resources of their larger competitors. Now
even a small business can access much of the
same technology as the giant corporations.
They too can use auto-responders, accept
online payments and even deliver products
over the Internet.
2. Niche Markets Abound—The Internet has
opened up all sorts of niche marketing
opportunities that either never existed
before, or were too expensive to tap into.
3. Lifting The Profile—With a
professionally designed website, it’s now
easy for a small business on the Internet to
have the appearance and credibility of being
a large corporation.
4. Low Cost—Compared to other media, the
Internet enables a business to advertise at
considerably lower prices. It may not be a
replacement for other marketing, but the
Internet is generally cheaper than
advertising on television, radio, or in
newspapers, magazines and even by direct
mail. As an example, posting out a mailing
to customers will probably cost around $1.50
a pop (allowing for printing, postage etc),
whereas to email the same message to
customers costs next to nothing!
5. Open 24/7—By automating a website, a
business can be open 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week. No extra staff costs and no overtime
rates to pay!
6. Serving The Local Area—Not everyone
wants to take the time to drive all over
town to shop. It is a fast moving world and
it seems that we all want things to be quick
and easy. Using the Internet is a quick and
easy way for people to access information
about products and services from the
comfort, convenience and privacy of their
own home. No fuel costs, no traffic
jams...no time wasted.
7. Reaching A Global Audience—More
countries are getting on the Net each year.
The Internet breaks down geographical
boundaries and limitation. With the help of
search engines, people can now locate and
buy products and services from every corner
of the world.
8. Customer Feedback Made Easy—The
Internet makes it possible to capture
visitor information. Keeping in touch (via
email) helps to cultivate long-term
relationships. Also, the widespread use of
discussion forums is a popular way to get
quick, low-cost customer feedback.
9. Frequently Asked Questions—Questions
that may normally be answered by phone can
be answered on the Internet. A website can
list the answers to the most frequently
asked product or service related questions.
This can save on phone bills and free up a
lot of time and maybe an extra employee.
10. Interactivity—The Internet is much
more dynamic than a few years ago. Some
examples of this include: automatic product
updates through the use of databases;
automatic website content and image
changing, and the increasingly common use of
live video and audio streaming. These and
other Internet services can save money and
increase business efficiency. They can also
open the door to exciting new marketing
opportunities.
11. Test Marketing New Products—The
Internet offers quick and easy ways to
conduct low-cost market research. A
questionnaire on a website, or by email, can
test very quickly and inexpensively whether
a product gets a good response. What’s more,
different offers or marketing approaches can
be tested using different pages on the same
website.
12. Use of Time Sensitive Promotions—It
is easy to quickly change promotions or
offers on the Internet. Emails can be sent
out or a website offer changed almost
instantly. Time sensitive promotions such as
running contests, or product specials can be
a good way to attract traffic and sales to
an online business. |
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