Your website and email address form another shopfront, advertisement and contact point, through which you can make your information and services available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to the whole world.
Consumers are looking to connect. They no longer trust bought advertising and turn off from ads on television. They are turning more and more to the referrals of ‘virtual’ friends and even strangers online. By passing on links and information, and sharing online experiences – the word of mouth phenomena or as it’s being referred to in marketing ‘word of mouse’ is louder and more widespread than ever. Through the internet, if your business isn’t online – you’re simply missing out on the many opportunities available to increase business build brand awareness and gain new clients through this medium.
Before you even start working with a website designer on the ‘look’ of your website, it’s very important to have some very clear goals and strategies for your website. If you already have a live website, take a step back and review it using the following points.
A well planned, implemented and maintained website can provide numerous cost savings for your organisation. It can also reduce the time staff spend performing administrative tasks, freeing them up to concentrate on the things that really matter – such as servicing your members and clients. By taking your business online you may actually improve your overall business bottom line and reduce expenditure in areas you may not have considered.
The ‘cost’ of not having a credible website or using email effectively can be measured in terms of lost opportunities to cut costs and deliver better services.
The first thing to do is to ask yourself the following questions:
Do you want to sell products or services, bring together people with a common interest, share information and resources, run a helpdesk, take online bookings or generate phone or email enquiries?
Your online marketing strategy needs to be part of your overall business marketing strategy.
You need to understand the needs of your customers before you can meet their needs online.
In what ways do you see that creating a website/online presence for your business will help grow your business.
Bearing in mind that a user will automatically associate the quality of your website with the quality of your offer, business and services, you want to ensure that anything you put online regarding your business, represents your business in the best light possible. You only have a few seconds to make the right impression!
It’s worth taking the time to thoroughly plan all the needs of your website and ensure that the development path you choose will take into account your future plans and requirements. You may not need to implement all the features you want upfront, but stagger the implementation allowing for budget and growth considerations.
If you don’t get the right technology in place at the beginning, you may find you are unable to add the features you need later on and you may need to re-build the website from scratch. So when planning your site, think of every possible feature you may want and take the ‘wish list’ with you to your website developer.
Talk to us today about how we can help with your strategy
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[i] https://www.statista.com/topics/5261/internet-usage-in-australia/#dossierKeyfigures