As a sensible business owner, you’re looking for bottom-line benefits from any new investment.
We have clear, simple answers for you. Just click below where your mouse highlights the topic. Call or contact us if you want to know more.
Web Sites are Advertising... Publicity, Branding, Inbound Sales Leads … All Rolled Into One. How?
- Web Sites Are Publicity. Publicity is being available to be seen and read about. Think of publicity as free advertising. No big invoices from the newspaper or direct mail company… you receive the exposure freely. And that publicity works for you 24x7x52.
- Web Sites Contain Branding for your Business. A web site conveys the impression of your business that you want the public to have. We’re not talking about “Madison Avenue” big company branding. We just mean that your web site tells the world what you want known about your business.
- Get New Customers Easily: Web Sites can Provide Inbound Sales Leads. One key benefit of a web site is the possibility of receiving sales leads directly from the web site. If you have a contact form and email address on your site, any member of the public can contact you and become a new lead for you – even when they are hesitant to call on the phone.
A Web Site is a Sign of Life for Your Business. Why?
Because it’s a fact: the smallest of businesses have web sites today.
If you’re In business and you interact with the public, your business NEEDS a website. Period. Simple as That.
Bold Stand or Short-Sighted?
You may erroneously believe that you’re taking a “bold stand” for your individuality by not having a web site.
The reality is this: if you lack a website, you’re just plain invisible in the one place where people today look for stores, providers, services, and vendors: the web.
A web site in good working order with modern style tells your customers, past and future, that you’re ready and open for business.
Whether we like it or not, most consumers and business clients often think like this: If they see your web site, you’re for real.
If a prospect can’t find your website, they’ll often wonder: why don’t they have a site? Is the place still in business?
And finally, if you lack your own website, you’ll encounter the worst outcome of all… the perfect customer for your business who found you, but who then says “let’s look for another business.” And there they go.
And you’ll never even know.
Bottom line: A web site is a minimum sign of life for any business.
Better Marketing Exposure from a Web Site – How?
- A Web Site Creates Brand New Opportunities for Publicity and Exposure. Take one example: sales and promotions. How do you get the word out when you have promotions? A web site allows you create slick, well structured sales and promotional offers. You can even offer online coupon codes and “web only” special deals.
- A Web Site Project Renews Your Business Focus. The process of working with an outside marketing business (such as Little Miami Web Works) and framing your message for the world causes you to rediscover the most important aspects of your business. It’s entirely likely, in fact, that your business mission has shifted since you last created marketing materials. That means that your intended customers have shifted in nature. So your audience needs to be re-acquainted with your business.
- A Web Site Complements Your Social media. You need someplace to drive those likes, shares and clicks from social media. That someplace is your new web site!
- And There’s More: Some Say (and We Believe!) that a Web Site Is MUCH Better than Social Media for a Business. Facebook and other popular sites are continually looking for ways to short-change hard working business owners like you out of visibility, by suppressing your updates to the very people who signed up to follow YOUR PAGE.
- Measure, Test and Verify your marketing. We can easily set you up on web analytics as part of a web design project. Analytics means that your website is being measured for activity from visitors. We’ll work with you to study these findings and to learn which pages and content on your site generates the greatest marketing buzz for your business.
Why WOULDN'T You Have a Web Site?
You probably don’t expect a website developer to provide this information. But here we go.
Some businesses don’t need or even want a web site. Perhaps your business is one of them. So why wouldn’t you have a web site?
There are three legitimate reasons we’ve found for avoiding the investment in a website.
- You don’t want, don’t need or can’t use public exposure. And in fact, exposure would not be a benefit. You may want or need to only work with clients and customers that are referred to you privately, or who arrive by specific channels. You may be in a business that resembles a popular consumer need, but you only deal with a wholesale trade and not with the public. So, you don’t want the phone calls and emails and visibility. Therefore, you may legitimately not want to own a web site. A web site markets to the general public. If publicity is not for your business, we get it.
- You don’t have time for the work. Your participation in a new web site project is essential to ensure the success of the project. Plan to budget at least 10 hours of your time (or more) in interviews and a few reviews that are associated with the web site development. If you simply can’t break away, and nobody can be delegated in your business to take on this work, then you should not plan on developing a web site at this time.
- Your business can’t currently afford the site you need. Our least expensive full web site design package is under $1000. If that is not a realistic price for your business, then you should wait until you can build the funds that allow a website to be an option for your business.
