Taking Your Business Online - The WHY?

Is it time to take your business online? You might be considering getting a web site or maybe you already have one, and you just can’t remember, or never really knew - WHY.

Lots of businesses build a web site as more of a ‘been there, done that strategy’ just like getting a phone number or mailing address. But like anything new, it’s how you use it that will determine whether as a business resource it remains purely ornamental, or you take full advantage to add great value to your business.

So what can the Internet offer your business? Well, let’s go back to business 101 for a minute. A great business has three key things in place – 1) Sources of new customer leads 2) A sales conversion process that turns leads into paying customers and 3) A Communication mechanism that allows the business to maintain a relationship with customers and get them to buy from you over and over again, and as an extra 4) a means or incentive for existing customers to actively refer their friends to your business.

Leads – any web site can be set up to attract new customers to your business, people are out there in Internet land searching, browsing, chatting and sharing and some of them are looking for what you can sell them. Capturing a new lead can be as simple as a contact me form, or as complex as a free download with auto-responder emails that slowly sell your product or service over 12 months.

Sales Conversion – could be a simple booking form or a secure financial transaction. Sales processes can be set up for direct sales for customers who are ready to buy right now, or for luke warm prospects they can take the path of slowly cooking your potential customer with information until they decide to buy. This would take considerable effort normally, but your web site can be set up to do this on auto-pilot at little or no cost. Thinking about this step alone can change your marketing strategy.

Communication – keeping in touch with your customers has always been a really useful strategy, now utilising your web site, email and social media you can keep in touch easily and more cheaply than ever before.

AND finally, Here is the BIG point for you to consider as to WHY you should get online…

The world wide web, is just that, worldwide. Where previously you were probably limited by location, or your ability to travel etc, a web presence opens the whole world to you as a marketplace. Not only that it's a fairly equal opportunity marketplace.

Now I can hear some of you saying – my business is service related and it might give me access to people all over the world but how am I going to service them? Well this is the whole point, your web site not only allows you to do business better, easier and more efficiently in your local area – e.g. set up an online booking system to take the hassle out of setting appointments.

It allows you the chance to transform your whole business model.

For instance there are many examples of businesses that have built on the expertise that they have in service delivery and turned that into an information product and marketed it to the world. Could you turn your knowledge of what you do in your business into an information product? It’s actually a lot easier than it sounds, but imagine being able to sell an e-book or a series of videos via your web site that are fully automated and 100% profit after you have put them together...