Why is having a Web site so important in today’s world?
Many businesses, whether they’ve been in business for 50 years or 5 years, still do not have a Web site. There are many reasons why they may not, but the biggest seems to be that they don’t think they need one.
“We work by word of mouth and a Web site won’t help us”
“Our business focuses mostly on older people that don’t use the Web that much”
Well all you traditional business owners out there, the world is evolving and changing… Sure, the conventional marketing methods are still first-rate and should still be used, but you must now incorporate new Web techniques into your marketing strategies as well.
Word of Mouth
Word of mouth is still, and has always been one of the most powerful methods in advertising. But what you now need to understand is that “word of mouth” is just a metaphor. Most of the world is online, and those people that are online have blogs, micro-blogs and social networking pages, and all of those people have friends on those sites that they talk to. Now, the word of mouth concept has become just words on a computer screen but essentially the same thing has been done. Actually, it’s been improved upon. They didn’t just tell one person, they told everyone that reads their blog or all their friends on Twitter and so on. Way more bang for your buck!
The Danger of Customer Grouping
Ok, quote #2… I watched a movie clip about the scrapbooking company Fiskars the other day. They were implementing a new advertising market and had the idea that their clientele consisted, the majority anyway, of women in their 50s and older. Once they executed the new system and began getting results they realized that they were O-So-Wrong about their customers! The majority of their clients were much younger, 20 – 30 year old men and women. However, even with the idea that their customers were of the older generation, they still marketed online, because they knew that those customers had a computer so they could stay in touch with their more technologically inclined younger family members. My 80 year old grandfather spends 8 hours a day on his computer running his own online businesses. Sure he has trouble with the tiny cell phone I bought him, but that computer he runs like a pro.
Did you know that 7 out of 10 people search for a business online, and decide on who they will use before ever stepping foot into a brick and mortar store… and all based on their Web site. Wow!
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