If you run a small to medium sized business with a regional presence, you’ve given a lot of thought to how to market your offering, and the chances are that you’ve heard about other businesses expanding their customer base by using the Internet and you yourself have thought about how you can increase your sales by having an online presence. As a matter of fact, if your competitors are starting to generate revenue through the Internet, and you’re not doing anything about it, those are sales that you’re missing out on.
This is a discipline where few marketing experts have planted themselves largely because they haven’t figured out a way to make it pay for them. Mom and Pop shops and sole proprietorships, which make up a large number of regional businesses can’t afford to pay the steep consulting fees that experts charge. Sure, big companies can afford to spend millions of dollars to increase online sales, but most of us don’t have that, and many of us don’t have a marketing budget at all. That doesn’t mean that us small businesses have to miss out.
One of the first questions you should ask yourself is whether or not it makes sense to devote the time, money and energy to having a web presence. For a lot of small businesses, it behooves them to have a website of some sort, even if it just provides an overview of what you sell and your hours of operation. However, there are also some businesses where it would just be a waste of time to develop a web presence. The bottom line is that if it’s going to help you make more money, you should do it. There’s no magic formula that will tell you whether or not you should develop a web presence, but here is a guide that will help you determine the potential upside.
Little to moderate benefit from being online – most local store-only businesses fit into this area. If you have a store, people are going to find it generally through one of three ways – they’ll drive by it and see it, someone will tell them about it, or they’ll find it in a local business directory such as the yellow pages. Like the street vendors, purchasing from these types of businesses doesn’t require much planning. People don’t need detailed information about what you sell. If you have an auto parts store, just by looking at your storefront, people will understand that you sell parts and accessories for automobiles. If they want to know if you have a specific item they’re looking for, or if they want to check your hours of operation, there’s a good chance that they’ll call you in order to find out. However, the Internet can make it easier for consumers to do business with you. More and more people are using internet yellow pages (IYPs) today instead of the bulky yellow pages books and this trend will only continue as more people enter the digital world. Unfamiliar with IYPs? Just check out yp.yahoo.com and try to find a business that is local to you just to see how quick and easy it is. People are not just using IYPs to find that local café with WiFi access or the closest dry cleaner to them, but they’re also using local search engines and general search engines. If you’ve never used a local search engine, take a look at local.google.com. It allows you to type in your location and the name or type of business you’re looking for, and the search engine will attempt to find it.
A good rule of thumb for being listed in these directories and engines is whether customers call you. If your business has a phone, and there is a reason for customers to call you, then they’re going to need to get that phone number from somewhere right? And a good bet is that it will be from online. And if they don’t find your listing? Then they’ll call up one of your competitors that does have a listing and patronize them instead of you.
In addition to your IYP or local search engine listing, you might want to give your customers additional information. Again, it’s good practice to make it as easy for your customers to do business with you as possible. If they’d rather look up your hours of operation online rather than calling, you’d be benefiting them and in turn yourself, by providing that information online.
The common thread here is that what you offer is something that a consumer is more passionate about than an everyday convenience store item. There are many purchases that require research to be done before a purchasing decision is made. By providing this information, you’re just making it easier for them to do business with you, and the result is a happier customer that continues to patronize your business or tell their friends about it. If you’re not providing the information that they’re looking for, they’ll just go to one of your competitors that does. If I’m taking my girlfriend out for a special dinner, I would want to look into reviews, décor and menu items, and if a restaurant doesn’t have any of these things listed online, I’m likely to take it off of my consideration list especially since most good restaurants in New York City have them and I do most of this type of research on the Internet.
If you have brochure for what you offer, you will most likely want to also have an online version of it. That way, you can not only direct people to it, but people will also be able to find it in search engines or IYPs. If they’re interested, they may then prefer to send you an e-mail rather than calling. Additionally, the interested party may also want to e-mail you with a question that they have before making that decision to purchase.
People are relying more and more on Internet services for information before they make purchases, so if you haven’t entered into this realm yet, or if you have a very limited presence, you may be missing out.
If you’ve determined that you’d like to forge ahead with online marketing and are would like to learn about just what type of online marketing you should do, you can read the next chapter on how to know what type of local marketing you should do.
(last updated 8-16-06)