| Much discussion centers around
the value of having a business website. But what really is the internal
and external value of having a presence on the Internet? The best
answer may be in looking at the major independent reasons that should
make sense for many companies:
Increase visibility - Reaching global market
Think of your website as a continuous method of promoting your company
on a national and international basis every day of the week. All
of this chance at promotion and at a fraction of the typical traditional
costs for such coverage through traditional advertising means.
Functional expansion - 24/7 service
Your company can effectively multiply the customer or vendor interfacing
capabilities very quickly and again, very cost effectively. This
means that you can provide more timely information on your products,
pricing, updates, company literature, manuals, and answers to commonly
asked questions. The beauty of this is the speed and ease in how
these things can be offered on a 24 hour-a-day basis.
Allow customers to self-help themselves - Improved
customer/vendor relationship
It has been proven that customers do not mind helping themselves
electronically in order to get information or buy products that
they desire. In fact, customers have come to expect some elements
of website self-help to be available to them. No question that the
old paradigm of doing business has shifted in large part thanks
to the ease of the interface with the company website. Vendor and
partner relationships can also be improved by this ease of access
to information. Allow customers to help themselves and allow vendors
and partners to help themselves and help you at the same time.
Collection of customer data - Know your
customers
Many statistics can be gathered from the customer traffic to your
website. Information such as when information is accessed from the
website can be useful. Additionally, where they go within your website
and where they come from to your site, can also be gathered. It
is also easy enough to gather relevant information, facts, or opinions
from your website visitors by asking them to fill out forms or a
questionnaire. It is no real threat to visitors as they can either
choose to provide information and opinions or not, leave the choice
to them.
Reduce cost of doing business - Less expensive
Think in terms of how you can still provide information that customers
or potential customers seek but make it available via the website.
What winds up happening is that your thinking begins to supplant
traditional rules of "how things should be" with what
makes sense in the new millennium. Things that naturally fall into
this category are things such as printing and marketing expenditures,
customer service information, manuals, or product catalogs. All
of these types of hard expenses with a good strategy, can be substantially
reduced or eliminated by proper use of your website.
Use as a sales tool - Be Supportive
Your website can become a tremendous sales support piece to your
marketing or promotions. This especially becomes true when you utilize
the website as a complete literature piece or an expanded web-brochure
explaining the full story of a product or service. The website can
be a tremendous competitive differential advantage to sales and
support personnel as it provides for the customer or potential customer
to be directed to full collateral material and most current product
and company information.
Matching customer expectation - Be detailed
Not having a website these days or worse a site not reflecting the
quality of your business can create a detrimental perception among
your market, customers, and vendors. This is especially true, if
customers expect a website to be a common part of the business that
you are in. There is not an especially good answer when a customer
asks why they cannot locate your website on the Internet.
Natural company growth - Strategy for the
era
A company that is really wanting to grow beyond the natural limitations
imposed by the non-web business environment has to consider e-business
possibilities. A prerequisite for companies that want to grow into
e-business, is that they have a solid business foundation supported
by strong strategy. At the heart of that strategy, is a professional
website that has common elements of proven success. The website
should have a blended strategy that complements the existing company's
policies, practices and strategy in order to create strong synergy.
Do not own your own website for you business?
Why not write to us? Tell about your business. We give FREE consultation
on how you can benefit from a website and what you need to do for
that.
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