13 Reasons for Building an Online Presence
Opportunities for Serving The Local Area – Not everyone wants to take the time to drive all over town to shop. Most people want things to be quicker and easier. The Internet is a quick and easy way for people to access information about products and services from the comfort, convenience and privacy of their own homes or offices. No fuel costs, traffic jams or wasted time.
Locally based businesses can now have the opportunity to target a wider range of potential customers.
Reaching A Global Audience – More countries are getting on the internet each year. The Internet breaks down geographical boundaries and limitation. With the help of search engines, people can now locate and buy products and services from every part of the world.
Customer Feedback Made Easy – The Internet makes it possible to capture visitor information. Keeping in touch (via email and popular social networks) helps to cultivate long-term relationships. Also, the widespread use of discussion forums is a popular way to get quick, low-cost customer feedback.
Frequently Asked Questions – Questions that may normally be answered by phone can be answered on the Internet. A website can list the answers to the most frequently asked product or service related questions.
This can save on phone bills and free up a lot of time and maybe an extra employee.
Interactivity – The Internet is much more dynamic than a few years ago. Some examples of this include:
- Automatic product updates through the use of databases.
- Automatic web site content and image changing.
- The increasingly common use of live video and audio streaming.
These and other Internet service can save money and increase business efficiency and can also open the door to exciting new marketing opportunities.
Test Marketing New Products – The Internet offers quick and easy ways to conduct low-cost market research. A questionnaire on a web site, or by email, can test very quickly and inexpensively whether a product gets a good response. What’s more, different offers or marketing approaches can be tested using different pages on the same website.
Use of Time Sensitive Promotions – It is easy to quickly change promotions or offers on the Internet. Emails can be sent out or a website offer changed almost instantly. Time sensitive promotions such as running contests or product specials can be a good way to attracting traffic and sales to an online business.
For those who don’t have an online presence yet for their business, is a good time to start. Local competitors may already have one. And remember; it’s now much easier for almost any business to tap into almost any market, from almost any geographical location.
Your turn to share:
We have shared our 12 Reasons for Building an Online Presence; please we would like you to share the 13th reason, tell us why you think building an online presence is important.