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The World Is Your Lobster . . .
So you have just started a small business, all the legal stuff has been completed, got your stationery, and you’re just itching to get started. Wait a minute, one thing’s missing . . . some customers would be nice.
So you have just started a small business, all the legal stuff has been completed, got your stationery, and you’re just itching to get started. Wait a minute, one thing’s missing . . . some customers would be nice.
The Yellow Pages ad has been in for weeks, surely there are some people in your local area who need to purchase some of your widgets. Well maybe there are, and maybe there are some in the neighbouring district, or the other side of the country, or maybe even internationally. Fancy placing a Yellow Pages ad in every district, in every country that you may have potential customers? Thought not. . . but there is no need to limit your target market just because you’re lacking something as trivial as an advertising budget.
The good news is that the Internet (come on, you’ve heard of it), doesn’t discriminate on where you are, how big your advertising budget is, how many employees you have or how fancy your office premises are. The Internet levels the playing field for businesses just like yours. Have you ever tried staying awake and doing business for 365 days straight? Well the Internet does this, every year in fact.
Having a website to promote your business, and reach all those potential customers, can be achieved on a surprisingly low budget. Of course you can throw as much money and effort into your online strategy as you like (or more to the point as much as you can afford). The truth is however, that getting a basic online presence in this day and age is relatively cheap.
A well designed and maintained website can be an excellent promotional tool, and should be used to supplement your other promotional activities, not to replace them completely. Businesses without websites are missing out on the opportunity to promote what they do, increase sales and strengthen their relationships with everyone they deal with.
OK, sounds good so far. Get yourself a website and sit back and watch the cash roll in, right? Ah, well no not quite. If only everything in life were so easy! I mentioned in the previous paragraph a very important phrase, “well designed and maintained”, and this is something which cannot be overlooked. A badly designed website, or one which is left to rot online will likely end up doing you more harm than good in the long run. A website, just like any other part of your business, will need to be maintained, nurtured and treated with love and care.
The Internet is only going to grow, the number of people using the Internet is only going to grow, and the need to be a part of it is . . . well you know.