Before you jump up and write off your website for marketing, lets quickly look at 3 things a website should for your business.

1. It should be a Virtual office/store/staff to answer questions about you
2. It should be a shopfront / till point to make money
3. It should reach out to find more customers using the content you add

That sounds like something every business SHOULD want, but it’s not in everyone’s reality to achieve. If you are one of the following types of business, you could get away without a website;

Small – home services

Let’s be honest, who views the website of a local plumber or electrician before calling them?

I thought so. Have a Google business listing so you can at least turn up in searches, and maybe a Facebook page for people to recommend you.

Local restaurants or bakeries (superettes included)

The biggest selling point for food is high-quality photographs. It’s not like you need to educate people on why they NEED your product. An Instagram account and Facebook would do wonders here. Lots of pics of enticing yumminess and details on specials or events will do well. Also, a google business listing for sure.

Also Read: Content ideas for any business

Local personalities or performers

In the “old” days (ie the early 2000s) the internet was a quirky place. The website for the Smashing pumpkins had amazing effects that would follow the mouse wherever you moved. Other than that there was no reason to be on it.

You can literally contain all your information on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. Even Twitter if that’s where your audience is. There is very little need to set up a whole website for yourself.

The exception here is if you are blogging, although you might find other publications to regularly publish your work and earn some bucks from it. They’ll probably even create a page on their site to showcase you and your work.

If you only serve your local community.

You don’t need an app to sell Magwenya at the taxi rank. You could be an estate agent, a mechanic, a convenience store, or even a car dealer. If you only serve a small market, a website might be overkill for your needs.

There are plenty of 3^rd party sites to advertise on that could generate more business with less effort than a website would. Keeping up a website could prove to be a marketing burden that just gets in your way.

In these cases you’re better off putting your marketing budget into channels that have more impact on your bottom line, as opposed to trying to impress people with a website that nobody looks at.

Having a website means you need to maintain it AND spend on advertising to get traffic to the website. If your website is not part of the sales cycle, that is a waste of money.

If you want to learn some unique social media strategies that can help you grow, with or without a website, give us a follow on Facebook, LinkedIn, or subscribe to our newsletter.

You can read about our social media services here.

The post Do you REALLY need a website? appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

For many businesses, their website was sold to them as an advertising tool. Unfortunately, advertising is the last thing a website needs to do for you.

Mindset Shift

We need to look at a website as part of the entire sales process, and not just an introduction to it. The standard (read: old) sales process followed a simple timeline;

1. Advertising makes the customer aware the product exists and where to buy
2. Customer comes in to store and speaks to sales person
3. Sales person magic happens
4. A sale is made

For this to work, the advertising has to reach the customer in the first place. Which websites don’t magically do.

A website is as much part of the sale as the physical store and sales person are. The website can do the job of the sales person AND the store.

Advertise the Advertisement

Looking back to our process, we now need to advertise to get customers into our online store, and to speak to our virtual salesperson.

There are various strategies for driving traffic to a website. Some of these are the same for brick and mortar stores, and some are very different. Now that we understand that our website can serve our business in a different way, we can start finding ways to make more money from it.

Your Best Employee

Imagine having an employee who could cover all of these functions;

• Speak to multiple customers at the same time
• Demonstrate multiple different products (at the same time)
• Teach the customer something new about your products
• Generate leads from people who don’t buy
• Take multiple orders and payments
• Tell customers about upcoming events
• Be available 24/7
• Talk to anyone across the world
• Keep track of who went where, what they looked at and how long they stayed PLUS their demographics, where they are from and what device they used
• Collect data to help you be more effective and profitable

Also Read: Do you REALLY need a Website?

Simple Goals

Once you understand what your website can do, you can simplify the purpose into simple goals. Your website can do any or all of the following;

• Sell products
• Generate Leads
• Educate customers
• Provide a service

A clear purpose will be the foundation for the design of the user experience. It is your first step in moving from a website that gathers cobwebs, to a website that makes you money

The post Does Your Website Make You Money? appeared first on mediaholic marketing.