Why “old-school” traditional marketing and advertising just doesn’t work like it used to…
Ok so you’re running a small business and you’re seeing diminishing returns from your traditional marketing. Your yellow pages, newspaper ads and signs just aren’t working as well as they used to. Why? The massive, unstoppable of trend towards internet use. Think smartphones, PC’s and Ipads. Know anyone that doesn’t have internet access these days?
If you don’t have an online presence, you’ll be invisible to your buyers. Yellow pages print, newspaper ads and other traditional forms of advertising are seeing huge drops in their rates of effectiveness and uptake. It’s just faster and easier for us to find products and services online now using our smart phones and computers. Know anyone under 40 that doesn’t have a smartphone? Anyone that doesn’t have access to the internet either at work or home? And we have our phones on us most of the time right? Again, if you’re not online, you’re not even in the running and your more savvy competitors are taking more of your market share away, everyday. In fact, most marketing experts widely agree, that businesses who don’t have an online presence may not even survive beyond 5 years!
PS – not to say that you should “drop” your traditional advertising and focus solely online – just saying that you should at least take a good hard look at your lead acquisition costs and consider the options available. Depending soley on traffic from Google can be dangerous. There’s no doubt that high ranks on search engines such as Google can make a HUGE impact on your business. But what if they change the rules and your site drops out? It can happen – so diversify 
Still relying on Yellow Pages? You might want to take a look at this Video:
So what do you do now?
You need to get an internet presence to increase your online exposure. We’re talking at the very least a professional website that is optimised to rank well on search engines. And if you’re really serious: video marketing, blogs, social media i.e. twitter, facebook & youtube should also be considered (depending on what sort of business you have).
Your website can be a powerful sales and marketing tool, that “sells” for your business 24/7
Think of your website as a “salesperson” that never calls in sick, works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – all for peanuts – and consistently delivers your most potent sales messages over and over again – PLUS measures and reports on results! It’s really a no-brainer isn’t it?
A business website offers many advantages over traditional advertising methods, one of which is usually lower cost, but mainly there’s really no limits to what you can display or put on your website, which you just can’t do with a print ad, brochure, directory advertisement, radio or even TV.
Imagine how well you can communicate your business messages with such tools as: photos galleries to display before and afters, photos of yourself and your team so people can get to know you and gain trust, and videos of customer testimonials? Videos are extremely powerful and very popular due to increased download speed and tools such as YouTube. Plus of course text, links to other websites or resources – even PDF documents where customers can download technical information to print and read at their own leisure.
How a Website can Increase Sales
Like to Get new customers from the internet? A new service from Google has really opened it up for local businesses to enjoy high rankings
Get Connected to the World
Have access to a lot more customers - web packages designed to get you more leads: business websites come with these features…
Did You Know? 50% of people research online before buying or calling
(Source: Australian Retailers Association)
So if you can’t be found on the internet, how much business are you missing out on?
94.5% of internet users use search engines to find products and services – so we’ll make sure you’re in the running!
Can your business be found? What's the cost of being invisible?
It’s no use having a website if no one can find it! To give you the best chance of being found by potential customers, your search-engine-friendly website is built from the ground up to meet the stringent standards of Google and the other major search engines. Your website comes standard with a thorough initial search engine optimisation feature to maximise your chance of a better ranking.
Find you how you can rank on Google and get more customers…
There’s been a fundamental shift in the way we communicate…
More and more, customers are accessing businesses via the web using their mobile devices... is your website mobile-device friendly?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know about the huge growth of the web, particularly over the last 5 years. One of the off-shoots is the huge cultural shift towards viewing websites through mobile devices such as smartphones (think Apple Iphone, Blackberry or Google Andriod phones) due to low cost phone plans, handheld devices and faster broadband.
So if you want to STAY in business and remain competitive, please take this trend seriously and put measures in place to take advantage of it. Make sure you at least HAVE a business website so your future customers can view your website on their mobile devices whenever, and where ever they want, and from where ever they are.
The Next Step Is…
Let’s have an obligation-free chat about how a website may be able to help your business. Simply call us on (07) 3103 6425 during business hours or send us a question via our webform here…
- Internet use has quadrupled in the last 10 years to a whopping 14.4 million active Australian internet users
- 4 out of 5 Australian internet users now shop online
- 50% of people research online before calling or heading in-store to buy
- Mobile wireless internet access increased 40% from June 2009 to December 2009