Big or small, regardless; any business will inevitably need a website to grow. It helps keep a business approachable, visible and profitable, here’s how;
Reasons why businesses need a website
Visibility and accessibility
It’s after hours and a new potential customer is trying to ring that number plastered to the side of your van, office or billboard, only to get sent to voicemail — you might as well have said, “we’re not interested in any new business, please try again tomorrow, thanks”.
Having a website would have a great advantage as that potential customer would have the option to learn more about your business. It could have even informed the customer about your opening times.
Regardless of what the customers do on your website; you know that your business is constantly visible and open to customers, even when you’re not.
Online sales
Having a website that has the capability to sell products online (also known as an eCommerce website) goes a long way.
Not only for your current customers but also for new customers who now have the capability to visit your business from anywhere, worldwide.
Ultimately it can help drive your business even more sales. Anyone having internet access can explore your website and go through all products or services available for sale.
Global expansion possibilities
If your business is running through a website, there are global expansion possibilities with the right marketing strategies.
As a local manufacturer (without a website), you can only target limited criteria of potential customers with print marketing strategies.
On the other hand, a responsive website dedicated to business allows you to provide accessibility among potential customers, worldwide.
If your product or service has the potential to compete in the global market with top brands, selling it online may be the quickest way to mark your footprints globally.
Effective and affordable marketing
Doing business through a website is also beneficial from the perspective of effective marketing.
The smart online advertisement tools are capable of targeting potential customers from various aspects such as age group, gender, location or a particular community.
If you compare the efficiency of a business website with the traditional print marketing strategies (brochures, flyers and roller banners, etc.), a website could still be equally, if not more effective, than print marketing.
Moreover, it can also be just as affordable, as compared to large-scale print media. As printing on the side of a van or a large billboard for advertising can easily begin to cost a lot.
Ease of customisation
Ease of customisation is another major advantage of going with the option of a business website.
Whenever you feel the need to change some policies, graphics or pages on a website, if the website’s built on a content-management-system such as WordPress, you can easily log in and change these details without the need to hire any developer.
However, with that said, if there’s any core-functionality you need changing, a developer may need to be hired at that point.
Improve brand value
Building brand value is one of the major challenges amongst a lot of small businesses, especially when these businesses are local startups.
For better exposure to the targeted market, a website could uplift your brand’s value much rapidly, as most of the potential customers are starting to shift towards digital methods of commerce.
Less investment in infrastructure
Whilst doing business through an online website, your investment in infrastructure may drastically reduce, as you could essentially automate some of your day-to-day business tasks.
You could even perhaps discover that doing business in the digital space could reduce the need for extra staff, extra office space and even general overheads. This could even result in solely illustrating all your products on a website, reducing the need for any fancy showrooms.
The potential customer could then directly visit your website, check the product from its appearance and read specifications, before placing an order.
Instant support
Sometimes customers might call you to ask the smallest of things. Having a website with an FAQs page can take care of all that.
It can help inform customers about your opening hours, shipping destinations, general lead times or almost anything you may get asked on a day-to-day basis — so why not save both the customer’s time and yours?
For any kind of personal assistance, your potential customer will have multiple options to interact. They can call directly, drops a mail or even use a live chat option if that’s available on your website.