Internet Marketing for Your Business
Why do you have a website? If your primary reason for having a website is simply because your competitors have a website and you feel like not having one will hurt your business, then I’m willing to bet that you haven’t updated your website in weeks or even months. Mr. Business Owner, this is doing you more harm than good. Your website is a sales tool, and quite frankly, one of the most powerful ones that you’ll ever have. Gone are the days of having a website and not updating it for weeks and months. Not OKAY! You may not see this because you are still thinking about the good ‘old days of direct mail marketing where you got a 4% return one year on a direct mail piece that you really liked. Woopty-freakin-do. Or, maybe you are in a service-related industry that involves some door to door sales so you rely on your sales force to hit the sidewalks to drum up some new leads.
Can I tell you a secret? It’s sad, but people don’t want to talk to people!! They want to Google it. If I get a flyer on my door for a new lawn company start-up, and I need a lawn service, I don’t call the number on the flyer. I go to my computer and Google “Tulsa lawn service” and see who comes up on page 1. Someone on those search results is gonna get my business, even though I have a flyer in my hand from someone that really wants it and took the time to bring me their sales piece. Why would myself and hundreds of thousands of consumers do this? Because we want to do business with a company that is current and on the cutting edge of promoting what they do, not someone that is still in the dark ages. I have to ask myself the question, “if they won’t take the time to learn how to promote their company or service online, what other shortcuts are they taking to provide their service to increase their profit margin? ”
You don’t have to know how to do everything! Just do some homework and find out enough to ask the right questions so you can hire the right person or company that can do the work for you! There are hundreds of web designers and Internet marketers in your city or town that are dying to get your businesses and will bend over backwards and work out some kind of deal, or even trade-out, to make it happen. There are hundreds of online content developers that know their industry like you know yours, and they are familiar with the local market and your competitors.
Stop waiting to see if phone book advertising, direct mail, and telemarketing are going to make a come back. Don’t assume that you will have to pay an arm and a leg to have an effective presence online. Read our last post about What Every Business Owner Should Know About Online Advertising.
Or, if you need some help, contact us! We’ve done consulting for many companies over the years to help them find the right fit for their needs online after we discovered that Tulsa Web Design Firm wasn’t a good fit for them. I will say, however, that several of those companies we consulted became our clients weeks later after they chose a company that couldn’t deliver on their promises.
