by crossriverwatch admin
by Dennis Isong
I will like to start to by giving you real statistics from verifiable sources so that you will be well informed as a business owner.
According to Intel, over 2 million searches are done in Google every one minute, how does that affect me if you may ask, just hold on till you finish reading this article.
Over $680,600,000,000 online sales were made online in 2010, $763,200,000,000 in 2011 according to statistics brain.
Let come back home to Nigeria, there are over 55,930,391 internet users in Nigeria and Nigeria is the 8th country in the world that use the internet most and with a penetration percentage 32.9% according to Internetworldstats and Wikipedia.
With the above statistic it is obvious that if you don’t tap into this trend you will be out of business soon.
This is what Bill Gates said “If you are in business and you are not online, you are not in business “.
Here Is Some Information That Will Help You To Understand Why You Need A Website For Business No Matter How Small Is It:
As a retailer or shop owner you need a website for the following reasons:
1. A website can help you to develop a new avenue to sell your products online.
2. You may use the website as a retail outlet without actually spending on establishment or salaries of storefront sales boys or sales girls etc.
3. The website can help your target market to get information on what you sell and may order things online.
4. You will reach a bigger audience than what you would have got by starting a retail shop. You actually overcome geographical bondage.
5. Depending on your product line, you may even eliminate inventory cost.
6. When a prospective buyer enters the supermarket, your competitors work hard to get them. However, you have no
competitors once they reach your website. Thus there are high chances of a better conversion ratio, more sales and more profits.
7. More importantly, you need a website because your competitor got one.
As a company or organization, you need a website for the following reasons:
8. You may use the website as a comprehensive platform to showcase your products or services. The target audience can refer to your website for more information on your product or services.
9. Brand/product promotion: Good branding does not mean that you must follow traditional media. Your website can be a great platform to promote your brand. This is especially true for small business houses. And that’s not all. You can actually save a lot of money by updating new product information online rather than reprinting brochure or product catalogs.
10. Reaching out to target audience as and when they want: What do you do when you need something? Don’t you Google it even at midnight? Your website can do the same for your target audience.
11. Clear articulation and better communication: No other media provides so much flexibility as internet. You can use videos for product demo or virtual tour, text to highlight salient points, images to show the products, interactive charts to engage the user etc. All you need is to plan it properly.
12. Better customer satisfaction by listening to them: You need a website if you want to listen to customer feedback. Your website can offer you a huge pile of data on what the target audience needs and depending on that you can improve your product or business plan.
13. Direct relationship with clients: You can actually directly communicate with your target audience via your web interface and improve your relationship with the end-users.
14. Nothing is lost: In real world if someone appreciates your product or service, you cannot normally store it to show other people. But you can actually showcase them in your website to attract more clients. Apart from that you can also showcase product reviews done by real people in different social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. Testimonials from real people do wonder to businesses.
15. Your Personal Channel: You need a website if you need a channel to fight against the negative feedbacks about your company or products. This can actually help you to actively communicate with your target market.
16. You need a website if you want to capitalize on word of mouth promotion of your products by your existing clients. Remember that, bees attract bees.
17. Using free email address like YourName1234@gmail.com does not make your business look very professional. Develop your business credibility with email addresses at your domain name like sales@YourDomain.com
18. If you are an idea man, you need a website to spread the message across the world.
19. Enjoy a captive audience: If there is an opportunity for your business to sell multiple products or upgraded versions to the same client; you need a website to keep the audience around.
20. Knowledge Base: You may use the website as a knowledge base to keep your customers updated about your product or services / as a user manual or a how-to guide. It can act as a great resource for your clients.
21. Supply chain management and tracking: you need a website if you want your clients to track their order status or if you want to manage your supply chain.
22. Online offline marketing mix: do you run flyer or brochure or other print or visual advertising campaigns? What about those interested people who could not turn out to your store front due to distance or time constraints? You need a website to convert those interested prospects.
23. Reputation management: not having a website does not mean that people are not talking about your business at different blogs or forums. You need a website to accumulate them or to answer to the negative feedbacks. This can be a great public relation tool.
24. Presale your products: If you have a ready audience / community around your website, you can actually presale your product or get valuable feedbacks before mass-scale launch.
Not yet convinced about why you need a website?
25. Normally an offline business cannot offer services round the clock. But if you have a website your service/product can be accessed 24/7. Your company actually works when you are sleeping.
26. Your target market is looking for your product online. If you do not have a website, you are losing them.
27. People really expect you to have a website
Here is the good news; getting a website is not as expensive as you may think … hmm?
Kindly download this form
• http://theexperthost.com/website.docx
• Fill it and send it to admin(@)theexperthost.com
• We will review it and send you a feedback
Dennis Isong is Webpreneur and Managing Director of theexperthost.
follow us on twitter @crossriverwatch