A: Today, every business really needs to be online.
For the past five years, we've conducted numerous studies to test whether a business benefits from a website. Without question, the studies have proven a resounding, "yes!" Those studies have included yellow ads - printed telephone book ads - and their online advertising (some yellow ads also provide an online version of the ad). And we've compared those businesses side-by-side with the same types of businesses who also advertise in the same like manner in the same geographic area, but also have a website. In each instance, the business with the website drew more clients, patrons, or inquiries than the business without a website.
One question that usually arises at this point is whether those contacts become customers. Many business owners do not have time to answer endless streams of e-mail questions and they worry whether that will be the only end result of having a website. It is not, but whether the site converts clients is another topic.
Later, we will cover websites much more in depth. For now, we will cover the typical "yellow pages" website compared to a "real website". To date, some yellow books have offered an online version of the print ad and called it a website. Let's clarify terms and call those ad displays because the majority of yellow web ads are simply a jpg or gif display of the print ad.
It is also important to know that all studies have indicated that those websites which provide easy navigation to all of the content on the page and an abundant amount of content have proved much more successful than those websites containing 3-5 pages. While the amount of information provided to the end user is directly related to the level of success of the website, it is only related if the information can be found easily. A website with a flat navigation (a link to all of the pages from all of pages) has consistently proven to be more successful than any other type of navigational layout. There are many reasons for the success, but the major one that we are addressing here is access to information, because having a website provides information about you and your company far beyond that which a yellow ad or a newspaper ad can provide.
There are many reasons for having a website; of paramount importance is the fact that a website provides information about you, your company, and your product (or service) far beyond that which a yellow ad or newspaper ad can provide. A few other reasons are:
- To provide information about your business or product and then transact online business (called e-commerce).
- To facilitate inquiries to your business and information from your business.
- To gather information anonymously from website visitors that will help you improve your marketing mix, your product, the manner in which you deliver it to market, how the product is positioned in the market, and the channels through which you promote your product.
Product -vs- Services
Although the term "product" is used often whenever the marketing mix is discussed, service industries have a product, too. The product in a service-based industry is its service AND the method of delivery of those services.
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