It’s a simple question. If a business does not have a website are they doomed to fail? Well no, because obviously it is possible to market and promote yourself offline. The decision will differ for every business with some not having the ability to market themselves in any other way and some choosing to invest in more traditional methods such as newspaper advertising because they are more comfortable with it.

Let’s clear up what sort of business we are talking about here. Firstly, if you are an online retailer then yes, you need a site, its pretty straightforward. I will count into ‘having a site’ those who have developed an eBay store and the like since the fact remains that you have some dedicated page somewhere on the worldwide-interweb-net where you are promoting yourself. But, everyone else, small or large, new or old, does everyone need a site?

In order to understand whether you do, go back to basics and do a spot of research into your market. Let’s say you sell sweets, in fact let’s be specific and say retro sweets since this is what one of our clients does. The company is cornering the UK retro sweets market which they happen to know very well. Did they need a site? Well, the market is geographically far-reaching ruling out the ability to capture the market with a single high street presence. The market on the whole is also very broad with a heavy weighting towards the 25-40 age bracket who remember the sweets first time around. This means they are statistically very likely to be using the web. So, it would clearly be beneficial to promote your business within an environment shared by your market, however, it still isn’t a must.

But what about if you aren’t a retailer, what if you sell a service, a builder for example. Do you need to build a website? Well again I believe it comes back to some good ol’ market analysis. How do people appoint a builder? They usually shortlist and get quotes from 4 or 5 so how do you get on that list? Certainly one will come from a verbal recommendation, one will come from the sign outside the house down the street, the others may come from a localised Google search. So, do you need a site to show up in a Google search for “builders in bristol”. No. If you list your business in local directories (or something like Yell.com) you may well be matched with someone’s search. But, are people just Googling to find a phone number? As Google weaves itself deeper into our lives and becomes the centre of our purchase process why not take advantage of a prospect’s need for information.

With a website you could build a portfolio, you could display photos of finished building projects, you could house customer testimonials and provide an insight into what matters to you as a business. Suddenly applying the standard principles you might use to determine whether you should put an advert in the paper you have found that the same audience can be reached via the web. But, even an expensive full-page, full-colour advert in the paper cannot provide all of the information you can cram into a website. In fact, with a website you can plump for a smaller advert which just carries a logo, strap line and web address which is surely going to save advertising costs moving forwards.

Also, consider what the builder wants to get out of an advert… they want a business lead. But, if a newspaper ad or flyer carries a phone number it may not provide a suitable communication method for some people. Many would be put off by having to call someone they know nothing about. Most people would surely want to know more about the person or business before picking up the phone, that is how we have been conditioned by the likes of Google who have made information gathering so simple.

It works both ways. A website will fulfil the human need for information and reassurance. A website can show off your work, reflect your company’s standards and display customer testimonials. All of this will help to sell you and your services to the customer before you even speak to them. At the same time though your qualifying of leads, quote writing and delivering of sales pitches takes time and time costs money. A website can give you a head start by ruling out those leads that if generated via a newspaper ad may have completely misunderstood what you offer. It can also provide you with information on available budget and specific requirements to enable you to tweak your pitch when you contact the prospect.

You can get by without a website because not even the biggest computer geek spends 24/7 online or does everything in binary code. You can advertise offline if you want and it will work. The web is not a replacement media, it is an additional one. Therefore having a website should be a new string to your bow… not necessarily the only one. You don’t need a website but as every month passes and more people are born into the Google generation you are likely to be at a serious disadvantage without one.

Posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 11:21 am. You can leave a response below...