Using Your Website To Drive Your Offline Business


by Stephen Campbell - Date: 2007-05-26 - Word Count: 602 Share This!

Working mainly with small businesses consultants develop their marketing strategies and often find that those small businesses do not have an internet presence or if they do, they have a website sitting up there in cyberspace performing no real function or doing anything to enhance their business.

Consulting often involves instructing and coaching clients in the fundamentals of marketing and devising strategies focusing on channel marketing, creating a compelling value proposition and producing products and services to fit into the appropriate categories of the market. At this stage of the evolution of technology it is believed that consultants should now incorporate a section into the consulting schedule on instructing businesses to take advantage of the amazing opportunities which exist for using the internet to drive their offline business.

It is believed that customers should be given the benefit of combining traditional offline marketing with the emergence of the new technologies. This will give them the edge as they use these tools via the power of the internet to grow their businesses.

The first problem which is normally uncovered is when working with a client who already has a website, the website normally looks pretty, was designed by a software development house and is normally the company's brochure replicated online. It is then always interesting to examine the source of the website and in 9 times out of ten the website is not optimized, the small business owner does not know this, or exactly what this means.

A part of the consultation should focus on educating clients on exactly what search engine optimization means, what keywords are, linking and related strategies. The objective being to leave the client with a basic understanding of how to get their website recognized in their relevant market categories. In the long run, this knowledge should be worth thousands of dollars (providing the client takes the relevant action) to the company's bottom line as they use their website as a business asset.

The next thing to focus on is on how to use some of the low cost and no cost tools which are available to gain visibility in the online world and in order to drive traffic to their website. A major focus should be on using the Web 2.0 technologies as much as possible, these mainly free resources are great for using as part of your company's online marketing strategy which can and will drive your offline businesses.

The ability to connect and network with online communities which have an interest in your product or service is in fact a great way which in my opinion all small businesses should be taking advantage of. Unfortunately, often the small business owner is busy running the day to day activities and don't feel they have the background skills and time to work on using these method for driving business.

As a business owner it is critical to embrace the fact that one should be continually investing in themselves and in their businesses. So, in this respect one can hire a consultant or hire a technical graduate or intern to learn and implement in this area.

In addition to using the Web 2.0 tools it is advised to be creating products based on ones skill set to take advantage of the global customer base which their business' internet presence gives them. The theme and key point is that ones website is more than just a website, it can and should be used as a business asset to drive offline business. The onus is on the business owner to invest in not just a website but a website which has equity and acts a business asset.


Related Tags: internet marketing, marketing strategy, marketing consultant, business home, web 20

Stephen C Campbell (MBA, MSc, MCIM) is a business consultant who has conducted business throughout Europe, Far East & U.S. He specialises in helping businesses use the new technologies as a part of their business strategies.http://www.StephenCCampbell.Com

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