Nicholls and Dimes Marketing
You need a way for customers to find you.
Welcome to the internet, often called the information-super-highway. In the modern world, we have information that previous generations would and have gone to war for in the palm of our hands and on top of our desks. You can learn how to change your car's oil or drill for oil in your backyard. For a more environmentally friendly version, you can learn how the batteries in your electric car work or how to generate electricity on your own. All this information is bad news for your business, though. Your future customers have a limited amount of time in their days and will only see a limited amount of all the available information out there. These factors mean you must find a way to cut through the static and the distraction to reach your target market.
There are dozens of strategies to achieve these aims, from free social media posts to intense paid ad campaigns. Like your customers, though, you have limited time in your day. While you could spend your time learning the intricacies of SEO and GBP optimizations and backlinking, you could also let a pro like us help you in that part of your business so you can get back to the things you're famous for.
Now, your next question is probably to wonder what -exactly- the pros recommend, right? It's a simple question to answer, and I'll tell you what the pros recommend using an analogy. When people open a store, they will look at getting a shop. The shop allows them to display their products and interact with their customers. They will also get a sign on the front of their shop so their customers can easily find the shop and tell other people about it.
Using this analogy, we can see a website is a great place to start. A website allows us to proudly display our business and let our customers know how to interact with us. Whether we prefer email, phone calls, chatbots, or direct scheduling through apps, a website allows us to connect with our customers consistently. Without a website, we miss out on these crucial interactions and potentially lose many customers.
Additionally, you might run a business that offers products. Your website will be the best way to showcase your products all in one place. With product listings and descriptions, you will have a powerful catalog of current offerings. Adding to this the ability to embed video, your catalog will provide your customers with amazingly accurate information on what interests them most.
On the flip side, you might primarily offer services. Services can be tricky to sell because you are selling your raw skill rather than a physical product. You are selling yourself, your time, and your abilities and doing it all under the rather direct direction of your client. You can build a dedicated value proposition and sell it to each customer or have the standard information on an easy-to-access webpage that your customer can find online. Related to this is being able to learn how to access your customers super easily. Remember how we were thinking about how much information is available online? You need a way to cut through that noise and get front and center in your customers' minds. Newsletters give regular updates on your business and ensure it goes directly into your customers' emails (or text messages). All you have to do is put a contact form on your website that automatically sends your newsletter regularly to all clients who ask for it. Simple, easy, elegant.
Now, I know not everyone has the money lying around to pay an agency $5,000 a month to build a super fancy website. A common solution to this is using free services like Facebook to build a pseudo-website where you have all your information and a list of products and/or services. This is a great solution for starting out and even for well-established businesses. Many people use Facebook to find local businesses all over the country. Having the ability to connect with these customers is a fantastic idea, and having a news feed is like having a miniature newsletter that you don’t even need an email address to get out into the world. A downside to solely relying on this strategy is that you don’t own the ‘storefront.’ With Facebook and other free social media, the platform company owns where your information is. There are very specific rules and terms of service that you have to follow in order to continue to use the platform. With your own website, you own the domain and can customize it in an infinite variety.
When you are ready to bring your business into the 21st century and make your mark on the information-super-highway, schedule a call below. I look forward to working with you.
