A Small Businesses Competitive Advantages Over Their Competition By Having A Website
By Mike Adams, YourLocalSite.com Founder
Last Updated: June 5, 2009: 6:56 PM ET
Baton Rouge (YourLocalSite.com) — As the recession lingers on it’s never been more important for a small business to have a web presence on the internet. Starting an online ecommerce store opens up the customer base beyond the local borders, but more than that, a website allows the business owner to create a loyal following using direct marketing techniques that can turn out very big profits for the small business on the world wide web.
Having a website offers a competitive advantage over other local businesses serving the same target audience because chances are, even if they have a website, they are doing it wrong. Most small businesses make the mistake and put up a simple electronic brochure on the internet that’s boring and almost a complete waste of time for the potential customer to visit. A website now can be a complete interactive process, most of which can be automated once the initial work is done. A customer can visit the site to gain insight on the business, the industry, the owners, the product, they can learn how the product solves their problems and even problems they hadn’t considered yet.
The best websites create a community of evangelists, the popular term being tossed around in marketing right now is Tribes. If a business can create a tribe of followers who keep up with the business via the web, and who in turn promote the business and its products, then the web presence has succeeded.
There are a number of ways to empower the “tribe” to spread the message. We’ve all seen the forward to friend buttons, but with the advent of social networking a new form of social marketing is taking place. This tool is still evolving, but it does involve people spreading the message about the product and building name recognition. Blogging is also a very popular way to inform, educate and entertain a company’s followers via the internet. Some of the most popular blogs reveal the intimate details of running the business and the people behind the company, which some would argue make it easier for customers to purchase, since we tend to do business with people we like. There are other direct marketing techniques that can be applied to the website to make it successful, but the key is for the small business to use the website as a customer resource and treat it as such.
There are dozens of ways to turn a local website into a revenue producer, even when the local economy isn’t performing so well. But it all starts with a dynamic web presence that’s more than just a name and a picture on a website. It needs to be fun, it needs to educate and it needs to inform to give customers a reason to buy from you instead of the competition.
