Why does my business need an online presence?
The internet is the present and the future! Whether buying a shirt, making a restaurant reservation, booking a flight, setting up a dentist appointment, or a million of other to-dos, billions of people rely on the internet to carry out their every day tasks. So, it makes perfect sense for any business that relies on customer purchases (that’s ALL businesses!) to create and maintain an online presence.
These days, before making a decision that involves spending money, people do their research. For example, if someone is hungry and wants Mexican, they will likely Google ‘best mexican restaurants.’ The search will pull up all the Mexican restaurants in the surrounding area, but how can it pull up restaurants that don’t have an online presence? It can’t! Therefore, any restaurants not listed online won’t get a chance to compete for the hungry person’s money. Continuing on with the search, the person might next click on a few links to check out the restaurants’ menu. As everyone in the restaurant industry knows, we eat with our eyes. What they might now realize is that if the website isn’t eye-catching and the menu isn’t written clearly with descriptions of the food or even mouthwatering pictures, the hungry searcher will just move on to the next restaurant on the Google search in a matter of seconds!
Even doing the bare minimum of adding a company to search engines and web directories can make a difference. Next steps include creating a website and maybe social media accounts. From there, it’s all about regularly updating, posting, and interacting. For some businesses, this is all they need! This amount of basic digital marketing is enough for some businesses, such as restaurants. Of course, there is always more to do and more ways for businesses to grow with digital marketing! Setting up a newsletter, carrying out mail campaigns, or engaging in pay per click advertising can give a business the next digital marketing boost they need.
Digital marketing is also about building a brand. The more a company or it’s products/services are talked about, shared, or just visible online, the more hype that is built! This translates to more significantly more customers and may strengthen the company, and not just in sales.
Just because digital marketing has leaped forward in the marketing race doesn’t mean that traditional marketing is outdated. Many business use a combination of traditional and digital marketing. However, businesses who do not utilize digital marketing need get on board soon or they risk getting lost in the digital fray.
Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing can reach a much bigger audience. Just a tweet can reach millions of people with the right conditions. But since not everyone is a celebrity and viral tweets owe most of their popularity to luck, companies need to invest time and money into digital marketing. It sounds scary but digital marketing can be inexpensive and with digital marketing services like those provided by The Lighthouse Consultancy, companies can dedicate their time to what they do best and leave the marketing to us!
