Will a Web site benefit your business?
One important step in answering this question is to identify the costs verses the benefits.
What are the costs?
Costs may vary widely. Some of the factors that may affect your costs could be:
- Clarity of focus you have for your business
Do you have a clear picture of the message you wish your business to convey? If you don't, then it will probably be difficult for your Web developer to identify your focus.
This could cost you additional time and money, and result in several 'back to the drawing board' stages. If you do not have this issue defined, it may be less expensive, and will probably be more productive, to contact a business development professional to assist you with distilling your vision.
- Research
This falls hand-in-hand with number 1. Unless you wish to commission your developer to perform this task for you, it would be beneficial to assemble as much of the information you wish to have on your Web site. There are two aspects to this item:
- Information about your business.
- How your competition presents itself
How closely you address these items may determine the effectiveness of your Web site. Keep in mind that the second part of this question is optional.
- Planning and research
- Size of the Web site
- Complexity of the Web site, including features such as database development or E-commerce
- Subscription costs for online services you may use
- Web site hosting
- Web site promotion
- Advertising
A question to ask yourself what are the chances I'll see a return on my investment that will not only pay for expenditures, but will also justify the time and effort that I plan to expend?
If your business has a product or service with regional, national, or worldwide appeal, this question is easy. If you are providing a service requiring no physical contact, or if your product ships well and can be delivered through a service, rather than in person, then you can probably realize a dramatic increase in sales by putting up a Web site. Most Web promotion options are targeted for sites fitting this profile. Don't forget about real-world advertising; newsletters, magazines, newspapers, and television can promote your site as well, and may provide almost instant name/brand recognition.
Determining whether a local business will benefit from a Web site is a more difficult question, and often requires shifts in promotional as well as category strategy. In most cases you will indeed benefit by having a Web site, but the degree of benefit will vary depending on the type of site built, the promotion strategies, your targeted clientele, and your profit margin.
In many cases, a low-volume local-sales business with only a few employees will benefit more from providing a virtual business card type of site than from an E-commerce high-volume sales oriented site. Producing a service-oriented, informative site may be your best option. This gives you the option of showcasing your product or service to people who want to learn more, allows you to support clients after the sale, and lets people know how to contact you, without the expense of E-commerce or database applications. This can also serve as a great vehicle for answering the million-times-a-day questions, thus allowing your staff to be free to handle other matters.
If your business runs a tight margin and draws a strictly local crowd, a Web site may be of limited benefit. You may want to consider an informative or service site, but unless you're trying to draw a clientele from a broader area, this could be an expense you'd be better off easing into, or perhaps avoiding entirely. Should you choose to move forward with a Web strategy, you'd probably be best off starting with a cookie-cutter option. This style uses a common template that many, perhaps thousands of other, people use and into which you plug your own text and photos. You may acquire these from a Web design firm or perhaps even build your own. In either case, you'll need to study many of your competitor's sites first to see what appeals to you and determine what may lie within your already-existing skill levels; otherwise this could cost you several months of learning time! In any case, talk to a professional about how to promote your site. The Web is not a field of dreams; if you build it there's no guarantee anyone will come.
Many of the promotion strategies for local businesses are quite different from those used for a broader market. While you can, indeed, promote to the same wide market, there is a strong need to target local markets as well, and for this you need to acquire knowledge of what the local Web markets are or tap into someone else who already knows. Also, local businesses can see a dramatic impact from using local real-world advertising mediums, such as newsletters and newspapers.
