“Online marketing will help you find new customers and provide additional services to your existing customers. This will help you develop a richer customer experience ensuring you retain and grow your customer base.” Scottish Enterprise: Online marketing
Many small business owners are skeptical of the value of having their own website. This is understandable, but it's also dangerous: understandable, because most small business owners are busy running their business, and don't have time to learn all the ins and outs of building a website; dangerous, because if you're not visible online, to many potential clients you're completely invisible.
Internet access in the UK has exploded over the last 10 years, to the extent that in March 2006, there were 12 million households with broadband, nearly 55% of all households in the country (Source: EMarketer.com). On top of this, there are those who are still subsisting on dial-up, and the huge number of new users who have signed up between then and now.
In common with about 40% of the population (Source: EMarketer.com), rather than wade through the Yellow Pages book, ringing potential suppliers in turn to find out whether what I want is available, on the date I want it, and how much it will cost me, I prefer to search for a supplier online.
I don't even bother looking in the phone book any more. Why would I? Online, I can adjust the size of the print to suit my eyes. In the phone book, it's a squint and peer exercise. Sorry, I have better things to do. And I'm not alone.
Some business people are unsure exactly how the internet works, and this confusion makes them hesitant about investing in a site of their own. They may remember the dot com boom in the nineties, and how much hype surrounded it - only for most of the “netpreneurs” to sink without trace within a few years.
The internet itself has changed almost beyond recognition since those days. At that time, fast broadband connections were not available at all in this country, even to businesses, without a huge up-front investment in special cabling and equipment. Surfing the internet was really only popular amongst a very small number of geeks and high flyers (because to be truthful, there wasn't much to interest anyone else on there), so the market was small. Online shopping was an idea, rather than an everyday activity.
In contrast with the nineties, the internet of the 21st century has matured (though I'm sure there are many developments still to come that nobody has even thought of yet). No longer the preserve of the early adopter alone, surfers range in age from 9 to 90 - in fact an amazing 25% of all regular internet users are over 50, even though this generation includes many who have never used a computer at work, and certainly never had the opportunity of using one at school. Many do their weekly or fortnightly shop, not by traveling to the nearest supermarket, but by surfing there online. Asda, Sainsbury's, Tesco and even Waitrose all offer this service.
The big doorstop we fondly refer to as the Yellow Pages still has a few years left in it yet, but it will be less and less valuable over the next decade or two. Technophobes will be the only people using it as an information source. Even today, many people use the online version of the Yellow Pages or one of its rivals, instead of the paper one, as it's so much quicker to find what you are looking for. This is probably a good thing for the planet, given the amount of paper that goes into each issue.
Unfortunately, the imminent demise of Yellow Pages and other classified directories marks the end of their value as a source of customers. The business which has no visibility online will become invisible to everybody, unless they have a physical shop in a prominent location, which is a hugely expensive proposition and does not provide a tenth of the potential customers. Yes, a tradesman can have a van or vans with attractive signwriting on the side, but again the coverage goes nowhere near that once achieved by the great big yellow book delivered every year to everybody's home.
How can you replace this valuable resource? By expensive paid advertising in the local press? I don't know what percentage of people actually read their local paper - even the free one delivered to my door goes straight into the recycling bin. Perhaps you could advertise in online directories - but you will need somewhere for your customer to click through to (you can bet the opposition will), so that they can see the range of services and products you have to offer, compare prices and so on.
It's time to bite the bullet and start catering for the computer-literate generation, particularly if your market is in the higher income sector.
Next: Stand out from the crowd
