Being that Spiderworks is a family run business and being that we get about 85% of our business through the old tried and tested beast "Cold Calling" we hear, on a daily basis, a thousand times ... Why would we need a website, and what benefits could be derived from having a site .. So, I decided to Blog about "Having a website vs Not having one"
Benefits of having a website / Blog
One definite and obvious benefit is simply, to have an internet presence on the WWW, another fishing line in the water so to speak, The more lines in the water, the better chance of you taking home supper, I constantly remind customers, Think of your website as another division or branch of your organisation, it's not “just a website” or I suppose it could be, depending on what you decided the site's function should deliver as a division. Do you simply want a site where the customer will get no more or less than a Home Page (where your welcome message is to potential customers) an About Us (a brief history about the beginnings of your company) page, maybe a products page (or catalogue of products) listing your products, and a contact page and query form where customers can request more information.
The above example of a website is great if that's all you want from the site, But, ask yourself this, what actual monitory value is this division of your business really worth to your GP every month? Additionally, does the website actually have anything “valuable” on it as far as ROI goes, Maybe the value is simply that the customer knows where you are, and now knows you sell or stock products a, b, or c
Now consider this: If you added a shopping cart to sell products, Or Reservations System (great for hotels, car rentals, course booking etc. This list could be endless) and how about adding the ability for your customers to link to your Social Media Platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Google+), Free advertising and networking, you can read my earlier Blog on the benefits of Social Media Integration to see the value in this additional integration, and consider that the website is now a pseudo “salesman” it's now a potential investment which has the ability to pay for itself and maybe even turn a tidy profit for you whilst you're out of the office, off-line or even when you're asleep, Now we're cooking with gas people.
So, everything above is fairly obvious right. But you won't believe how many of our calls end the same way “I don't need a website to make my business more profitable”
In my opinion, a very fairly narrow minded view, of more importantly, You have no clue what you're talking about, Nobody can argue the “Lines in the water” theory.
There are companies out there that make their entire revenue from a virtual office, their website, Because, as I mentioned, your site should be you're Marketing Department, Your Sales Department, Information Hub for your products and everything else you would want your customer to know in order to make the sale, and this without them having to go back to Google to search for a more informative website.
If your website is informative, complete and even more importantly, CURRENT, you could, if you chose to, run your business completely online,
Think about the saving in overheads, Now I know you're going to ask, But what about all the sales people I employ? what about the support staff? and and, The one thing I won't argue though, is the personal touch, the tangibility ….... I'm not advocating that you shut your doors and go virtual, But the point here is that your website should be a completely functional and budgetary division of your company.
Ok, so the disadvantages or not having a site: In my opinion, NONE.
For the sake of the die-hard anti-website believers out there, I'll dissect that slightly, There are obliviously some overhead costs to having another division of your company, I'm not saying this is all that easy, Oh, wait, I am. It is that easy, It's whether you feel you have the money to “invest” into growing your company, that's the truth of the matter people,
If you don't have the money in a new “member” of your company, I understand, please accept my apology and condolences, and let's agree that it's the truth.
Just please, I ask you with tears in my eyes, don't tell me, “I don't need the internet (or website) to make my company more successful”, You'll get the same answer from me every time, “absolute cod-swaddle to that” You cannot convince me that having a website is a waste of money.
With that said, The Cost of a website can sometimes run into the thousands of Rands, Yes, web design is fairly expensive if done by a professional (another earlier Blog will help you decide whether you need a professional to build the site or if you can build it using one of the many instant site builders out there) but the web is changing, web design is evolving to the point where there's no need to pay extortionate amounts of money for a decent website, most sensible corporate websites now make use of CSM systems, not quick or easy to learn from a design and build point of view, but helluva easy to use as a “user” or site owner. If you can use a MS Word type application, you're qualified to look after your own content, Also, these sites are quick to develop and deploy, Another advantage I suppose.
For me, the most disadvantageous factor about not having a site is that your business shuts at 17:00, That's it. Your potential customers will simply have to darn well wait until you're back in the office to ask you the questions they had about your products, Me personally, I'd have already searched the product elsewhere, found it online and ordered it, somewhere else.
If having a website was that unnecessary or invaluable, why would the top 500 companies (and the next 20 million below them) have corporate websites at all, If the website was an unnecessary burden, how did those millions of successful companies out there make it … I know, You're super clever and your going to say, “What did they do before the Internet?” well, they closed at 17:00 and went home, Lived to fight another day, But I can assure you of one thing, those companies all have corporate sites today, They all grew with the times and yes, they accepted that the internet was another means to make money and or give the customer valuable information right there and then, which would otherwise have had to wait till tomorrow.
