Planning Your Website As a Marketing Tool
Audience: Small Business Owners
Purpose: This article describes some factors to consider when planning what kind of website to build.
Author: Jonathan Bailey — © Bailey & Hall 2006 Article Date: 2006-09-14
Last Updated: 2007-03-06
Introduction | A Small Accounting Firm
Adventure Travel Agency | Coffee Cart | Summary
Introduction
According to the Nielsen/Net ratings 68% of Americans or 200 million people had access to the Internet in November of 2005 — and over 5 billion online searches were conducted. That's billion with a 'B'.
No matter your business you have to at least consider the Internet as a marketing channel. There is, of course, no one size fits all solution to planning your web site and there are still a few businesses for which a web presence makes no sense. However, the Internet is such a versatile marketing tool, and its penetration into society is so deep, the question is no longer "Why would I need a web site" but "Why wouldn't I".
Your source of inspiration for web planning is of course your marketing plan, or — if you don't have a formal marketing plan — then a few hours of reflection on how you generate customers.
Let's take, as an example, three different small businesses and the approach they could take to Internet planning.
A Small Accounting Firm
A three person accounting firm wants to expand their customer base of small business owners. Repeat business is high, and new customers are almost universally referrals. Average spending by a customer is a few thousand dollars.
This web site can be very simple, 5 or 6 pages briefly describing the company, the partners and giving contact information. It functions as a virtual business card and brochure. Potential clients will find this to be a reassuring confirmation of what they were told, and existing clients will use it as a convenient way to access the firm's contact information.
If the company publishes a newsletter or tax tip sheet for their clients, it would eventually make sense to have this online as well, to save money on printing and postage.
The ROI for this web site is very high and very obvious. If it helps close 3 or 4 new customers, then it pays for itself. In the meantime, it projects a professional image to existing clients and the community at large.
SEO for this web site should be very firmly focussed on the local market. Take a look at our article on local search engines for more detail.
A Small Travel Company
A company that organizes adventure vacations needs to attract more customers. Each customer spends hundreds of dollars and can be expected to return — though infrequently and irregularly. Most new business is based on referral.
Repeat business is the best business, so the challenge this company faces is staying in their customers' mindspace so that they do come back and keep generating referrals.
The web has many ways to address this problem. This company should use community-building tools such as blogs, email marketing and surveys to maintain their brand awareness with customers and encourage them to spread the word with contests and viral marketing techniques.
We would recommend that their first priority should be to aggressively provide fresh content to their customer base (perhaps a blog with details and photos of some of the excursions) along with a schedule of future vacation opportunities. After that, the sky is really the limit and has to be determined by their business and marketing plan. Possibilities include online booking to automate the reservation process, an online store to sell souvenirs and accessories, and perhaps an online guide to other adventure travel web sites (the goal being to attract traffic by being a clearinghouse of information).
ROI is a very important consideration here. Each step this company takes on the Internet has to have a clear purpose and method of measuring results, because they won't be cheap. Without such a plan, it is easy to build something that drains rather than builds company revenues.
A very carefully considered SEO plan should accompany this web site from the beginning. Content pages should be thoroughly optimized and numerous to attract as much organic traffic as possible. A judicious PPC campaign would also pay off.
A Coffee Cart
A new coffee cart opens in the parking lot of the local grocery store. Customers are all walk up and the average purchase is $4.50.
It makes no sense for this type of business to have a web site. Their customers are casual and highly unlikely to research their purchase. All the research they need to do is to look at the coffee cart and try the coffee. If they like it they'll be back. The point of this example is that a business with a casual customer base, a low price point and fixed location of purchase (you can't ship hot coffee) has no use for a web site.
Summary
These are hypothetical examples, the reality is, every project is different and the number of uses for the Internet limited largely by imagination. This article makes no attempt to discuss anything but the marketing goals of small businesses. The bottom line is really simple but often overlooked by business owners and web developers alike:
1) Almost every company can achieve a positive return on investment on a web site.
2) The web site you need flows directly from your marketing plan and knowledge of your customers and what they want.
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