A high percentage of Kenya small and medium enterprises are yet to realize the importance of creating online brand and its effect in increasing sales. If your small company is not using internet effectively, then it means you are simply losing sales.
Here are some reasons why your business needs to establish and enhance online presence:
Get customers from every part of the globe. Strong online presence will get your prospects from every region, as internet access is not limited to geographical location.
Cost-effective and efficient marketing. Business website or blog is vital in promoting your products and services. Online presence provides a platform to inform your visitors/potential customers about the benefits of your products. The cost of running a website is very low, especially when compares to maintaining physical store.
Round the clock availability for customers. Unlike physical business, website is accessible 24 hrs a day. Hence orders can be made online anytime of the day. Customers also can make inquiry, forward suggestions anytime they like.
Business brand promotion. Providing relevant and useful information in your website/blog in your niche, will play an important part in improving your business image and PR
Customers Feedback. A website also provides a good forum for visitors/client/prospects to ask you questions regarding your products and services. This online platform is more beneficial than other means, as visitors can post them anytime and anywhere in the world, besides being very fast and cheap. Suggestions made by them is very crucial in improving your products.
The Internet can make your offline marketing more effective, for example, your direct mail campaign can send prospects to your site where you can then guide them through the sales process.
Portions of the sales process can also be automated through online shopping.
Once you decide to invest more money in internet marketing, you will need a plan. A good place to start is to develop an effective website. This means you must learn how to:
- attract visitors
- keep your visitors and help them achieve their goals
- capture leads or close sales
Your website will receive visitors from a variety of sources, including:
Attracting Visitors
People from your offline marketing campaigns like advertising, direct mail, etc.Visitors coming when they click on links to your site, found elsewhere on the Internet – for example, partner sites, directories, articles that were sent to articles directories, online social networking sites, signature links in their e- mails, etc. Online Advertising can also be source of high number of visitors, besides search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, when internet users are searching for information about your company or products.
Optimizing your website for search engine, commonly known as SEO ensures high ranking in search engines for your business and products keywords
Keep visitors involved
When a visitor comes to your website, your job is to persuade them to stay. Unfortunately, maybe you have 5 seconds to convince them.
Here’s how:
1. Design your website to match your profession and niche.
2. Make sure you have a strong title that touches on something worthwhile. So instead of “Welcome to our website” try “Concerned with the growth of your company this year?”
3. Provide a site structure and navigation that makes clear to visitors how they can accomplish the tasks that brought them your site.
Collecting leads/closing sales
probably an important goal for you is to collect qualified leads. Your visitor, however, came achieve their own goals and obviously there is a balance needed to achieve both goals.
On each page suggest the next step. Make it easier for the visitor to contact you or subscribe to your updates. If you have to ask for information to keep it short.
When you collect a lead, make sure to follow up immediately. Many hosting services have the ability to automatically reply or send the information requested.
Process any sales deals as soon as possible, and assure customer of delivery as you promise on the website. Ensure customer satisfaction, and eventually you will earn their trust, which will translate into more sales.
These are just basics for getting your brand online. It may seem like a big mountain to climb, but you can do it. If you need help in establishing digital presence for your business, we are there for you. Contact us anytime.
