With the Internet’s growing ubiquity, the importance of the Internet and of being online for a business cannot be over-emphasized. These large numbers of connected users provide every small business with a potential customer base that it just cannot ignore.
Despite this, there are only about five million domain names and approx one million websites registered in India as compared to the overall number of SMBs that exist, which is more than 51 million. If you are a small business owner and are yet to bring your business online, here is why getting online is no longer a matter of choice.
It’s your calling card to improved visibility
Online presence can boost business visibility manifold. By being available 24×7, it enables potential customers to access your business anywhere, anytime, at their own convenience, even if it is merely to seek more information, in an effective and efficient manner, although your business may not be physically open at that moment. This lends your business a competitive edge because customers do not want to have to put in a lot of effort in finding you, and your business should be easily discoverable.
It is easy to get online today with cost-effective tools and step by step guides. Registering your business name (a domain name) is the first step a small business can take to come online. It provides the foundation for the company’s website and can also be used to point to your brands’ social media platform. Creating a website allows a small business to relate its company’s story to the connected world. You can get started for free.
Brand building that garners user trust
While your customers and prospects can visit you online to understand and assess what you offer, online reviews and your interactions with other customers can help form a positive impression of your company in the customers’ minds, making a future sale more likely by helping initiate meaningful business conversations.
When attested by other customers, such initiatives help build your brand, and are a credible source of building user trust when executed consistently over a period of time. In turn, this helps your business understand and know its customers more intimately. This can be harnessed to form relationships and funnel inputs back into your processes to improve your communication and messaging.
For small businesses, having one’s unique domain name and website can provide a significant bump up for the credibility of the business, and position it favorably in the minds of the customers. A small step here can go a long way in your business’ journey towards growth.
Marketing and customer service tool
As a small business, you can get in front of more people with your online presence, and market your products to audiences outside your existing customer base, without being constrained by factors such as geography. By driving compelling calls-to-action online, you can generate qualified leads through marketing campaigns.
Being online also helps your customers share their experience of buying and using your offerings, and reach you easily in case they require your assistance.
Engage with the millennials
Millennials are digital natives and for them, seeking information and making decisions happens on the go. As per Paradox Panel’s research findings, nearly 89% of Indian millennials research online before making a purchase.
Through an online presence, small businesses can remain available and accessible to this increasingly influential group, at a time and place of their choosing. They are significantly more likely to accept and be favorably disposed towards businesses with an online presence.
There’s proof…don’t just take our word for it
According to a Redshift Research survey commissioned by GoDaddy, nearly 83% of small businesses that have their own website feel that it lends them a competitive edge over their competitors who don’t.
If you are a small business and not yet online, the time to act is now to achieve greater scale. Get online and get going with increased momentum.
(Opinion piece by Nidhi Hola, Senior Director – Marketing, GoDaddy India)
Source: The Economic Times