What happens when you search for companies by their name on Google. Either you find their official websites, or you find some information about the company you have searched in pieces if it does have a website. So, you can understand from this how important it is to have an online presence in this digital age. Try to figure out how many companies in your locality has an online presence. You will find, small businesses are scared of going online for various reasons. They think it would be an expensive affair to start or not easy to establish, or it would not be beneficial for them.
If you check the facts, you will find all these assumptions are not true. And once a business goes online, they realise how important it is to be online in today’s digital age. All traditional businesses should think of going online to serve their clients more effectively and advantageously. When you start and if you are new to it then, in the initial stage you will find it as setting up a new business. However, it is not that risky or complicated as you are assuming it to be.
Here, we will explain five reasons that will tell you why to start an online business.
- Company Image Improves
In this digital age, it is very natural for anybody to search for businesses online. When people come to know about any new product or service, they tend to search online about them or the company that introduces them to the market. Online presence helps your customers find you easily from anywhere and anytime. The more visible you are on the online platforms, the more is the chance of an improved company image. People will not need to visit your brick and mortar store to know about you and your products/services. Your online business tells them everything about you and your products and services. Whatever your choice of online presence is – like websites, blogs, social media accounts, or listing in online business directories, or all of them would help your target audience find you easily. When people find you on the web, they can understand how serious you are about your business, even if you start with a simple website.
Some important sections that you must include in your website:
- About the Company
- About Products/Services
- Contact Details
- Testimonials
- A Blog Section
All the above sections are mandatory to give a basic idea about the business to your target audience. These are essential data that a customer or an investor would like to know before investing. However, you can add more content if you wish so, like the history of business, products usage, your achievements, and if you have associated stories that have inspired you to grow, you can always add them. Ensure you are using good quality images so that your customers can get an idea of how the product looks and then are compelled to purchase them. Websites help you build your company’s brand images, so make sure you tell a good story about your company to your audience. If you are successful in keeping them glued to your website and bring them back again and again to it, then none can stop you from building a company reputation in the market and industry. Ensure you emphasise more on products and services. Also, put the growth graph of your company somewhere, which will be a good way to attract investors. Additionally, you can consider developing a mobile application to expand your online presence further.
- Efficient Customer Support
Your online presence helps you reach out to your customers in real-time and even interact with them when required. Just owning a website is not the only thing that can help you achieve your online goals, but you will need to manage your website perfectly to help it perform profitably. While traditional businesses have no option to be open 24×7, an online business has the option to remain open round-the-clock, around the year, helping customers with their necessities. And then you must make yourself approachable to your customers and business prospects.
You can have a live chat option for your audience so that they can contact you whenever they want to. Even the contact forms can help them reach out to you, make sure you have one. You can also allow them to share their feedback and write reviews for the products/services they have used. If they have any suggestion to give, allow them a space for that. This is how you can build relationships with your customers, and make them feel comfortable. If you are successful in meeting your customers’ demand online, then nothing would be better than that in achieving your online business goals. And you know, this is not possible in traditional business format. When you respond to your customers immediately, they see you as a responsible business person and also starts trusting you more. There is nothing wrong in apologising for mistakes and faults in your product or service. Also, if you bad reviews do not react badly. Allow your users to express whatever they feel about you and your products/services. It will help you in growing faster and in the right direction too. Always make sure you respond with positivity and ask them what they expect from you.
Here are some tips that will help you in making your online customer service successful:
- Allow people to connect to you easily
- Implement live chat for real-time communication
- If your customers have questions, take time, and explain everything calmly. Do not react
- Do not get aggressive or angry
- Train your customer service team and help them learn all the skills for better results
- Allow user access to information
- Operate from Anywhere and Anytime
A combination of brick and click business model is getting popular these days as it allows businesses to operate both online and offline. It gives the best experience of both the worlds. While you have the option to connect to customers from every part of the world in just a click, you also have an option to allow your customers to visit you and experience shopping in person. While online stores give convenience and hassle-free shopping experience, offline stores give a memorable shopping moment with loved ones. You have both the options, and you give you customers a choice, again a good idea to cater to diverse type of buyers.
Moreover, brick-and-click business with a well-established digital presence allows a part of your team to work from their choice of place. The team can work from anywhere if they have a good internet connection, as the internet is mandatory to run an online business. This flexibility helps in improving the work culture in your company and helps in increasing the productivity of the team and at the same time, save time and increase profits. However, in some cases, working remotely does not suit all areas of work. Thus, a business can start offline, and as it grows it can scale up with online presence and gradually progressing towards creating a brand image, increasing marketing efforts, building customer relationship, efficient customer service and flexible working patterns.
- Local as well as Global Reach
Online business has got the advantage of reaching out to customers from across the globe within a fraction of a second. The entire world is your market, while you decide to sit at one place and operate. You can easily expand the customer base by increasing the number of direct relationships with customers. The strategy of focussing in local and global market depends on whom you want to target and what is your products. If your products are in high demand in the international market, you have the option to reach out to your international clients, and if you want to focus only in the local market, you have all the rights to do that. However, if you are online and your business starts growing, undoubtedly it will start expanding its wings from there. If you want to keep your reach limited to the local market, then you can explore new ways to attract more potential customers within that.
You can broaden the scope of your business and marketing strategy to meet the demand as per your business needs. An online presence can help you progress in this journey effectively. Website or mobile application can help you achieve your online business goal efficiently and reach out to your customers in both local and global market successfully. You can hire a professional website development agency or a mobile app development company to guide you in this process.
- Reasonable Development Cost
There is a general thought that development, maintenance and establishment cost of online presence through websites and mobile applications are very high. However, once you start the development, you will realise the cost is far reasonable, compared to establishing a traditional brick-and-mortar business. Moreover, you have the option to grow slowly. You can start with a simple website or mobile app and continue to add more elements and content as you grow. To start with, you can find the cost of a website and mobile app development by enquiring about the same with professional web and mobile app development companies. A professional development agency generally takes all the responsibilities of development, management, deployment, maintenance, marketing, brand building and every other related activity of online business under one roof.
While physical business requires high rental on physical equipment and assets to run a business, an online business always saves the cost required on physical equipment. Moreover, your reach is far broader when you have an online presence, while traditional businesses have limited reach.
Endnote
The above claims are sufficient to prove why it is compulsory for businesses in this digital age to have websites, mobile applications and other online presence. If you already own an offline business, then online presence can help you expand your customer base beyond your limited boundaries. Online presence has its benefits and can become a great addition to your already established offline stores. An online business can increase your sales and help you get greater exposure.