A funny little story
A story about the importance of having an online presence
An Anecdote
In my village, there is a shop with no website, no Google Business Profile, and not even… a sign!
I needed to know whether they were open so I could buy potting soil, and I had to go there in person to find out.
I did not know the company’s name, but since the Internet gods are kind, I did have Google Maps Street View.
Except there was no listing for the place.
When I was there, someone explained the owners’ philosophy to me, and the owner himself later confirmed it.
It all came down to the fact that they could afford it, like a small village resisting the empire, impervious to any marketing strategy.
I defend free will. To me, this is a legitimate choice someone can make, but is it the wisest one?
What do you gain from having an online presence?
Not every business has the same need for a website, for example.
We can think of it as a scale of need:
- Low: the business is a reference in its field and lives on word of mouth or private contracts.
- Moderate: the business already has a flow of customers, but could potentially improve its service.
- High: the business could survive without a website, but could also benefit greatly from one.
- Vital: the business depends primarily on its website, as with an e-commerce store.
But even a company that does not need a website can still benefit from automation, such as inventory management, order management, payment management, and so on.
Depending on the need, investing in a web solution can bring a strong return on investment.
A website should be designed to convert. Not necessarily to trigger an immediate sale, but to provide the information the customer needs to keep moving toward your business.
But conversion also means giving you the information you need about the customer to reach them where they are.
It’s not about being sales sharks, but about playing by the rules of supply and demand.
Today, my agency is just starting out and, until proven otherwise, if I wait for the orange to fall into my turban, I will not make it through next winter!
The same is true for some businesses that keep running thanks to the love invested in them, but are still fragile.
An online presence allows you to break free from distance.
For example: I prospect locally, but I also want to invest in my LinkedIn presence, which would allow me to alternate between local, national, and even international reach.
In that sense, the booking page on my website, combined with a presence on LinkedIn, can indeed make oranges fall into my turban, as long as I do not depend entirely on that.
Having an original offer online, what I call an idea, can get people talking about you within specific groups that may interest you, also known as qualified prospects.
If you are an already solid business with strong cash flow, investing in targeted advertising campaigns (SEA) and a landing page, followed by a conversion funnel (simply a process during which you remove all the objections that stand in the way of the sale), can help you reach everyone already looking for you or for your competitor.
With the power of programming, we can imagine connecting your existing product database and creating a first interaction between your products and your customer.
For example, if you lose time answering the phone just to tell a customer whether an item is available in store, you can create an interface that lets the customer check this directly on your website.
So analyzing your resources and problems in a non-linear way can lead to original solutions that make your business easier to run.
Call to Action!
If you are hesitating to start an online project, book a call with me so we can think it through together, respectfully, for as long as needed, and explore the hidden potential of such a project.
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