How Local Businesses Can Profit From A Website Presence
By 1clickbookkeeping | March 27th, 2010The value of the internet as a sales and promotional tool is often overlooked by small businesses. They mistakenly think that the world wide web is only for businesses with a global reach. The internet, however, is for all kinds of businesses, both large and small.
Take for example a small business that caters just to a limited range of customers. We’ll take a hypothetical example. Stan’s Picket Fences manufactures and sells and installs picket fences within a 50 mile radius of his small factory. Stan didn’t want to expand his business beyond that range, but he was also tired of going out on the road every day to show his portfolio to potential customers, only about twenty-five percent of whom ended up buying from him.
One of his employees liked to make websites in his spare time and suggested he make a small website that featured a photograph album, some pictures of the manufacturing process and of the factory premises. There was nothing sophisticated about the site – it was like an online scrapbook album, but it worked brilliantly.
Within a couple of months, Stan found that he was getting far more sales from his initial visits to people’s homes because they already knew what he had to offer before he went to their homes. The first time they called, Stan told them they could see his portfolio online and if that was the sort of work they wanted, he would come out and see them. His website was already a huge timesaver for him.
Deeply impressed, Stan asked his employee if he had any other ideas. The employee suggested that Stan get in touch with other local businesses and, if they agreed, exchange links with them.
In the business district near his factory, there was a small home decor accents shop that had a website. They happily agreed to do a link exchange because they catered to a similar clientele. To his amazement, Stan started getting a lot more leads. His profits increased by 10 percent, thanks to that one exchange and his website was still only costing him pennies per day.
Stan was thrilled with that, but it just got better. He found a housing developer who was doing a new property launch for a nearly completed project that had over a hundred new homes. Everyone who went to the developers website saw a link to ‘Stan’s Picket Fences.’ When they purchased their home, many of them wanted to add a fence and Stan was the first business they thought of.
Stan never made any big changes to his website, but it continued to pay off for him. His business doubled in size and profitability. That’s how the internet can help even small businesses!
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