We feel like we could end this post by simply saying ACCESSIBILITY but that’s just not good content.
The truth is that it’s 2020 and we’re all being shaped by this brave, new virtual world we live in. We’re spending significant portions of our days online. From social media to e-commerce to researching family history, there’s a world waiting at our fingertips, and you need your business to be a part of it.
For better or for worse, this virtual world has many of us abandoning traditional modes of communication altogether. For example: “Someone is calling me? EW, psycho. Just send a text.” But on the other hand, the virtual world is an actual cornucopia for people, places and things that want to be easily found. Long gone are the days of the Yellow Pages. People want to be able to click instead of dial.
You know what I mean. You’re as guilty of this as I am. If you want to go bowling and you’re looking for a bowling alley in your town and one of them has a website where you can see hours of operation, pictures and click a link to a phone number to reserve a lane, you’re ALL IN. If there’s another alley even closer to you in town, but there’s radio silence on the internet - MAYBE a standard google listing and star rating - you’re swiping past it. It’s science.
It’s basically become human nature that we will gravitate toward whatever we can find the most information on. If your main goal is to serve as many people as you can, your business needs to be front, center and fully loaded online. This means a website and social media.
Yesss. Come child. Step out of the shadows and into the light of accessibility. Let the people find you.
While our pitch seems to be a little one-sided, making everything all easy peasy for the consumer - which is great and all - don’t underestimate what this can mean for you, the business, on the back end. Oh baby. The back end is where it’s at.
Once you have a site and social media pages up and running, your business can pull highly valuable demographic data from them. Who is following and where do they live? This creates incredible marketing opportunities, proving that online is the straight line to growing your business. You can start running ads targeted to your most likely customers. You can share content that you know interests your followers. And the best part? You can interact with them.
Your website should have an email signup for people who want to receive newsletters and coupons. Your social media pages should be posting things for your customers to engage with. You can ask important questions and share important news, and your followers can get it without having to pick up a phone or swiping past your page.
There are tons of ways to capitalize on an internet presence for your business today. These are just a few very basic ideas that should convince you to hop on board the online train ASAP if you aren’t already on it. Foot traffic will only go so far these days. Online traffic is where it’s at.