Web Strategies for Small Business Owners in 2007

By: Farhan Kamal

Web Strategies for Small Business Owners in 2007

The year 2007 is round the corner and companies are getting ready to implement new strategies for their businesses. If your website is not working to support your business in terms of its sales, lead generation, brand building efforts etc, it’s still not too late to create a strategy that supports and facilitates your short, medium and long-term business objectives.

 

1. Redefine your web strategy

A web-strategy should be simple and focused. For example, if you are a small service based organization, your website should be able to generate leads, provide online tools, and promote you as an expert in your industry. If you are a retailer, you should be able to sell your products online or at least make a deep and active connection with your regular customers.

 

2. Stand out as an Expert

In spite of limited budgets you can still make your company / brand the most admirable one. Standing out as a customer-centric company requires you to provide your customers with content / information which will help them with their problems related to your product. Such content and information will go a long way in building loyalty towards your company. Good, relevant, and focused content is information in the form of articles, whitepapers, research reports and web-based tools, which is built closely around the information-requirements of your customers.

Here is an example to further clarify the concept; Let’s assume that you are an insurance agent, what would be expert content for your website? Content educating your customers and potential customers about how insurance policies work, tools and self assessment calculators, an expert blog etc. It’s important to understand that once you start providing such content regularly, you will see a large number of people coming back to your site, and also referring your company to others.

 

3. Open up communications

Customer Centric companies are good listeners. The web being a very interactive medium makes it easier for you and the customers to communicate. You should provide your customers the tools to communicate with you by giving contact forms, feedback forms, forums (moderated) etc. Also you can start a corporate blog, an e-newsletter, or a moderated forum to create a two-way communication with your customer base.

 

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