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Does your business have an online presence? If not, you may be missing opportunities to help strengthen your business and drive it toward greater success. Almost all companies have a business website nowadays, but if you run a local business, you may not have seen the value of investing in a site. Even if your company only operates on a local level, there are still plenty of good reasons to launch a website and create a social media presence.
Creating a digital marketing strategy and then implementing it will help you spot many new opportunities to promote your business and present some valuable ideas to help it thrive. Here are just some of the many reasons building an online presence is beneficial for your local business:
To Build Awareness
Did you know 81 percent of consumers carry out research online before deciding to make a purchase? Even consumers that intend to purchase goods in-store are likely to research them online first. So, if your business does not have an online presence, you could be missing out on many potential sales. If your closest competitors have a website and social media pages, they could benefit from your lack of online presence by securing purchases from your potential customers. So, a website and social media pages could be all that stands between you and a more significant market share and increased customer awareness of your business.
To Strengthen Your Brand
Having a successful business is great, but building a strong brand can make it even better. When you brand your business, it helps to create added value that goes beyond the tangible value of your goods. This concept is called brand equity and is an excellent way to generate demand for your products and increase your customer base. Your business website and social media pages are the perfect places to build your brand and showcase the uniqueness of your products. By creating a site and social media pages that reflect your brand values and mirror the aesthetic of your brick-and-mortar store, you will be able to build interest in your products and brand.
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To Communicate With Your Customers
When you run a local business, you may rely on customers passing by to notice you are having a sale or have a special event happening in-store. But, when you have a website and social media pages, you will be able to spread the word far and wide to ensure news of your sale reaches a much broader audience.
As well as helping you spread the word when you have offers and sales in-store, your online presence can also help you promote new products, inform customers of changes to opening hours, and so much more.
After seeing the benefits you can gain from your new online presence, you may be keen to explore this further. Selling your goods online is one option that you may want to progress with, but there are lots of ways your business can benefit from building an online presence.
