Many of today’s businesses are beginning to see the importance of having an effective online presence.
They are considering the value the presence can add to it’s business, in terms of being able to trade 24 hours a day 365 days a year.
Doing business and selling via the word wide web will become the norm. It is therefore vital that when a customer visits your website, it must be as engaging to them as visiting your physical shop or place of business. Many of today’s smart businesses are actively trying to engage their visitors. Instead of standing back and ‘sitting on the fence’ they are actively involved in social media, using it as a platform to promote their business and win new customers in the global market place.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo have now become much more than just profile based platforms. They are now conversation platforms, ‘discussing organisations and their brands’.
Research carried out by Technorati claims ‘there are already over 57 million blogs and about 100,000 new ones being created daily’. These blogs are giving consumers their own platform to discuss their views and thoughts on experiences of products and services with which they have come into contact. Blogs can be extremely beneficial to businesses which use them to their advantage; for example, rather than using traditional forms of marketing research t;o find out what customers think of a particular product or service they can use information which is being discussed within their own company blog or indeed other successful blogs which they come across. Using your blog or social media effectively can give your business a valuable insight to what your customers are saying about your product or service.
Best of all…It’s ‘virtually’ free..
For many businesses this is the chance for them to re-invent themselves and listen to what their customers are thinking and saying. We are all aware that people like to feel listened to and valued as a customer. However this concept is not carried through to benefit the business. Many of our larger organisations today don’t listen to the customer on the ground and more often than not, businesses don’t ask their customers what they think? Engagement is the key…ongoing, sustained and sustainable to gain true and qualitative information on your customer.
So the question to ask your business is “Does my website engage customers?
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