What is online presence?
An online presence allows potential customers to gain information about you anywhere and at any time. This is beneficial to your company/brand as your potential customer base will increase as well as your potential sales.
5 Reasons why online presence is important for your business:
- Accessibility
Accessibility in this case refers to the ease or difficulty a customer experiences when trying to reach a business or gather information about the product/service they wish to know more about.
According to Internet Live stats, 46.1% of the world population are Internet users, this roughly translates to 3.4 billion people. Having an online presence means you are accessible to online users. This means your customer base and potential buyers expand exponentially when having an online presence as opposed to not.
Your clients are all different. Some are young some are old. Some are parents and some aren’t. All these differences mean your customers have different needs. Whether it is the time of day they wish to obtain information or the way they wish to obtain the information.
- Customer engagement
Customer engagement can be any reaction or effect your customer has with either your business or with other customers.
Customer engagement is a very important part of your business. It can either have a positive or negative impact. Good customer engagement will be favourable to your business as customers will share their experience either online or by word of mouth.
Customer engagement can be listening to your customer’s needs, either by having an online discussion, reading review forums online or having a feedback section within your website.
You will be able to use the feedback and engagement of customers, to adapt your product/service to suit their needs.
- Greater reach
Reach can be described as the amount of people you can make aware of your business.
It cannot be denied that the Internet has given us a platform to market and sell our products to a wider range of customers. Not only locally, but internationally as well.
Without an online presence, you rely on traditional marketing and word of mouth to make customers aware of your brand. An online presence allows you to increase the amount of awareness by engaging with millennials as well as Generation Z (age range from 7-40). These generations can be categorised as the technology/Internet generation.
- Instant Information
Instant information refers to the speed a consumer experiences receiving information on the product or service.
Although word of mouth and traditional marketing allow your customers to receive information it can be delayed, or at a time when the customer does not wish to receive the information, which can lead to them forgetting about your business or brand.
Consumers want instant gratification. This means when they want something they want it immediately and grow impatient when they have to wait. If your business cannot provide instant information, consumers will move on to a competitor who offers the same or a substitute product.
Having instant information available allows you to create a relationship with your customers. Not only does this mean your customers are able to receive information from you instantly, but you are able to receive information from your customers as well. This can be through social media or comment sections within your website.
- Market Share / Competitors
Market share refers to the portion of the market controlled by a company or product. Your market share is determined by comparing your sales over a time period to the industry’s sales over the same time period. By increasing your sales compared to your competitors your market share will increase.
You increase your sales by creating awareness. This can be done online if you wish to target a greater population.
Many small businesses still don’t have websites. You can jump in front of these businesses to gain market share by having an online presence. Either by having a website or maintaining social media.
