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Why Do You Need To Advertise On The Internet?
For one thing, it's expected of you: Not having an email address is WORSE than not having a fax number. Email is the PREFERRED method for business professionals to communicate with one another, and it's fast becoming the preferred method for your customers to communicate with you as well.
You really have two choices: you can either have an email address, or an excuse ready. Which would you prefer to offer to people with whom you hope to do business, either as a client/customer or a partner? Having a website, while perhaps not essential to business success, has gone far beyond the point of simply being a useful add-on. It has reached the same utility level as a business card or promotional brochure. In the future, people will no longer turn to the Yellow Pages printed on PAPER, they will connect to the Yellow Pages ONLINE. You need to be where people are looking for you.
Consider these points: If your email address is something like “johnsmith@bellsouth.net,” you should know that this is not your email address. That is BellSouth’s email address, and if you ever leave them for any reason (moving to broadband or relocating somewhere else in the country, for instance), you will lose that email address and lose contact with the customers that have it. What is on the right side of the @ sign is very important! It should be your business name, giving you a permanent, lifetime email address.
A box of 1,000 four-color brochures might cost you $250 to $400 for design and printing, and you could give or mail these to just 1,000 people. A website (also in full four-color, obviously) would cost you $499 to develop, contain FAR more information than a brochure could ever hope to, and for that single investment could be displayed to potentially TENS OF THOUSANDS of people -- or more. If you revise the brochure’s content, you have to re-print them, and that is the same cost as the original printing. To make changes to a web page can be done for little, or in some cases, no additional cost!
You meet people every day that might become a customer or a business associate. Unless you are a remarkably prepared individual, you'll not have promotional materials ready to share, nor would you have the time to make a full pitch on your products or services. However, you DO have time to make a great first impression and give them your business card. If your business card contains your website address, and your website tells them what you do and what makes you better than your competition, you are FAR more likely to do business with that person. How many new accounts will it take to make up for that $499 initial investment in a Starter website?
Like it or not, potential customers and business contacts ARE going to search for you on the Internet. If they don't find you, who WILL they find? Your competition, perhaps? Don't let that happen!
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