Painless Web - Webmastering and Design in Charlottesville, VA
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Web Site Uses

 

What can a web site do for you?

There are three core areas were a web site can potentially help you; marketing, customer service/retention, and office management. Give us a call to discuss tailoring any of these solutions to your operation.

Marketing

If you do any kind of marketing, then you're throwing money away without a web site to leverage it. This will usually take the form of a link with a call to action, such as "See exactly how XYZ can improve your life at www.XYZ.com." By the same token, online-only marketing is usually not efficient or effective for most small firms. Online-only marketing tends to be cash and labor intensive, and is usually better suited to enterprises with at least semi-national scope. Like most rules, of course, there are exceptions. Here are some typical ways that a web site can leverage your marketing:

  • Tell prospects what you do in detail.

  • Provide hours, directions, and area covered.

  • Promote sales, events, presentations, etc., to existing clients VERY inexpensively.

  • Show prospects your credentials and experience.

  • Encourage prospects to contact you and refer others.

  • Hey psychologists, chiropractors, and other professionals! You can make prospective clients more comfortable by showing them pictures of who you are and where you work.

DIY resources:

Be forewarned that there are a LOT of questionable schemes online for marketing your web site. Although you should check the reputation of any online marketing program, any scheme that claims it can generate "1,000's" of visitors to your site for little money or work is very suspect. Check with us before you get involved.

  • "Marketing Your Services : A Step-by-Step Guide for Small Businesses and Professionals" by Anthony O. Putman ISBN: 0471509485. (doesn't cover internet marketing, but this is a great general marketing book.)
  • "Search Engine Optimization For Dummies II" ISBN: 0471979988. Make sure you get the Second addition!
  • "Low-Budget Online Marketing" ISBN: 1551806347

Customer service/retention

Do you and your staff spend a lot of time answering the same questions repeatedly? Do you hand out or mail the same forms over and over? Do you have clients who come all the way to your location to be shown some simple thing that's just hard to explain over the phone? Do you have seasonal fluctuations? Would you like to improve response to promotional events inexpensively? These are all things that a web site can help you with.

  • Show them pictures, graphs, diagrams, and how-to video's.
  • Provide links to resources that can support your clients.
  • Provide forms, instructions, etc. that are currently being mailed or picked up.

If you have questions about what is or isn't possible, please contact us.

Office management

Are you constantly faxing or phoning information between multiple locations? Would you like to collect data from staff without shuffling a lot of paper? These are just a few possibilities that a company "intra-net" can offer you. For example, you can also do all of your accounting online, and have it available from anywhere.

If you have questions about what is or isn't possible, please contact us.

 

What can a web site NOT do?

Market for you.

If you just put up a web site, nobody will ever see it. It must be incorporated it into a marketing plan.

Eliminate customer service.

While you can have a section with answers to common questions and other resources, these are seldom "static." As things change, the questions or their answers will change, too. And, of course, there will always be those unusual questions that require personal attention.

Automatically make sales.

There is one small category where this is possible: If you're selling pre-packaged, downloadable, digital content, like recorded music or information. Otherwise, somebody has to package and ship products, deal with returns & wastage, etc. And if you have multiple products, then there is catalog creation and maintenance as well. Not that you shouldn't consider online sales, just be forewarned that it isn't magic.

 

 

NOTE: New clients are no longer being accepted.

Got Questions? Contact us now!

Painless Web - Webmastering and Design in Charlottesville, VA
Professional, Painless, Guaranteed.
     Email form    434 242-1841 in Central VA    866 234-9922 toll free

1003 Rayon St, Charlottesville Va, 22902

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