“What helps people, helps business.”
Leo Burnett
A website can be much more than a digital window-front for your business. This series of articles explores the rationales for investing into the transformation of a website into a potent business tool.
There are different rationales for business to have a website, and although a 3rd of the Internet , for all practical purposes, is still made up of sites with static content, there has been steady progress towards website platforms with content management systems (CMS), enabling easier content creation and updates as web standards evolved. Whereas static HTML pages needed coding skills to create and maintain pages, the rise of CMS platforms enabled businesses to create and update their website content with little to no coding skills required. On the other hand, this has led to a steady increase in the price of maintaining a website, requiring regular updates, functional customisation as when business demand it. More and more businesses understand that their website is no longer a necessary cost, but rather an investment into their growth.
For many traditional brick and mortar retail businesses, CMS platforms have enabled them to transition to online retailing with ecommerce websites, where more and more customers prefer the comfort of their home to place their orders online and get their goods delivered, a strong rationale for any retail business to ensure they have a presence online maintained up to date with their latest products and offers.
A business site is a gateway to meet new customers.
However, even businesses in other industries, may it be service or manufacturing, have an ever-growing rationale to invest into their online presence, as this report points out, business leads increase when a site is updated with regular blogging content. An estimated 81% of consumers will research a product or service online before deciding to make a purchase, it is an opportunity for businesses to get leads and build a relationship. As marketing genius, Leo Burnett discovered: “What helps people, helps business”. The more useful the information available to visitors, the more likely they are to sign up for more.
Businesses, regardless of their industry, have a strong rationale to leverage their website’s lead-generating potential by investing into the digital transformation opportunities presented by the evolution of technology. So what does it take for a website to become a well tuned lead-generation machine?