By Rieva Lesonsky
Good news for entrepreneurs: Despite having umpteen other options for where to shop, one-third of consumers shop at a small business at least once a week, and three-fourths visit a small business at least once a month, reports a study by Vistaprint. How do customers discover these businesses? The survey has some answers that will help you attract more customers.
The top way consumers find small businesses is a tie between word-of-mouth and online. If you don’t have a website and/or a strong online presence, there’s an opportunity here for you to attract more customers simply by developing your online footprint.
What do I mean by that? Your online presence has several components.
- Website: According to the study, about half of U.S. small businesses don’t have website all. If you’re one of them, think how much you could boost your business simply by launching a website. Of course, it’s not quite that simple: The survey found that a poorly designed website is worse than none at all. Nearly half (45 percent) of respondents say they are unlikely to patronize a small business that has a badly designed website. Among Millennials, this figure was even higher; just 5 percent of this age group say they would patronize a business with a poorly designed website.
- Social media: Overall, six out of 10 survey respondents say that a small business needs a social media presence, and 25 percent rate this as “very important.” As you might expect, social media matters a lot for Millennials when deciding what businesses to patronize. One out of four Millennial consumers starts with social media — rather than a general internet search or visiting a particular company’s website — when researching small businesses. (In comparison, just 7.5 percent of Baby Boomers do this.)
- Online reviews: A whopping 75 percent of respondents say researching online reviews is “somewhat” or “very” important before they visit a business. Overall, half of respondents say that negative reviews are the number-one factor that would keep them from visiting a particular business.
Armed with this information, how can you improve your business’s “discoverability” factor? Here’s your four-step plan.
- Get a business website. If you don’t already have a website, what are you waiting for? Setting up a business website is simple and easy these days. There are many services that offer all-in-one packages, including domain registration, website hosting and design, and even help with online marketing such as SEO (search engine optimization) and getting listed on local search directories. If you’re not technically inclined, getting the experts to help is a smart move.
- Improve your existing website. If your business website is more than a few years old, chances are it could use some updating. For one thing, is it mobile-friendly? Most customers looking for businesses use their mobile phones even when they’re at home, and if they can’t navigate your website easily on their phones, they’ll just click over to the competition. You can also consider adding features such as a click-to-call button so customers can contact you easily or online chat so they can get help with any questions they may have. Regularly monitoring your website for broken links and outdated information will help ensure it keeps driving customers to your business.
- Get active on social media. You don’t have to be on every social network out there, but you should have a presence on those that matter to your target customers. A little market research will uncover whether that’s Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or somewhere else. Post consistently, be responsive to customers’ comments and share useful information, and you’ll gradually build a following.
- Monitor your online reviews. Regularly check your online reviews to catch any negative ones and take action. Reach out to customers with complaints and take the issue off-line feed can resolve it; then make sure you share the result on the review site so other potential customers know you handled it. Encourage happy customers to review you so you can build up a foundation of positive reviews.
Today, the Internet is just as important as word-of-mouth in building your business — and that trend is only going to increase. Take steps now to make the right moves that will attract customers to your business both now and in the future.
