When you compare the cost of establishing a website to what it costs to promote your business in print or on the air, you will see that a website is the least expensive form of marketing ever created.
A radio campaign featuring several 30-second spots per week for three months could run you $5,000 - $10,000. That gets you five minutes per week of exposure for three months in the local area only.
Newspaper and magazine ads are similarly highly priced, and only last for the life span of that particular publication.
A website has virtually limitless space, so you could put up a website with dozens of photographs and several thousand words for under $1,000 for the first year, and keep it up and running for a few hundred dollars per year after that depending on how frequent the updates are made. Also, websites are in full color - a palette of 16.7 million colors for your photographs alone.
Imagine what it would cost to run a newspaper ad of this size for a year.
Imagine how much it would cost to produce a catalog for 200 different products and keep it in hands of the consumer for an entire year.
You can accomplish all of this with a website very easily; with low development cost and almost no distribution cost.
A website is globally accessible. That means your website can be viewed by anyone, anywhere, as long as they have Internet access.
There are no physical limitations to broadcast areas on the Internet, as there are in radio, nor are there any circulation region restrictions, as in newspapers or magazines.
With a website, smaller companies can compete with the larger corporation more successfully because a website is more economical these days and not limited by size. This means a small business can present as large or creative a representation of itself on the Internet as a bigger company. With the right design, of course.
A website with email communication is convenient, easy, and safe for the customer. Email can also be very convenient for you.
Email allows easy, safe and constant communication between you and the consumer so that anyone who visits your site can contact you at any time of the day by sending an email. Unlike communications that originate from other forms of advertising, consumers who send emails don not have to deal with the many problems of everyday business:
You can respond to all your customer inquiries at the same time, and do it when you have a free moment, not in the middle of rush hour, or when someone calls to ask for product information or directions to your location.
You can also save money with improved customer support and better ways of answering questions.
If your employees spend a lot of time answering the same questions and sending out the same material, you can reduce that labor cost significantly by providing the information on the website within an FAQ (frequently asked questions) page.
Your employees can avoid having to mail or fax information for over 1,000 phone call solicitations in a one-year period simply by providing the information on your site. That improves on labor costs and provides a real cost savings in reduced long distance phone bills (for faxes) and postage.
Your website can take orders while you sleep, because your site will allow people to place orders on your website at any time, day or night.
Your website can inform, educate, sell, advertise, serve your current customers and best of all introduce your business to new contacts worldwide.
Lastly, but most importantly:
There are no salesmen manning the store, no utilities, no insurance and no payroll. Computers do not need a benefit package or overtime. For every second of every day, your website will be working for you at a fraction of your current payroll employees!
When considering the cost of a website, here are four facts to keep in mind that might help you make your decision:
1. Busy households
often turn to the internet when they are searching for a product or service, far more rapidly than the yellow pages.
2. Many people
have found the initial cost of a website to be less than the cost to their business not making their presence known on the net.
3.
The cost of investing in a professional website is frequently comparable to advertising in periodicals. In fact, it is often far less
expensive than the cost of a single advertisement in a metropolitan newspaper!
4. A professional business website reaches a worldwide
audience, and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year!