INFORMATION
There are four incredible SUB-categories of informational benefits every website potentially offers.  The first benefit is AVAILABILITY.  Your website is available 24/7 to offer your customers and prospects the information or products they desire at a time they desire it: weekends, after-hours, holidays, while you’re at a wedding reception or on a vacation cruise. Consider it a free 24-hour customer service agent.

The second informational benefit is that it satisfies consumer intel needs.  A website offers QUALITATIVE information.  Consumers love to buy but they hate to be sold to. Fifty years ago a consumer would venture into a department store and a friendly salesman would both demonstrate and explain the benefits of a product.  In the consumer’s mind the salesman was a consultant – not a salesman.  Employees at home improvement stores enjoy that perception nowadays. When a person enters a hardware store, it never appears these associates are salesmen trying to push product on us.  This used to be true for many home electrical products such as TV’s, blenders, car stereos, etc.  As consumer savvy rose, the need for in-store consultants diminished and the consultant became the dreaded salesman.  The phrase, “No, I’m just looking” arose as the congenial strategy to ward off these predators. Today consumers not only educate themselves online, they price-compare leisurely after hours in the privacy of their homes without perceiving any sales pressure.  A website allows prospects to consider you a consultant before they buy.  It allows them to “just look” without someone watching over their shoulder. Without a website, they’ll educate themselves at your competitor’s site.

The third great informational benefit involves the limitless amount of information you can provide your customers and prospects.  A website offers QUANTITIVE opportunities.  Considering prospects are intelligent consumers, how much information can one derive from a 3.5”x2” business card?  Even if printed on both sides?  A website is a business card, a flyer, a brochure, radio commercial (audio), TV ad (video) and promotional event all in one! A website allows you to constantly change and update your information to best persuade prospects you are the right choice without the heavy costs of reprinting materials or reproducing media ads.
The final informational benefit is FEEDBACK; both direct and indirect information you can mine from visitors to help you sell more effectively.  Direct feedback is information your visitors provide to help you with your marketing.  The most popular and simple example is the Survey or Poll.  Here you pose a short question to your visitors and allow them to tell you what’s most important.  For example, a Kitchen & Bath renovation business might survey their visitors with a question about make-over allowance.  The survey could offer four different tiers of renovation budgets and see if there’s a predominant amount most visitors choose.  If so, the business can now design marketing materials to appeal to their budget:   Look What Your Kitchen Can Become For Less Than $10,000!

Indirect feedback is information you can glean from visitor stats.  By looking at your site’s statistics you can determine which pages are visited most often, which have the most repeat visitors, which pages visitors stay on the longest, etc.  This information allows you to deduce what information or items are drawing attention and holding it.  A popular page with lengthy visits is evidence that something on that page is of great interest to your customers.  Knowing what interests your prospects is the start to selling them what they want.

LOW COST
Compared to any form of primary advertising/marketing (radio, print, TV, event promotion) a website is by far the least expensive tool for communicating the quantity and quality of information needed to attract sales.  Compare both the size and time restraints of a website versus a biz card, a yellow pages ad, a radio spot, or a TV commercial.  Then compare the cost difference.  Per word or per image, THERE IS NO CHEAPER FORM OF ADVERTISING.

INTERNET VIDEOS
If a pictures says a thousand words, how about video?  Internet commercials are cheaper than TV and give visual proof of your professionalism that radio and print ads cannot.  Whether you create an online commercial using your own digital video camera showing before and after examples of your work, live customer testimonials, or a brief question and answer spot, prospects will immediately focus their attention toward that aspect of your site.  Need proof?
—People prefer watching above reading or listening alone.
—81% of the people will watch the entire video.
—Prospects remember 20% of what they read, 30% of what they hear, and 70% of what they see & hear.
—Internet commercials increase prospect awareness 80% and increase likeliness to purchase products or services by 46%.--- Lightning Cast

VIDEO RAPPORT--- The most important element in any sales cycle (even considering price) is the rapport a prospect feels toward the salesperson.  Nobody buys from people or companies they do not like.  Your website allows your prospects to get to know you and your staff personally through either static bios or dynamic video.  Before they enter your store, or call your office, or click to buy, they will have seen your face, perhaps heard your voice, and thus most likely will have developed some rapport with you over your competition.

LIVE TESTIMONIALS --- From a low cost website, prospects can view video testimonials from actual clients or view the quality of the work you perform with before-and-after examples.  How much better is that than some quote that says,
“Working with ABC company was a real joy.
 I’m going to recommend them to all of my friends.” 
Stacey B. Flushing, MI

INTERNET SEARCHES
If you have customers between the ages of 12 and 50 the chances are extremely high they do a great deal of searching online.  The internet is quickly overtaking the hardcopy phone book as the go-to when looking for companies, products and services.  More and more people are wise to the ways of searching for local companies.   Simply put, if you’re not showing up in their searches, shame on you.  But I am showing up in their searches.  I have an online yellow pages listing, why do I need a website?  Let me answer this way.  You can advertise in the Yellow Pages without a phone number as well, but would you?  If that sounds ludicrous let me offer this argument:  You could put your address, your store hours and other information in the yellow pages ad but just leave off the phone number.  That way prospects would be required to drive to your store.  A real live warm prospect!  Why hasn’t anyone else thought of this?   Because it’s a terrible idea.
Advertising online without a website is the same as advertising in the yellow pages without a phone number.  You’ll be inviting prospects to go to a competitor.  Why is this? —Because the only way you’re allowing them to learn more about your company is by inviting them to call a mysterious voice that may or may not have the information they want.  And for the internet savvy, calling takes more time than just clicking to a competitor.  Phone calls worked for the past 70 years!  True…because there was no other option.    Options are what change behavior.  People walked before horses and cars.  People drove before airplanes.  People used to write personal letters before phone, emails, or text messaging.  They will call once they get enough information to determine you may be the company for them.  Provide as much information as possible to allow all the various personalities to feel they’ve “got enough” to warrant a call.  For some that might be just a phone number or nearby address.  For others it may be testimonials or industry articles.
The information highway is like a real highway.  A sign out front helps people know you’re there.  Let those who search the internet know your there as well.  Put a sign and a location online.

NEWSLETTERS
There are really only three ways to increase your sales.  (1) Sell to new customers.  (2)  Sell more products/services to current customers.  (3) Re-Sell to past customers.
RE-SELL -- Instead of focusing their efforts on those who have already "voted with their wallets,” businesses try to recruit a constant stream of new customers. This is called churning. As a result, many companies spend a lot of money attracting strangers rather than reselling to those who have already trusted them enough to have purchased previously.

In his book called The Loyalty Effect, Frederick F. Reichheld writes: "Raising customer retention rates by five percentage points could increase the value of an average customer by 25 to 100 percent." 

One sure fire way to raise retention rates is to keep in contact with the past customers.  TOUCH them after the sale.  Let them know you appreciated their business and say, “Hey, here’s some other things we can offer you.”  The most cost effective and least annoying way to accomplish this is through emailed newsletters.  Newsletters allow you to continually educate your customers with information that’ll help them better utilize or manage the products they bought from you as well as tantalize them with specials and inside offers that persuade them to buy again.  Although customers need to “opt-in” to a newsletter (to comply with anti-Spam laws) the newsletter, unless emailed too often, carries none of the negative stigma of telesales soliciting.  What’s great is the newsletter allows the reader to click-thru to read complete articles, click-thru to your site, or forward the email to a friend or relative that might be interested in the articles and/or specials.  What’s even better is all this activity can be tracked.  That’s right, you can see how many are opened, what they’re clicking on, if they’re forwarding the email, etc.  This gives you key information on what your customers are finding interesting and allows you use this insight to formulate a strategy for the next newsletter; hopefully moving them closer and closer toward another purchase.  The best part about the newsletter is it keeps your company in a top-of-mind position developing positive rapport and goodwill so customers are more apt to re-patronize your business or refer you to friends or colleagues.

TRACKING
As a business owner have you had this thought?― I’ve tried advertising in the past.  It doesn’t work for my business.   I find that the vast majority of business people who voice this objection have absolutely NO tracking or monitoring system in place to accurately assess the success of their advertising.  They typically run a newspaper ad, maybe some radio, throw a spot in the high school program, a handful of flyers and then wait for the tidal wave of customers. 

What I recommend, regardless of what advertising you employ, is that you tie all your advertising back to your website.  By monitoring how many visitors your site is getting during ad campaigns you will have a much better indication of whether or not the campaign is working.  If you get a hundred new people hitting your site every day or week, but get no calls, then start analyzing the pros and cons of your website.  What’s on the site or what’s missing that’s keeping these prospects from following through? The traditional media is obviously working.  It’s driving people to your site.  Your site should then drive them to the phone, or your store front, or to buy online.
A truth that’s worth repeating is this:  Advertising is not your sales force.  Advertising is merely a shepherd trying to herd the flock to your sales force.    The only way to determine if the shepherd is doing his job is to measure how many of the flock have been rounded up.  The best way to do this is with verifiable statistics.  Even better than direct mail that tracks coupons returning to your store are website stats.  Coupons measure only those that have completed the sales cycle.  Website stats measure those who were interested but wanted more information.  And to that extent you can better analyze the effectiveness of an advertising campaign or medium.

The real question a business needs to consider is why not have a website?   If it’s cost, you can either make it yourself or hire someone to design a good site well under $1,000.  Again, compared to business cards, a yellow page ad, radio, television, or newspapers, there is no other form of advertising that can offer so much for such a low price. If it’s technophobia, if you hate all things computer―other people can handle absolutely everything for you.  You don’t even need a computer.  If it’s lack of understanding the benefits, I hope I’ve been able to clarify some of the major ways it can serve your customers, your marketing, and your overall sales.  

I’m sure in the past there were businessmen who discounted radio or television advertising early in their ascent as well.  But true entrepreneurs always focus on what can be.  They project their business into the future… and the future of advertising and sales is absolutely tied to the internet.