Travel with me for a moment down this imagined scenario. You own the brick and mortar store on the corner of 23rd Street and Big Bird Boulevard. Your products are valuable, priced reasonably and your store is aesthetically pleasing. You are extremely excited about your new business and you are expecting to experience great success. You tell all your friends and family about your new store, and hope the folks traveling by your store will stop in and shop. At first, all your friends and family members are visiting and purchasing items from your store and everyone is happy, especially you. People walking or driving by occasionally stop in and purchase products as well. However, after six months, you find that your sales have considerably slowed down, and consequently, so has your cash flow. Yet, your expenses continue as normal. So what do you do?
After considerable thought you get an epiphany… advertise! And so, you purchase radio spots, TV spots and you hire the teenager next door to pass out fliers. Results, you notice more people come to your store, and once again sales are up and you are very happy. So, not only does your business begin to thrive, but it begins to flourish. Thus for your brick and mortar business, advertising becomes extremely important.
What you have just learned is that your little store on 23rd street and Big Bird Boulevard is just a small building occupying a little space in a huge country, and unless people know you are there you cannot and will not be successful.
Now let’s switch this to your online business. You go through all the expense and time to develop a beautiful interactive website with fantastic products, pay portal, opt-in box, valuable information, links, tools, etc., and you tell your friends and family about your online business. But remember, you only have a limited amount of friends and family. Initially, you receive some traffic from the folks you know and maybe their friends. But, very soon, you notice the traffic to your website has either slowed down or stopped. Why? In order for people to visit your website, they must know your business exist. Cyber- land is vast and wide, advertising is your window for others to view.
Think about the thousands, possibly millions of businesses which occupy Cyberland (cyberspace) globally! The only way to make your presence known is by calling attention to your website. How do you call attention to your site? You must advertise. Stay tune for the next blog on ways to advertise online.
DocsMusings,
Dr. Dee
(Note: Photos courtesy of Goggle Images)