Parish Cake Autumn 2017

usiness
Harnessing the
Power of the
Web in theWeald
You don’t need to rely on customers walking past
your shop or office door, writes Emma Wood of
Hothouse - Wealden Growth Agency
I WANT to share with you just how important a website
and the internet is to any business, particularly in
rural areas such as ours. The World Wide Web has
transformed the way that businesses trade
regardless of just how remote some might be.
Whilst numerous businesses have risen to
the challenge of harnessing the web, there
is often apathy from some small and even
large business owners to having a website
and putting their business online. Here are
my reasons why it is so critical to do so.
i. Potential customers are searching for you
and you aren’t there. Consumers use the
internet to search for products and services, as
well as to do research about products and services
that they need. Your competitors are putting their
goods online and so should you.
ii. With a mobile-responsive, optimised website to
direct traffic to your products and services giving the
customer what they need, you can compete.
iii. Online traffic is trackable: Smaller businesses,
particularly rural ones, do have smaller budgets.
With online marketing, you can start by investing
small amounts and be able to measure the results. By
utilising direct response messaging on your offline
advertising you can drive potential customers to
dedicated landing pages on your website, enabling
you to better monitor return from your investment
in publications, television, radio or other media.
iv. Because digital marketing is trackable from day one,
this means that you can measure which channel or
message is getting better sales conversions. You can
adapt your messaging, change your promotions and
alter your products along the way.
v. When you have a website you convert more business.
People will search for a product or service, or name
of your business, and go to your website. In today’s
world, most searches are conducted on a mobile
telephone rather than going, for example, to a
printed directory.
BELOW: Emma
Wood is founder of
INTOtheWeald.co.uk
more info
vi. With various advertising tools available you can
reach a global audience. It is easy to run a campaign
across the globe. If your product or service is
transportable you can increase your turnover and
profits from international customers and not be
reliant purely on visitors to your locality, or those
residing in Cranbrook or Sissinghurst and the
surrounding area.
And of course with local customers in mind it is also
important to remember that according to Google
statistics:
• 72% of customers that do a local search visit a store
within five miles
• Local searches lead to 50% of mobile visitors to visit
stores within a day
• 78% of mobile searches result in offline purchases.
So no matter what size, nature or location of your
enterprise in the Weald, I cannot emphasise enough
how important is it that you harness the World Wide
Web by having a website to promote your business.
If you would like to discuss how you can make the most
of trading on the World Wide Web call Emma on
01580 715772.
Emma Wood is founder of INTOtheWeald.co.uk – the
community and enterprise portal that supports and
promotes all things local, managing director of Wealden
Growth Agency - HotHouseGrowth.co.uk and strategy &
business development director at MaxMediaGlobal.com –
International Expansion Specialists.
Parish Cake • Autumn 2017 39