Having designed and maintained websites most of my working life, I have now decided to branch out and offer my services to businesses who need a little help in this area.
When I first started working the internet was in its infancy. I remember vividly sending an email to a customer and then ringing them up to see if they had received it as it was the first time either of us had gone techno!
Things have moved on rapidly in the last twenty years. Now just having a website is not enough for businesses – we not only have to provide a means of reading lots of information about us as a company, but also we are expected to be able to provide a fully integrated on-line shop. If you aren’t that ahead technologically then you will potentially lose out on sales.
What has also massively changed is the channels of communication available to us. Marketing used to be in the basic forms of mailshots, advertising, PR and product promotion. However, there is a real shift towards keeping your clients constantly up to date with your organisation’s activities and this is easily achieved by social media. Clients expect to read about the ‘personal face’ of your business, they want to know immediately about changes to the way you work or offers you provide. This ‘soft’ marketing has to be carefully executed and crafted – else you get lost in the noise that is the web.