Nearly half the shoppers recently surveyed by Deloitte and Touche reported they bought goods and services online. Just as significant: Nine out of 10 shoppers said they had done their price-comparison shopping online before making purchases at physical stores.
This underscores the value of a website to any retail business. Still, 60 percent of American businesses are not yet online, according to figures issued by Microsoft in November 2006.
As more business-owners realize they need a web presence, many are just getting started online. They may not yet understand how to use their website as a marketing tool and how critical it is that their site properly reflects the company’s brand.
Smaller companies new to the web think they can tap a little from other budgets to cover their website expenses. This may work initially, but it’s doomed to fail as the company grows. Even worse, it could damage the brand and hurt revenue.
This is why savvy decision-makers view a website as an integral part of a company’s overall marketing effort, and dedicate a budget for development and launch and ongoing updates and upgrades.
Fortune 500 companies routinely do this. The scale may be different, but small- and medium-sized business-owners who adopt the concept will also be able to use their sites to grow their businesses.
Companies expecting to operate a website that will help expand business should carve out between eight to 15 percent of their overall marketing budget per year for website development, services and marketing.
If your company plans to spend $100,000 this year for marketing, you should earmark $8,000 to $15,000 for your site, depending on how aggressively you want to use it as a tool.
Companies that do most of their business online, such as e-commerce sites, should allocate more – 25 to 50 percent. The ongoing cost for such a site – to keep it attractive, functioning at peak performance, always updated, effectively promoted and advertised – is higher.
In some cases, businesses can use a website to act as a sales agent for the company, or to automate part of the business to reduce labor costs.
Such websites may cost more to develop, but your return on investment pays off quickly.
To find out more about budgeting for your business’s website services and marketing, contact Santa Clarita Web Services (eSCV). The locally based company provides top quality, cost-effective web solutions including website hosting, website development, e-commerce and online marketing for businesses of all sizes.
For more information, please call 661-799-9100, send an email to support@escv.com, or visit escv.com.