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Lagging behind
According to a recent study performed by Telstra small businesses are slow to jump on the technology bandwagon. Believe it or not, but of those interviewed,
- 1 in 10 businesses with less than 20 employees don’t have a desktop PC
- A quarter did not use a standard mobile phone
- 45 % do not have smart phones and
- 50 % did not have a website or use online transactions.
The study gives the following reasons for this hesitance to embrace new technology:
- Small businesses simply can’t keep up with the latest developments
- Small businesses are not interested in the technologies
- Small businesses are cautious, nervous or afraid to embrace it.
It made me realise how uneducated small business decision makers sometimes are when it comes to the advantages these technologies bring, and how oblivious some are of how – by investing in the right equipment and technology – a small business operator can grow productivity and reach new markets.
Let’s just have a closer look at how a simple one page website can help a business grow exponentially. Often for the same investment needed to advertise in the Yellow Pages or True Local you can have a one page site with your business name and brand displayed prominently to your website visitors. Investing in a bit of search engine optimisation will make your website appear on the first page of your local area (at least) and combined with a well-researced but short Adwords campaign you will boost your website traffic and increase your website leads. That means more enquiries and potentially more sales. And other than making a small investment and appointing a web developer you did next to nothing to generate the new income! With such a quick return on investment, need I say more?
Learning about the most up-to-date technology is important. And by understanding the lifecycle of the technologies you can build replacement strategies into your business plan and therefore plan for the future.
The time is now to educate small business owners on how the technologies of the 21 century can help them and to give them confidence to use it to their full potential. Especially with a new dawning of technology waiting just around the corner…
References
- Unknown. (2011). Small businesses rejecting technology: Telstra. Available: https://www.theage.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-tech/small-businesses-rejecting-technology-telstra-20110502-1e3pi.html. Last accessed 4 May 2011.
- Unknown. (Unknown). Information technology. Available: https://www.smallbiz.nsw.gov.au/run/it/pages/it.aspx. Last accessed 4 May 2011.
- Unknown. (2011). How To Attract Advertisers To Your Web Page. Available: https://www.marketingwarriorpro.com/. Last accessed 4 May 2011.
What is Adwords? How can that help me improve my website traffic?
AdWords is Google’s main advertising product. Wikipedia describes it as encompassing “pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, cost-per-thousand (CPM) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads”.
It basically allows you to target your marketing to specific audiences and it gives you the power to control the campaign in terms of – for instance – location, language and frequency.
If you have some advertising budget at your disposal you can set up a campaign to suit your budget. This will allow you to advertise your products and/or services on the search engine result listing pages when users search on the keywords that you are targeting. If your business can ‘be found’ in this manner users are more likely to make enquiries and ultimately make a purchase, than when you do not appear on any search result pages at all.