We recently upgraded our website with a new design and combined our separate blog with our corporate site to make it easier to learn about marketing from the staff of Wave Universal. This major overhaul has ushered in a big question — does a website still matter?
Social media has become the focus of business marketing. Many businesses now have a Facebook page before they have a website. This raises the question of whether or not it’s necessary to have a website anymore, especially if everything you want to push to your customers is built into social media (your contact information, store hours, products, etc.).
For small businesses specifically it is much easier and cheaper to focus on Twitter or Facebook than a website with server costs, web design, content management systems, graphic design and all the other facets of building your own dot-com. While it may be easier it’s selling yourself and your business short.
A website and a Facebook page (which we’ll focus on for the rest of the article) are both methods of “marketing” your business. Both are equivalent to a flyer or an informational brochure — they both contain information about your business, product and/or services. A website will still allow you to offer additional information, be more creative and unique (in design and branding) and even allow you to turn your website into a storefront to sell your products.
Imagine Coke and Pepsi don’t have a website… or even a billboard, a display — any marketing at all. All they have are Facebook pages. Besides the logos (Red vs. Blue) what is the difference between them? Each can offer different images or personality through interaction but overall there is nothing one can do the other can’t.
As a final example — this blog. Whether you are a client, a potential client (contact us) or a passer-by you were somehow driven to our website because of our blog. Maybe now you know a little more about us which means our marketing has been successful. We didn’t do this with a Facebook page, we did it with our website. Maybe you were impressed by our new design.
Notes:
- A website allows you to be a unique flower against your competitors.
- A website allows you to offer more than what you’re restricted to on social media sites.
- A website allows you to further control your branding and create a unique look-and-feel that matches your business.
