I recently came across a statistic that disturbed me, not that I wasn’t already slightly disturbed in a nice sort of way. 
That number that had jolted me was that nearly half of all businesses (46% to be precise) don’t have a website. Did I hear someone saying.. “you have to be joking!” (I have just checked the calendar and I have verified by the way that it is 2010 not 1910).
To make more of a point on this, a recent survey by Discover Business Watch found “Of the 55 percent of small business owners who don’t have a Web site, 57 percent say their businesses will never have one“. Now this is starting to go from the sublime to the ridiculous.
The other not insignificant statistic that businesses should keep in mind is that 93% of buying decisions start with an online search and if you don’t have a web presence it makes it a little difficult (to say the least) to turn up in the search results and people to make an enquiry and consequently buy, if you don’t have a website.
The really fascinating thing about this is that the business owner or CEO could even put up a blog on WordPress very easily for less than $30 with features such as
- Your own business domain name (Cost $20)
- Videos from YouTube (Free)
- Email subscription to the blog (Free)
- Images (Free)
- Content loaded as easily as using Microsoft Word
- Links to other content and websites
- Menu across the top
- Polls and surveys for your customers
- Traffic statistics for the Blog/Website
- Moderation of comments
- Plus many other free features provide by plugins at no cost
Note: Cost is less than $40 and a bit of time and help from your teenage son, daughter or friend if necessary.
So with that in mind here are the 10 simple questions to assess your CEO’s marketing IQ.
- Do we have a web presence (website or even a blog)?
- Are you still spending money on advertising in the Yellow Pages?
- Are you still spending a majority of your marketing dollars on direct mail marketing?
- Are you marketing by fax broadcasts?
- Are you still “thinking” about having a website for your company?
- Have you heard of social media for business?
- Do most of our reps still cold call?
- Do you use print media for most of your advertising dollars?
- Are our carrier pigeons still alive?
- Do we have our milk delivered by horse and cart?
So if you think your CEO still has an excuse not to have a web presence so that people can find your business and buy from you then I think you should check your CEO for a pulse.
So do you know of any businesses that don’t have a website?