Emily Carter
My most recent beach read was “The Age of the Customer” by Jim Blasingame. If you’re looking for an interesting read on the state of marketing today and the basic concepts of some things we love to talk about (cough, Inbound Marketing, cough), I recommend you check it out.
One of the main things I took away from the beginning of his book is the concept of maintaining relevancy as a business. Change can be hard, and we are living in an age where things can literally change overnight. In the past decade or so, the way that businesses operate has drastically changed with the adoption of new technologies. Even in the past couple of years, the ways that people research products and purchase items has changed significantly. Now, it’s easy to type something into Google on your phone, hit “add to shopping cart”, and be on your way. All without ever accessing a computer or contacting the business.
I remember the days of ordering clothing from a catalog by calling the phone number on the back. My my my, things are different now. These days, if I can’t find a website for a company, I usually give up and move onto the next best option (someone who HAS a website).
The question is – has your business changed at all? It’s important for businesses to keep up with the pace of consumer change. If you don’t keep up with change, you will quickly become irrelevant to the customer. Relevancy is a major key in making sales.
So what are the signs of a relevant website? As of June 2015, here are the things that Jim Blasingame sites as relevant to consumers:
- Do you have a website? (this is bare minimum here, people!)
- Having a mobile site
- Being optimized for local search
- Easy to navigate
- Having the phone number listed prominently
- Posting the physical location of your business on the site and making it easy to find
- Utilizing e-commerce where applicable
- Having customer reviews
- Having online support
Does your website contain these characteristics? If not, chances are that you need an update in your website. In order to avoid being dismissed by customers as irrelevant, these are the characteristics that your website must have.
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