47.6 percent of business sales come from online.

You may think blimey let’s get me a user-name and password and get posting - because of the staggering fact that nearly 50% of business sales are now being done online.

 

Before we go too far down the wrong road let us just say that we haven’t got a clue what the real percentage is - because we’ve made that figure up or should we say inadvertently been miss guided, just like a lot of other people are  when trying to sell something.

 

The point being, that the eye catching statements when appealing to the need and want and even the desperation of others will always stand a better chance of being believed.

 

You’ll hear many businesses say that a lot of their business is done online through the likes of Twitter and Facebook. But have you ever analysed what the vast amount of this business being done is? Well, surprisingly enough the vast amount of business being done is the sale of the service to others for online promotion, marketing, social media, advertising…… you get the drift!

 

In reality the exact amount of business sales (excluding e-commerce shops and web marketing companies) being done is assumingly quite low, in comparison for the time and money spent remember we’re talking sales here, honest to goodness receipt of some Wedge, some Wonga or as the bank would say credits to your bank account.

 

Sure you’ll get some brand awareness, sure you’ll get some quotes to do, sure you’ll be asked to provide samples for free….but how much of it will turn into a sale?

 

Don’t get us wrong we’ve had sales from people and businesses on Twitter and even Facebook…..but nowhere near the volume of what businesses are lead to believe when compared to the time spent in posting and commenting online.

 

Perhaps some people will say to us “oh mate” you’re doing it all wrong – you should be posting at 17.15pm every evening because that’s when commuters are on the train home looking at their blackberry’s because their board stiff.

 

There is a need for your business to get online, there is a need for your business to become online savvy – but please do not do so at the detriment of other traditional methods like talking to people either on the phone or face to face…you know the real old way of doing things.

 

Concern is that many businesses are heading online in the hope of it being an immediate answer to their prayers, reality is that it’s going to be far from immediate.

 

There are some businesses now that employ people in the role of a Social Media Manger (or even a bigger and better fancy job title) because they can afford to do so, plus their eyes are still firmly on the transitional methods of sales.

 

There are some businesses that employ the service of an online marketing company or agency again because they can afford to do so and their eyes are still firmly on the transitional methods of sales.

 

If you’re a business who cannot afford to employ a person or the services of a specific online marketing company then don’t try and do it yourself at the risk of everything else – because your business will have a higher percentage of failure – but the plus point will be that you’ll have a nice online profile with some nice images, postings and comments.

 

Here at Connect WM we’re working on developing and expanding our Marketing WM section to help and assist local businesses with their marketing needs, looking at ways to provide solutions for the small business to be realistic in what they need to do and / or can afford.

 

If you need to connect to an online presence or would like to connect to marketing via a more traditional method then please let us know – more importantly if you just wish to talk about it and what options there are, let us know.