The web is the place to do business, and those who don’t use it are doomed to be surpassed by those who do. Right? So what about businesses that need a physical location? Restaurants, clothing stores, and handmade products often rely on face-to-face approaches to create or deliver their goods. How can those kinds of companies make good use of the Web in marketing themselves?
One thing to keep in mind is that the Web is a visual medium. Don’t focus on talking about your products: show them. For a restaurant, you need pictures of your location as well as your food. Especially in hard economic times, going out to eat is a big deal for a lot of people. They want to know that they’ll be in a comfortable atmosphere. Of course, pictures of your signature dishes should be a given. For clothing stores, it depends on your selling points, but in most cases you’ll want images of your location as well. If you offer personal attention, you may want to include a video explaining the process and why it’s so good. People can easily buy clothes online, so your location must offer something they couldn’t get online: tailoring, ambience, personalized service, something.
That, in fact, is key to any brick-and-mortar marketing online. Most products and services are easily available online now. Your web presence must give them some reason to leave their home or office and come in, or at least to call and talk to you. Images are helpful. So are coupons and other promotions that must be redeemed in person. Having a physical store makes it more, not less, important to have a top-notch presentation online.
Remember in all this to always seek good value. Putting up a lot of poorly done photos will do you more harm than no photos at all. Don’t just grab the first employee handy to take pictures. If possible, hire a competent photographer and/or designer to create your web presence. Attractive presentation will draw in more customers, and in the age of photo-based social media like Pinterest and Tumblr may become a new source of advertising in its own right.
