Websites As a CWebsites As a Communication Tool

Websites As a Communication Tool

How many business owners still consider their websites to be a virtual brochure where the content never changes and very little is shared about the product or service behind the site? How many websites do you run across with old contact information, photos dated from 1999 and a clear disregard for the visitor? From what I see, too many.free todo app Websites are commonly referred to as communication tools yet are rarely used as such. When i bring up blogging to business owners, I get "sounds like work to me".

Well if you don't already know it, communicating effectively is work. However, a website that is built for managing and sharing your message can make the job of communicating much easier. Maybe those who feel blogging is work also feel that relating to their prospects, clients or staff is work.

Think about it for a moment. What is the difference between typing a memo and emailing it out to your intended audience vs. typing a blog which would automatically be distributed to a subscriber list? There is absolutely no difference in the time it takes to create either the memo or the blog, but the fact that blogs allow for shared comments and are centrally located is vastly more effective than email, fax or paper dropped in an inbox.

But blogging is only the beginning of the potential for websites built as a communication tool. What about sharing presentations, tutorials and demonstrations through integrated video and audio? How about uploading and sharing of word docs, graphic files and spreadsheets or creating unique groups for prospects, clients, vendors and staff to share content for specific group members?

Why are these features important?

As small business owners face more competition and an increasingly sophisticated marketplace, they will be forced to work more efficiently and effectively. How management, employees, prospects and customers communicate plays an extremely important role in the viability of any business model and can be overlooked all too often by smaller companies.

How would these tools be used?

Write a blog about a product and encourage feedback from customers while adding your sales and service staff to the blog subscription.

Record your best sales rep giving a presentation and upload the video to your website. (Very inexpensive yet effective)

Collaborate with staff members by sharing files and creating a blog around the collaboration then using the comments to help shape the project.

Create a restricted page for a new page on your website, invite a group of staff members to review and comment. Once finalized, make the page public by removing it from the group.