What is the second thing you do right after you have a business idea and only before you spend hours cracking your head thinking which website platform is suitable for you?
The last thing that your new brand business should do is to spend all your money creating a new website.
What is a Brand-New Business?
For us, a brand-new business refers to a business owner who has never owned a business before. We often create and develop websites for business owners beginning a new venture, but that is somewhat different. What we’re talking about here is the people who are new to the business.
Does It Mean We Don’t Have Faith in New Business Owners?
Of course not! We genuinely understand that everybody begins as a new business owner. As business owners ourselves, we begin as new business owners. You see, this is not about trusting in your business but doing yourself a disservice.
We remember the time when we set up our first business. We have invested a huge amount of money in a website, and we made big mistakes that cost us both emotionally and financially. Luckily, we figured things out well in the end.
During that time, we would have appreciated someone telling us straight that investing thousands of dollars in a website might not work right now. So, in today’s post, we will share your important insights on why investing thousands of dollars into your new business website might not be the smartest idea of all.
You Need to Test Your Idea
Ideas are always amazing. They appear into your heads at the most inconvenient times, and they light a fire within you. You might think you have a brilliant idea, but do you realize whether your customer understands what you are offering?
Are your customers eager to pay you money for that? Is your business viable long-term? It will help if you test your business idea first. Here are some tips for you to consider:
- Begin by setting up a cheap site
- Be familiar with other marketing efforts such as social media, email marketing, SEO, and content marketing. Learn as much as you can. Then, make a buzz about your business and drive traffic to your website.
- Participate in membership groups to get feedback, make friends, and ask questions. These groups will also teach you more about social media marketing and content marketing. You will find many awesome membership websites online, but Atomic and Content Marketing Academy are two of the best, and they have changed our business for the better.
- Assess how successful your idea is. Many businesses often stay within the same sector, but they only change their offering to something more appealing for their target audience. They sometimes niche down as well, providing more target services.
We don’t like to lie, but we felt overwhelmed with all the available data when we first started. That’s why it will help if you begin slowly without the pressure of website spending and loads of money on a new website.
Change is Permanent
Remember that businesses are continuously changing, but nothing changes so quickly as in your business’s first 12-18 months. Just visualize yourself investing thousands of dollars in your site, only for your business to evolve just a few months after.
At first, you may assume it is not a big deal. After all, you can change the text on your website. But that’s a wrong move.
Specific key factors must inform any great website. Below are the important aspects that might change early on in your business.
- Your target audience, and not only their location, sex, or age, but other stuff as well. Things like what problems they are experiencing, their ultimate goal, and their biggest fear. You must create your website in a way that appeals to your target market.
- Your main services might also change. Don’t forget that many business owners change their offerings within the first 12 to 18 months.
- What do you like your users to do? It is not at all times as easy as “Buy Now.” There are times when your target audience needs a bit more persuading to invest in you. That’s why you should consider your user’s journey first. For instance, should your consumers sign up for your email list? If yes, each page has to be equipped for that action.
Above are just some of the examples we consider when we design your website. But in reality, there are a lot more things that go into it, such as a long video call with our clients, sending them our website questionnaire, and undertake our research as well.
If you do not clarify the answers to the above questions, you are not ready to invest. But there’s no need to worry. It’s expected that these things will change within the first 12 months of your business.
Do you have a website professionally created before? Then you might find yourself spending more money again to put everything right or else. Your website won’t speak to your target market. It’s lose-lose, either way.
There is Less Pressure
We’re not underestimating the website spending of our web packages. NZ$2500 to NZ$5000 is big money to spend for many small business owners. They have to be confident they can make that money back. The chance is, investing thousands of cash in a new website will harm your business finances.
Take note that investing in a website right away means you are already thousands down, without knowledge of social media marketing, content marketing, SEO, and email marketing all behind you. Therefore, you need to spend your time learning about such marketing tools as well.
You are at a great advantage if you have an existing platform backing you up. In addition, you know how to market your business and utilize content management systems. What’s more, you’re aware of what you are selling and your target audience. The best part is that you might even establish a loyal audience.
That takes massive pressure off when investing in a new website as you can concentrate on what is essential—and that’s your business.
Identify Who You Are and What You Stand For
Are you planning to invest thousands of dollars into creating a website? It will help if you learn who you are and the things you stand for first.
Before we create our customer’s websites, we always ask them to describe their brand using particular words such as innovative, bold, funny, or cheeky. How you place yourself in the market informs everything from copy, images to design.
You would be shocked how much your business will transform even if you think you have those nailed down. When our business started, we were one of those “yes men” designing sites for under a thousand New Zealand dollars for any business that would come through our doors.
As our knowledge and expertise have evolved, so have we. As a result, we now perceive ourselves as teachers in our field.
However, this entire process takes a huge amount of time, not to mention there are many things you need to consider concerning your brand. Indeed, that involves your style, branding, colors, fonts, and logo, among other things. But it is also your tone of voice or how you speak to your target audience.
Ask these questions to yourself:
- Are you formal or informal?
- Do you integrate humor into your content?
- Do you have a teacher connection with your audience or more like a friendship bond?
You see, it takes time to set your brand, and there is no point in having a website created if you have not considered who you are as a brand and how you present yourself to your market.
Final Thoughts
There was a time when a client approached us about having their website designed. He was one of those brand-new business owners. Instead of accepting the offer and taking his hard-earned money, we suggested he set up a website on his own.
Would you mind not getting us wrong? What we mean by that is we like our clients to be on the same page as us—someone with a great sense of who they are and equipped with the know-how they need to build a successful business.
In the end, he was grateful for our advice, and we’re sure that he will come back to us down the line when he is ready.
We always believe that successful clients are happy clients. They are more likely to have faith in us, work with us, and suggest us in the future if they achieve success from their website.
So, the question is, have you ever invested in a brand new website before? How did you discover the process? Maybe this post has made you realize about investing thousands of dollars. Whatever the case, we’d love to know your thoughts.
We hope this guide has been educational and informative at the same time. Please share your insights with us by leaving your comments down below!
If you need further help with this topic, you can contact Web Digital. Aside from offering web design services, we also provide web hosting and other plans. Web Digital is a well-established web design agency, and we can help you with your website design needs.