When tourists look for information on a local business in the International Falls area, chances are they are looking online. But less than half of the businesses in northeast Minnesota communities have a website.
This is the message John Bennett shared with area business owners and employees of the business sector last week at a workshop about reaching customers in the 21st century. Bennett of the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Community Vitality shared his expertise on economic development at the event, which was organized by the International Falls Area Chamber of Commerce.
“Connecting with people on the move, who are coming into town for the weekend, or local customers is something businesses should take a look at,” Bennett said. “This is especially important when this part of the region relies heavily on tourism.”
Businesses who do not have an online presence in any capacity may fall behind as the Internet increasingly becomes the source of finding information on-the-go, he explained.
By 2014, it is estimated that mobile Internet should take over desktop Internet usage, he said.
“It’s coming, and business owners need to be prepared for that,” Bennett said, emphasizing the importance of having a mobile site to allow customers who use a smart phone to quickly call or find the business address and hours of operation.
“It’s important that your business keeps up with changing trends,” he said to the local group at the workshop. “A lot of this changes so fast, but you have to keep your eye on these people who will have a smart phone.”
Bennett said many efforts take only a few minutes and are simple, but attract customers. These include “claiming” a business on Google, having contact information on the home page of the website, and using a free website converter service to make a website mobile-friendly.
He noted that customers not familiar with the area may not even know a business exists if it does not have an online presence.
“Business owners need to know this is happening and need to figure out how to adapt to it,” Bennett said.
He said he personally knows this experience when he’s new to an area and looks for restaurants or places to stay.
“If it’s not listed, it doesn’t exist to me,” Bennett said. “It’s not in my world at all and I’m not a potential customer to them at all.”
Claiming a business on Google and allowing people to find it in a general keyword search can attract customers. Performing these tasks to make sure your business information is accurate online and is searchable is not an expensive or tedious task, he said.
He added that businesses don’t necessarily need to have everything on their website or have an elaborately developed site, but having accessible information is an effective way to reach customers.
Without the business owner taking initiative in creating information online, customers only have third-party websites to get information on that business, he said.
“There are several third-party websites that have information on businesses whether you’re aware of it or not,” Bennett said.
Bennett worked with a Northeast Minnesota business owner who said that once she changed her information on Google Maps to the correct location, “she hasn’t received one phone call from a customer looking for it,” he said.
Customers who have to guess whether your business is open or not according to online information may choose not to visit it, he added. This information needs to be added by the business owner to Google Places.
“If it says it’s open, you know it’s going to be open,” he said, adding that claiming a “Google Place” also helps when people are also collecting information from a third-party website.
These initiatives help businesses “take control” of the information customers are already coming across online, he said.
“Before you claim your place, anyone under the sun can go in and edit information about your business,” he said. He added that “business aggregators” such as superpages.com, merchantcircle.com and infousa.com automatically collect information about businesses and tries to sell it. “You need to make sure your information is accurate on there, because more than likely, it’s not.”
Bennett emphasized that listing simple information is key, since customers are not using their smart phone to do “extensive research” on a business, but likely to find it and get what they need.
It’s not enough in this day and age for businesses to just be found online, but in a competing world, businesses also need to appeal to customers, he said. This can be done through pictures, videos, reviews and special offers — all online.
Bennett gave the example of looking up International Falls in his smart phone application that searches for deals in the area.
“There were no deals in I-Falls,” he shared with the group.
Bennett said businesses can see the importance of having an online presence by using Google Tracker. This tracks the way people are finding out information about a particular business.
“At the end of the day, you can track how fruitful your efforts have been,” Bennett said.
For more information on online tools for reaching customers, email Bennett at jbennett@umn.edu or call him at 218-726-6471.
