Why Would a Start-Up Consider Investing in Their Website Before Their Sales Team?
Establishing a start-up is no easy task. There’s a lot of risk and money involved to get it off the ground. However, most will agree that the risk is worth the reward. One of the investments a company considers during the beginning stages is their sales team. A sales team is a necessary element that helps to do exactly what is needed in order to maintain and expand your company – sell your products or services. However, before throwing resources into assembling a good sales team, you may want to focus on building your company website first. The following are some of the reasons why you should invest in your company website before your sales team:
1. A website is more cost effective.
A sales team is going to be expensive to put together in its initial stages. Costs matter when you’re a start-up since you have limited resources to work with. Although the sales team is important, you’re going to have to spend money in order to find the right individuals for your team, to pay the members of your team, to pay for their training and to create an effective sales strategy. Other costs will most likely include office space and all the computer and phone needs associated with sales personnel.
A website simply doesn’t cost nearly as much to set up. You only need to invest in its design and creation of content. Inbound marketing strategies that include SEO marketing, content development, blogging and more will help attract visitors that can then be turned into captured leads and new customers via strong content, calls to action and free offers. Your website can act as both your marketing team and your sales team until you are in a stronger financial position to establish an actual sales team for your brand.
2. A website will help increase awareness of your brand.
One of the ways in which a company website is more productive than a sales team is in the fact that the website can be an incredibly effective way to increase awareness of your brand. A sales team can create only so many leads on their own, and as a start-up, there probably isn’t too much awareness about the existence of your brand as of yet. A website along with an inbound marketing strategy will not only get the ball rolling in terms of attracting potential leads, it can reaches more of your target audience quicker than any sales team could. The more aware people are of your products and services, the more of a chance you have of creating sales.
3. More customers are completing the beginning stages of the buyer’s cycle on their own and on your website.
One of the reasons why a good website and a good inbound marketing plan work so well is because people and companies alike are doing their own research in order to find solutions to their problems. This leads them to finding out about your brand if you’ve done a good job creating awareness of it. Once potential customers have landed on your website, they will do the research by reading through your information and content, thereby generating interest. This eliminates a number of steps that the sales team would have to go through in order to reach the point in the buyer’s cycle in which they can capture their leads.
4. A website will help provide valuable information that can affect your sales strategy.
If you invest in your company website first, you’ll be able to use analytic tools to determine important information, such as the buyer persona of your customers, what kind of incentives they tend to go for the most, how they became aware of your website and more. This type of data can help reduce the time and resources it takes to establish and effective sales strategy for your sales team.
While having a sales team is an obvious must, as a start-up company you should strongly consider establishing your company website first.
Read more: What Is Marketing Automation?