So many new businesses start their journey on social media. Particularly for creators, showcasing work on these platforms can quickly turn into requests for products, commissions, and services. Whilst it’s manageable to run a business through social media and many apps are updating with services and features to enable this kind of commercial use, many small businesses very quickly experience problems if they solely rely on these platforms. Custom web design is a great way for small businesses to transition their brand into a more manageable format. If you’ve started a small business on social media and want to ensure the growth of your concept and customer base, keep reading as we’ll explain why custom web design should be the next step for you.
One of the key problems business owners run into on social media is managing communications. Enquiries and orders are difficult to keep on top of through direct messages alone, particularly when customer numbers are growing. Messages are easily overlooked or missed, and this prevents business owners from ensuring the best levels of customer service during transactions. This, along with payment and shipping services often being outsourced to different sites and apps, means that the overall customer experience is often disjointed and complicated. The business owner and customer are forced to commit extra time to communicating through the transaction process. This can affect both customer satisfaction rates and also the growth potential of the overall business. If customers require a timely and complicated dialogue, there’s a limit to how many enquiries can be processed and responded to per day. The number of customer enquiries that convert into sales will also be limited, as time consuming transactions statistically result in customers pulling out of the sale.
This is where custom web design comes in. Custom web design offers the answer to all of these obstacles and more - giving business owners the chance to streamline processes and transactions, have full control over the customer journey, and still make the most of social media exposure. By resituating your business onto either a website built from scratch or a custom designed platform website, you can ensure that your customers experience the full impact of your brand and find it easy to acquire your goods or services. You can enhance the user experience of your site by integrating your portfolio, contact details, and e-commerce opportunities. All interactions can happen in one space.
The better quality your custom web design, the more you can move away from conducting business through social media - instead, it can become a key marketing tool that recruits business and showcases your goods or services, driving business through to your website for the main transactions and communications. Social media can remain a key element of your business and be directly integrated with your website itself, yet you’ll no longer rely on it to fulfill all of your business needs. Also, as your business continues to grow, so can your custom designed website. You can adapt your platform to suit the needs of your business and update your design as needed. You’re not bound by the capabilities of social media platforms in order to meet the requirements of your customers.
If you’ve been struggling to grow your business and are currently working from social media platforms, you should consider custom web design as your next step in development. There are so many options for integrating social media with custom designed sites, it’s well worth your while to make contact with a designer. See how you can make your business easier to manage and more presentable to your customer base - it could be easier than you think and make a world of difference to the size of your audience.
Contact our team at Kartogram today to discuss your options - we’d love to hear from you!