From the yellow pages to the web: 6 mistakes not to make in your digitalization strategy.

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First the Yellow Pages. Now Websites and Mobile Apps. 6 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Your Marketing Strategy.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
First the yellow pages. Now websites and mobile apps. Mistakes to avoid.
Today everything has changed.
1. The website has great potential, but it is often untapped
2. Not understanding the potential and changes
3. Marketing to gain trust
4. It's not enough to have a showcase website
5. Think about old customers too
6. Take good care of your online presence
Conclusions
First the yellow pages. Now websites and mobile apps. Mistakes to avoid.
When I was little, I remember that every year a yellow pages salesman would show up at my father's office to advertise the family business.

I remember that the cost was directly proportional to the size whatsapp number list of the advertising banner. In fact, those who had a small ad were almost not considered by potential customers if in the same category there were ads with large advertising banners. In that case, the size mattered in the minds of potential customers: the larger the ad, the more it was believed (without any objective evidence) that the company had economic capacity, therefore profits and therefore professionalism.

Let's say that it worked especially until the yellow pages had a monopoly on the market. The content of the advertising banners was almost never a study of a marketing strategy but served only to say: hey, I'm here. I'm here, call me. And whoever had the largest banner usually received more phone calls than other competitors in the category.

Today everything has changed.
The Internet began to develop in Italy in the mid-90s and companies began to rush to have a website in addition to their own post or banner on the yellow pages.

With websites, many more possibilities for presenting oneself have opened up, also because there were no longer the space limitations characteristic of paper.

This opportunity has not always been exploited and unfortunately many have maintained an approach similar to that of the yellow pages despite using a different tool .

From here, I report some common mistakes that I have been able to note down in recent years.

1. The website has great potential, but it is often untapped
The first mistake that was often made in small businesses was to believe that the website was nothing more than the digitization of the yellow pages.

Also for this reason, Seat Yellow Pages itself has had the ability to sell many websites to many of its paper volume customers.

When moving from paper to web, you have to act differently because times have changed compared to before, the target is different, the possibilities of acquiring information have expanded and above all they are easily reachable.

2. Not understanding the potential and changes
The second mistake was not fully understanding the potential and changes that the Internet is bringing to our lives.

The web cannot be considered as the digital showcase of companies and commercial businesses, but must be exploited through active and interactive actions that can inform and involve users.

3. Marketing to gain trust
People often think that marketing simply means saying “I’m here. Contact me because I’m good, no, very good, actually the best, the market leader and I have the best products, etc. etc.”

Trust must be earned. It cannot be simply declared.

4. It's not enough to have a showcase website
The “digitization of the yellow pages” has not always led to thinking about a more comprehensive strategy.

In fact, we often find similar structures in many websites that do not change and have a home page that features sliding images (slides) and immediately below 3 columns that tell who we are, our history and what we do.

Among the menus we find the page with the products (or services), the contact page and possibly the one with the image gallery or the portfolio which are almost always empty or with few elements.

All the same, obvious and above all without an “incentivising” personalization. And then, with the exception of the contact page, the others almost never have the ability to attract customers and make them follow a specific action. Almost no page is then structured with calls to action to actively approach new customers.

5. Think about old customers too
It is not always thought to divide one's strategies between new and old customers and therefore to use the best tools to conquer the former and make the latter return.

Unfortunately, this is not the case and you need to use an ad hoc strategy for each (for example, a website, blog and online advertising for new and mailing lists, mobile applications or SMS for acquired customers).

6. Take good care of your online presence
It is too often thought that small businesses do not need to take care of their marketing strategy but that a standard showcase website is enough to find customers.

Nothing could be more wrong. Today's navigators are very demanding and almost always choose after the first impact. Effective communication today makes a difference much more than it could have been in the past.

Unfortunately this arises from that inertia present in Italy in recent years and that is that lack of being at the forefront compared to others that distinguished us until the end of the last millennium.