I suspect that I will be talking about this a lot as I develop my resources. How do you view your web design business? Local, online or hybrid? Let’s think about each…
1. Local Business
A local business is a business that serves clients in their geographical area. That could be the town or city that you work in, or it could be the surrounding county/counties. It’s great for forming close working relationships with your clients as they are close enough to meet. And you will generally find that word of mouth works well for finding new clients.
2. Online Business
Online businesses are those that sell their services over the internet. This gives you a wider reach as in theory you can work with clients anywhere in the world. Most of the time you won’t meet your clients in person but will meet on video calls (Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc). In order to stand out (because online is a big place) it is usually necessary to niche down in some way – by which I mean make your services very specialised so that you can target your marketing to a specific audience.
3. Hybrid Business
A hybrid business is one that does a bit of both – serves clients locally and online. It is possible to provide services both locally and online, but it can take a different mindset for each.
My Experience
This is something that I feel like I’ve come full circle on over time. When I started building websites in 2004, I very much saw myself as “the local web designer”, and did so for many years without considering anything else.
But in 2020, when we went into lockdown and could no longer easily meet my clients, I immersed myself in the world of online business and began to feel like I should be serving a wider area. And after all, with web design you don’t actually have to be confined to a geographical area – and that was one of the reasons why we felt we could run our business from a tiny town in the far west of England. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to “niche down” to make my business marketable online but always felt resistant to it.
And at the same time, by being forced to work from home I somehow felt that I reconnected with my local community. As we were coming out of lockdown, I moved my business to an office right in the centre of my tiny town and started working on my profile as “the local web designer” again.
I do still have a toe in the online world, because it helps me stay open to new ideas and opportunities. And I do have clients around the UK (and a couple elsewhere in the world). So I have a tiny bit of hybrid activity. But my heart very much lies with being a local business. I love helping other local businesses, being able to meet my clients in person, and feeling like I am contributing to my local business community.
Rejecting the “Should”
As you get to know me, you’ll find that I’m very much one for finding your own path. I get really put off by all the stuff out there telling you that you “should” be doing this or “shouldn’t” be doing that. Particularly on social media (mental health alert!) which seems designed to make you feel like you’re doing it all wrong.
I really felt for a time that I wasn’t approaching things in the right way by treating my business as a local business. I was thinking too small or something. But A) a local mindset doesn’t necessarily mean small and B) there’s nothing wrong with being small if that’s what you want. We all have different goals, don’t feel like you have to adopt someone else’s.
So, how do you view your business? Are you local, online or hybrid? Let me know in the comments, or contact me if you want to discuss it a bit more.