Why doesn't just having a website mean I have a business?

Having a website does not mean you have a business—this is a critical misunderstanding. Ninety-nine percent of all e-commerce stores fail, regardless of what platform they’re built on, because a website is just a tool. You only have a real business once you have a successful marketing program in place that consistently generates traffic, eyeballs, and leads (email addresses). Many artists think the website is the most important thing and that they need the perfect technology or design. While having quality website technology matters, it’s meaningless without traffic. If you don’t have consistent traffic growing over time and you’re not generating email addresses regularly, you don’t really have a business yet—you’re just wasting time. You must solve the marketing problem first. This means either learning marketing yourself, hiring a consultant, or hiring an employee, but you absolutely must solve it. The website is like having a Ferrari parked in your garage—it’s worthless if nobody knows it exists and nobody is coming to see it.

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Asked by general teaching · Answered by Nick Friend · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-07-03