Why Put Your Business Online?
1. To Establish A Presence
Approximately 1.7 BILLION people worldwide have access to the World
Wide Web (WWW). No matter what your business is, you can't ignore 1.7
billion people. To be a part of that community and show that you are
interested in serving them, you need to be on the WWW for them. You
know your competitors will.
2. To Network
A lot of what passes for business is simply nothing more than making
connections with other people. Every smart business person knows, it's
not what you know, it's who you know. Passing out your business card
is part of every good meeting and every business person can tell more
than one story how a chance meeting turned into the big deal. Well,
what if you could pass out your business card to thousands, maybe millions
of potential clients and partners, saying this is what I do and if
you are ever in need of my services, this is how you can reach me.
You can, 24 hours a day, inexpensively and simply, on the WWW.
3. To Make Business Information Available
What is basic business information? Think of a Yellow Pages ad. What
are your hours? What do you do? How can someone contact you? What
methods of payment do you take? Where are you located at? Now think
of a Yellow Pages ad where you have instant communication. What
is today's special? Today's interest rate? Next week's parking
lot sale information? If you could keep your customer informed
of every reason why they should do business with you, don't you
think you could do more business? You can on the WWW.
4. To Serve Your Customers
Making business information available is one of the most important
ways to serve your customers. But if you look at serving the customer,
you'll find even more ways to use WWW technology. How about making
forms available to pre-qualify for loans, or have your staff do
a search for that classic jazz record your customer is looking
for, without tying up your staff on the phone to take down the
information? Allow your customer to punch in sizes and check it
against a database that tells him what color of jacket is available
in your store? All this can be done, simply and quickly, on the
WWW.
5. To Heighten Public Interest
You won't get Newsweek magazine to write up your local store opening,
but you might get them to write up your Web Page address if it
is something new and interesting. Even if Newsweek would write
about your local store opening, you wouldn't benefit from someone
in a distant city reading about it, unless of course, they were
coming to your town sometime soon. With Web page information, anybody
anywhere who can access the Web and hears about you is a potential
visitor to your Web site and a potential customer for your information
there.
6. To Release Time Sensitive Materials
What if your materials need to be released no earlier than midnight?
The quarterly earnings statement, the grand prize winner, the press
kit for the much anticipated film, the merger news? Well, you sent
out the materials to the press with "The-do-not-release-before-such-and-such-time" statement
and hope for the best. Now the information can be made available
at midnight or any time you specify, with all related materials
such as photographs, bios, etc. released at exactly the same time.
Imagine the anticipation of "All materials will be made available
on our Web site at 12:01 AM". The scoop goes to those that
wait for the information to be posted, not the one who releases
your information early.
7. To Sell Things
Many people think that this is the number 1 thing to do with the
World Wide Web, but we made it number seven to make it clear that
we think you should consider selling things on the Internet and
the World Wide Web after you have done all the things above and
maybe even after doing quite a few more things from this list.
Why? Well, the answer is complex but the best way to put it is,
do you consider the telephone the best place to sell things? Probably
not. You probably consider the telephone a tool that allows you
to communicate with your customer, which in turn helps you sell
things. Well, that's how we think you should consider the WWW.
The technology is different, of course, but before people decide
to become customers, they want to know about you, what you do and
what you can do for them. Which you can do easily and inexpensively
on the WWW. Then you might be able to turn them into customers.
8. To Make Pictures, sound and Film Files Available
What if your widget is great, but people would really love it if
they could see it in action? The album is great but with no airplay,
nobody knows that it sounds great? A picture is worth a thousand
words, but you don't have the space for a thousand words? The WWW
allows you to add sound, pictures and short movie files to your
company's info if that will serve your potential customers. No
brochure will do that.
9. To Reach A Highly Desirable Demographic Market
The demographic of the WWW user is probably the highest mass-market
demographic available. Usually college-educated or being college
educated, making a high salary or soon to make a high salary, it's
no wonder that Wired magazine, the magazine of choice to the Internet
community, has no problem getting Lexus and other high-end marketers
advertising. Even with the addition of the commercial on-line community,
the demographic will remain high for many years to come.
10. To Answer Frequently Asked Questions
Whoever answers the phones in your organization can tell you, their
time is usually spent answering the same questions over and over
again. These are the questions customers and potential customers
want to know the answer to before they deal with you. Post them
on a WWW page and you will have removed another barrier to doing
business with you and freed up some time for that harried phone
operator.
11. To Stay In Contact With Salespeople
Your employees on the road may need up-to-the-minute information
that will help them make the sale or pull together the deal. If
you know what that information is, you can keep it posted in complete
privacy on the WWW. A quick local phone call can keep your staff
supplied with the most detailed information, without long distance
phone bills and tying up the staff at the home office.
12. To Open International Markets
You may not be able to make sense of the mail, phone and regulation
systems in all your potential international markets, but with a
Web page, you can open up a dialogue with international markets
as easily as with the company across the street. As a matter-of-fact,
before you go onto the Web, you should decide how you want to handle
the international business that will come your way, because your
postings are certain to bring international opportunities your
way, whether it is part of your plan or not. Another added benefit;
if your company has offices overseas, they can access the home
offices information for the price of a local phone call.
13. To Create a 24 Hour Service
If you've ever remembered too late or too early to call the opposite
coast, you know the hassle. We're not all on the same schedule.
Business is worldwide but your office hours aren't. Trying to reach
Asia or Europe is even more frustrating. But Web pages serve the
client, customer and partner 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
No overtime either. It can customize information to match needs
and collect important information that will put you ahead of the
competition, even before they get into the office.
14. To Make Changing Information Available Quickly
Sometimes, information changes before it gets off the press. Now
you have a pile of expensive, worthless paper. Electronic publishing
changes with your needs. No paper, no ink, no printers bill. You
can even attach your web page to a database which customizes the
page's output to a database you can change as many times in a day
as you need. No printed piece can match that flexibility.
15. To Allow Feedback From Customers
You pass out the brochure, the catalog, the booklet. But it doesn't
work. No sales, no calls, no leads. What went wrong? Wrong color,
wrong price, wrong market? Keep testing, the marketing books say,
and you'll eventually find out what went wrong. That's great for
the big boys with deep pockets, but who is paying the bills? You
are and you don't have the time nor the money to wait for the answer.
With a Web page, you can ask for feedback and get it instantaneously
with no extra cost. An instant e-mail response can be built into
Web pages and can get the answer while its fresh in your customers
mind, without the cost and lack of response of business reply mail.
16. To Test Market New Services and Products
Tied into the reason above, we all know the cost of rolling out a
new product. Advertising, advertising, advertising, PR and advertising.
Expensive, expensive, expensive. Once you have been on the Web
and know what to expect from those who are seeing your page, they
are the least expensive market for you to reach. They will also
let you know what they think of your product faster, easier and
much less expensively than any other market you may reach. For
the cost of a page or two of Web programming, you can have a crystal
ball into where to position your product or service in the marketplace.
Amazing.
17. To Reach The Media
Every kind of business needs the exposure that the media can bring,
as we touched on in reason #5 "To Heighten Public Interest",
but what if your business is reaching the media, as a newswire,
a publicist or a public policy group. The media is the most wired
profession today, since their main product is information and they
can get it more quickly, cheaply and easily on-line. On-line press
kits are becoming more and more common, since they work with the
digital environment of more and more pressrooms. Digital images
can be put in place without the stripping and shooting of the old
pressrooms and digital text can be edited and outputted on tight
deadlines. All the these can be made available on a Web page.
18. To Reach The Education and Youth Market
If your market is education, consider that most universities already
offer Internet access to their students and most K-12's will be
on the Internet within the next few years. Books, athletic shoes,
study courses, youth fashion and anything else that would want
to reach these overlapping markets needs to be on the Web. Even
with the coming of the commercial on-line services and their somewhat
older populations there will be nothing but growth in the percentage
of the under 25 market that will be on-line.
19. To Reach The Specialized Market
Sell fish tanks, art reproductions, flying lessons? You may think
that the Internet is not a good place to be. Well, think again.
The Internet isn't just computer science students anymore. With
the 70 million and growing users of the WWW, even the most narrowly
defined interest group will be represented in large numbers. Since
the Web has several very good search programs, your interest group
will be able to find you, or your competitors.
20. To Serve Your Local Market
We've talked about the power to serve the world with a Web page.
How about your neighborhood? If you are located in San Francisco
Bay Area, the Raleigh NC area, Boston or New York, there is probably
enough local customers with Web access to make it worth your while
to consider Web marketing. A local Palo Alto, CA restaurant even
takes lunch orders through the Internet! But no matter where you
are, if the big client has Web access, you should be there too.
