The top reasons for being online
There are a number of reasons why a Web site could benefit your company. Not every one will be applicable to your business, but very few companies will not benefit from an Internet presence.
Check out the following list of reasons to see what you can do with a Web site.
To establish a presence
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide have access to the World Wide Web (WWW). No matter what your business is, you should not ignore this population. To be a part of that community and show that you are interested in serving them, you need to be on the Web for them. It is likely your competitors will be!
To network
A lot of what passes for business is simply nothing more than making connections with other people. We’ve all heard the saying, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Passing out your business card is part of every good meeting – most businesspeople can tell more than one story about how a chance meeting turned into a profitable 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 products or services, this is how you can reach me. You can, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, inexpensively and simply, on the WWW.
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? Now think of a Yellow Pages ad where you have instant communication. What is today’s special? Today’s interest rate? Next week’s 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 Internet.
To serve your customers better
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 colour of jacket is available in your store? All this can be done, simply and quickly, on the Internet.
To heighten public interest
You won’t get a national magazine to write up your local store opening, but you might get them to write up your website address if it is something new and interesting. Even if they 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 website information, anybody anywhere who can access the Web and hears about you is a potential visitor to your business and therefore a potential customer.
To release time sensitive materials
What if your materials need to be released no earlier than, say, midnight? The major prizewinner, the press kit for that much-anticipated sale or some other local event? Well, you send 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 a comment such as “All materials will be made available on our website at 12:01am”. The scoop goes to those who wait for the information to be posted, not the one who releases your information early.
Online is not just selling
Many people think that this is the number one thing to do with the Web, but we made it number seven to make it clear that we think you should consider selling things on the Internet 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 Internet. 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. All of which they can easily and inexpensively do on the WWW. Then you might be able to turn them into customers.
Other reasons to be online include:
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 information if that will serve your potential customers. No brochure will do that..
To answer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Whoever answers the phones in your organisation 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 Web page and you’ll have removed another barrier to doing business with you and freed up some time for your phone operator.
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 Internet. Usually with just a local phone call connection you can keep your staff supplied with the most detailed information, without long distance phone bills or staff having to waste otherwise productive time “popping” back into the office.
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 website, 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 consider how you want to handle any international business that may come your way, because your postings may well attract international opportunities, whether it is part of your plan or not. Another added benefit; if your company has offices overseas, they can usually access the home office information for the price of a local phone call.
To create a 24-hour service
If you’ve ever remembered too late or too early to call people in different parts of the country, 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 may be even more frustrating. But websites serve the client, customer and partner 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No overtime required! It can customise information to match needs and collect important information that will position you favourably against the competition.
To make changing information available quickly
Sometimes, information changes before it gets off the press, in some cases leaving you with a pile of expensive and worthless paper. Electronic publishing changes with your needs. No paper, no ink, no printer’s bill. And no printed piece can match that flexibility.
To allow feedback from customers
You pass out the brochure, the catalogue, and the booklet. But it doesn’t work . no sales, no calls, and no leads. What went wrong? Wrong colour? 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’s paying the bills? You are and you don’t have the time or the money to wait for the answer. With a website, you can ask for feedback and get it instantaneously with no extra cost. An instant email response can be built into Web pages so your customers can obtain answers while the issue is still fresh in their mind, providing instant gratification, something not possible with say a letter response.
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! With a Web presence, you may well find that for your business it is one of the least expensive, and most effective, ways for you to reach your market. It’s also a means by which potential customers are able to let you know what they think of your product faster and easier than via other mediums. For the cost of amending a Web page or two on your site, you’re able to respond to feedback quickly, enabling you to position your product or service optimally for existing and potential customers.
To reach the media
Every kind of business needs the exposure that the media can bring, as we touched on in reason number five, “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 online. Online 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 output on tight deadlines. All of these can be made available on a web site.
To reach the education and youth market
If your market is education, consider that most universities already offer Internet access to their students. Books, athletic shoes, study courses, youth fashion and anything else targeted at these overlapping markets will be available on the Internet. Even with the coming of the commercial online services and their somewhat older populations, there will be nothing but growth in the percentage of the under-25 market that will be online.
To reach the specialised market
If you sell fish tanks, art reproductions or flying lessons you may not think that the Internet is a good place to be. If so, we believe you should think again. The Internet is not confined to computer science students any more. It’s a business tool. With hundreds of millions of users (and growing) of the WWW, even the most narrowly defined interest group will be represented in large numbers. Since the WWW has many very good search engines, your interest group will be able to find you, or your competitors.
To serve your local market
We’ve talked about the power to serve the world with a website. How about your neighbourhood? If you’re located in a city suburb there’s probably enough local customers with Web access to make it worth your while to consider Web marketing. Many local restaurants take lunch orders through the Internet!
