Twenty
Reasons Why Your Business Should Be On The World Wide Web
1.
To Establish A Presence
Approximately 750 million people worldwide have access to the World
Wide Web (WWW). No matter what your business is, you can't ignore 750
million 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 about 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? 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 7 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 marketer's 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 printer's 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 close proximity to a
major city, there are 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.
This article was reproduced with permission from the author.
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