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 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. Subscribe
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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 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 the Washington D. C. Metro Area, there
is probably enough local customers with
Web access to make it worth your while
to consider Web marketing. For example,
a local restaurant could even take lunch
orders through the Internet! But no matter
where you are, if the big client has Web
access, you should be there too.
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© 1995 - 2003 by Net 101
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