The Internet and World Wide Web are growing at a phenomenal rate. Currently estimates are of over 100 million plus users, and growing at a rate of 1 million new users a month. No matter what your business is, you cannot afford to ignore this population. To be part of this community shows you are interested in serving customers. You must be on the WWW. You know your competitors are or will be online.
2. To Network
A lot of what passes for business is simply nothing more than making connections with other people. Passing out your business card is considered a normal ritual at meetings and seminars. Often, chance meetings turn out to be big deals. What if you could pass out your business card to thousands or even millions of potential clients? Your Web Site is like a personal public relations employee, announcing "this is what I do and if you're ever in need of my services, this is how to reach me" to the world, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
3. To Make Business Information Available
Think of a normal Yellow Pages ad. It tells where you are located, what you do and how to get in touch with you. Now think of an automated Yellow Pages ad - a magical ink which changes your "Special of the Week" every Monday. Now imagine a copy of this magic Yellow Pages ad on the shelf of millions of people around the world. Imagine people across the country knowing they could find the latest information about your business - new products, special deals, etc., at the push of a button....that's the World Wide Web.
4. To Serve Your Customers...better.
It's not just about generic Yellow Page-like ads. If you decide to look even further at serving the customer, you'll find even more ways to use WWW technology. How about making forms available online so that users can actually make an order for your product or service from the comfort and convenience of their own home or office? Maybe add a search engine that gives information which would otherwise only be available by calling your office and tying up your staff. Let your customers review records or look at product specifications, brochures, instructions, or other personalized information online. All this can be done on the WWW.
5. Heighten Public Interest
Currently, the Internet is enough of a novelty that local and even national newspapers are publishing the location of "interesting and unique" Web Sites in their printed pages. Newsweek's "Cyberscope" for example, highlights Web Sites, and articles written daily about innovative uses for the World Wide Web. What does this mean to you? Free advertising! But it's not just about the advertising that the news media offers. Your current means of advertising (mail, brochures, business cards, etc.) are ideal for publishing your Web Site address and e-mail address. Remember that anyone in the world can access your site once they are connected to the Net - and people will "bookmark" interesting sites and show it to other people. What better way to spread word of mouth to generate interest about your business!
6. To Release Time-Sensitive Materials
Say you've promised your customers that you would have a new product or service release to them by a certain date. Why bother Faxing or FedExing files and papers to them? You could get this information out quickly and easily via your Web site. The Web is an excellent way to announce a press release or prize winner information.
7. Sales, Sales, Sales!!!
Many business-minded people believe this is the number one reason to be on the Internet. Studies show that consumers are becoming comfortable with the idea of shopping through the Web. Already, "shopping networks" are beginning to appear across the network, as well as all types of online ordering.
Industry has already benefitted from electronic data interchange in its rigid format. The Web offers a wide range of formats to generate sales: phone data, direct fax, on-line ordering, e-mail, and even actual delivery of digital products - software, upgrades to software, technical fee-based studies, articles, industry information, financial surveys, market reports, etc. The market is growing - don't let your sales be taken by your competitors!
8. To make pictures, sound and video files available.
So your product is great, but what if they could see it in action? The album is terrific, but what if they could hear it? The Web allows for different multimedia formats. No brochure will allow you to do that.
9. To reach a highly desirable demographic market
The demographic of the WWW user is often characterized as a highly paid, college-educated male. While this is predominantly (about 2/3 male, for example) true, you'll find that the demographics are changing.
Still, surveys show that the Web is populated by people who are ready to buy. It's no wonder that Wired magazine, a magazine of choice to the Internet community, has no problem getting Mercedes-Benz and other high-end marketer's advertising. GE has already announced a multi-billion dollar Internet purchasing system for suppliers to sell to GE.
10. To Answer Frequently Asked questions
As whoever answers the phones in your organization will 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 in a Web Site and you remove a barrier to doing business with you and free up some time for that busy phone operator.
11. To Stay In Contact With Salespeople and Field Service Personnel
Your employees on the road may need up-to-the-minute information that will help them make the sale or pull together the deal or complete a project. If you know what that information is, you can keep it posted privately on the WWW. A quick local phone call can keep your staff supplied with the most detailed information, without long distance phone bills and without 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 Site, you can open up a dialogue with international markets as easily as with the company across the street.
Even before you go onto the Web, decide how you will handle international business. Your Web Site is certain to bring international opportunities your way. Another added benefit: If your company has offices, agents, or distributors overseas, they can use your Web Site as an easy and inexpensive way to communicate with your home office.
13. To Create a 24 Hour Service
If you've ever remembered too late or too early to call another time zone, you know the hassle. We're not all on the same schedule. Trying to reach Asia or Europe can be even more frustrating. Web Sites serve the client, customer, employees and others, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And it never asks for overtime pay either. It can customize information to match needs and collect important information that will put you ahead of the competition, even before they get to the office.
14. To Make Changing Information Available Quickly
Sometimes you need to make changes to published materials. But what if you've just spent time and money on printing up the materials? Now you have a pile of expensive, worthless paper. Electronic publishing changes with your needs. No paper, no ink, no printer's bill. Correct mistakes and update information easily and without expense. You can even attach your Web Site to a database which customizes what the Web Site visitor sees. You can change it as many times in a day as you need.
15. To Allow Feedback From Customers
You pass out the brochure, the catalog, the booklet. But they don't seem to be doing any good. 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 OK for the big boys with deep pockets, but who's paying the bills? You are, and you don't have the time nor the money to wait for the answer.
With a Web Site, you can ask for feedback and get it instantaneously with no extra cost. An instant e-mail response can be built into a Web Site and can get the answer while its fresh in your customers mind, without the cost and low response of business reply mail.
16. To Test Market New Services and Products
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 have established a dialogue with your customers, you can easily integrate their concerns and reactions to your new product before it reaches the "outside world". This gives your on-line clients the benefits of a sneak preview into new products and services, and simultaneously allows you benefit from their reactions before releasing to
the general public. Free Focus Groups you say?
17. To Reach The Media
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. On-line press kits are becoming more and more common, since they work with the digital environment. The American press can be lazy sometimes; they're infamous for cutting-and-pasting online press-kit information right into articles. These can be made available on a Web Site for easier consumption - it saves them the burden of typing your words into their stories.
18. To Reach The Education and Youth Market
If your market is related to education, consider that most universities already offer Internet access to their students and a majority of 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 the kid market will receive enormous attention on the Web.
19. To Reach The Specialized Market
Sell specialized industrial gasses, hard to find metric parts, unique customized services for electrical generating companies around the world? You may think that the Internet is not a good place to be, since you want to attract a very narrow segment of the population. Think again. The Internet isn't just computer science students anymore. With the millions of users and growing everyday, 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 at length about the power to serve the world with a Web Site. But how about right in your neighborhood? Regardless of where you are located: Phoenix, San Francisco, Peoria, New York, Columbus, Ohio (population area about 1 million) or Columbus, North Dakota (population about 250), there is a good chance that there are enough local customers with Web access to make it worthwhile to consider Web marketing.
21. And a bonus 21st reason, to Have Fun
The Internet industry is new, exciting, and constantly improving. No one yet dominates any particular market. This is the best time to take advantage of the amazing opportunities available online. Never before has there been a way to express yourself creatively and inexpensively and reach the incredible number of people that the Web makes possible. If you think surfing the net is fun, just wait till you start planning your own site! This list is brought to you by Gold Coast Web Design
