1.
To Establish A Presence
Approximately 750 million people (1998) 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.
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.
http://www.net101.com/reasons.html
|
