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The
Top 20 Reasons to put Your Business on the Web
1. To Establish A Presence
Approximately 80 million people worldwide have access to
the World Wide Web and this number is doubling every 11 months.
No matter what business you are in, you can't ignore 80 million
people. In order to be a player in this new "e-conomy", you
need to have a powerful presence. After all, your competitors
do.
The Web is considered to be the "great equalizer".
It does not matter if you are a one-man shop running your
widget factory out of your garage or an enterprise level manufacturer
with a 200,000 square foot warehousing facility. Your presence
will lend great credibilty and show the online community that
you care and are here to service them.
2. To Network
A great deal of 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 ever in need of my services, this is how you
can reach me". Well you can, 24 hours a day on the World Wide
Web, for less than a Yellow Pages ad.
3. To Make Business Information Available
What is basic business information? Think of the Yellow Pages.
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 WWW.
4. To Serve Your Customers and Shareholders
Making business information available is one of the most
important ways to serve your customers and shareholders. Imagine
making forms available to pre-qualify for loans or making
your contracts readily available for quick, easy download.
Allow your customer to punch in sizes and check it against
a database that tells him or her what color sweater is available,
right now, in your store? Online investor relations complete
with quarterly reports, prospectuses and live shareholder
meetings with Bill Gates. All this can be done, simply and
quickly, on the WWW.
5. To Heighten Public Interest
You probably won't get Newsweek Magazine to do a write up
on your local store opening, but you might get them to write
about your Web site address. 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 Internet
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 a 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 Your Products and/or Services
Many people think that this is the # 1 thing to do with the
World Wide Web. But we made it # 7 to make it clear that you
should consider selling things on the Web only after you have
done all the things above (and maybe even after doing quite
a few more things from this list). Why? 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. Once you have done that,
chances are you can make them a customer on the Internet.
The rules are the same, only the medium is different.
8. To Make Pictures, Sound & Video
Available
So you’ve got a really great widget, but people really
need to see it in action before they can understand its value?
The comedian has 'em rolling on the floor, but a head shot
and bio just does not sell the talent buyer? A picture is
worth a thousand words, but you don't have the space or the
time for a thousand words? The WWW allows you to add some
life to your pitch - sound, pictures, video and animation.
No static print brochure can do this.
9. To Reach A Highly Desirable Demographic
Market
The demographic of the Internet 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 (a
magazine of choice to the Internet community), has no problem
getting Lexus and other high-end marketer's advertising.
10. To Answer Frequently Asked Questions
Answering the same questions over and over again can get
quite annoying, but these are the questions customers and
potential customers want answered before they deal with you.
Post them on a WWW page and you will have torn down one more
barrier to doing business and freed up some more 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 close 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 or make it available to them
via a remote access link to your server. 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 site, you can open up a dialogue with international
markets as easily as with the company across the street. Another
added benefit is if your company has offices overseas, they
can access the central or remote office information for the
price of a local phone call.
13. To Create a 24 x 7 x 365 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 sites serve the client, customer and partner 24 hours
a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year and they don’t
charge overtime! While you are sleeping at night, your Web
site is hard at work, making sales and collecting data that
will put you ahead of the competition, even before they get
into the office.
14. To Make Changing Information Available
Quickly and Inexpensively
Information is constantly changing and sometimes it is old
news before it gets off the press. Now you are stuck with
boxes of worthless, static paper. Electronic publishing is
dynamic — it changes with your needs. No paper, no ink,
no printing bills when you need to change some text or add
a graphic.
15. To Allow Feedback From Customers
You pass out all the brochures, catalogs and booklets, 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 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
or 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 form can be built into a
Web page and can get the answer while its fresh in your customer’s
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, PR and more advertising can
get very expensive. Once you have been on the Web and know
what to expect from those who are seeing your site, they are
the least expensive group 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 nearly the cost of a 1 page, 1 time print advertisement,
you can have a dynamic crystal ball into where to position
your product or service in the marketplace. Amazing, huh?
17. To Reach the Media
Every kind of business needs the exposure that the media
can bring. 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 output on tight deadlines. All this
can easily be made available on a Web site.
18. To Reach Education and Youth Markets
If your market is education, consider that most universities
already offer Internet connectivity to their students and
most K- 12's will be on the Internet within the next couple
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 booming of the
commercial on-line services such as AOL 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 Specialized Markets
Do you sell fish tanks, professional services, used vintage
clothing? You may think that the Internet is not a good place
to be. Well, think again. The Internet isn't just dysfunctional
whiz kids anymore. With the soon-to-be 100 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 engines and specialized directories,
your interest group will be easily 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
presence. How about your own territory? If you are located
in areas such as Miami, 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 Hollywood, Florida
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.
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