Why Should Your Company Be on the Web?

• Two reasons: your customers and your competitors
• Times, they are a changin'
• Nothing else comes close
• WWW means "What We Want"
• What if you put up a website and nobody came?
• A website is a process, not a product
• You never get a second chance to make a good first impression

Two reasons: your customers and your competitors
You know the old saying, "Opportunities are never lost, they are taken away." If your company does not take advantage of the Internet's capabilities for communicating, marketing and selling to your customers, your competitors probably will.

The Internet is not only an effective marketing tool - it is increasingly becoming an expected one. In the near future, your customers are going to expect you to provide product/service information on the Web, conduct online transactions and answer their questions electronically. And if you don't - your competitors are just a click away.

Times, they are a changin'
The business marketplace is transforming. The Internet is changing the way customers interact with companies. Your customers have more information and more options than ever before. That means the Internet is affecting all aspects of how companies now relate to their customers. It will influence how you find, sell, service, communicate and retain your clients.

In order to compete, it is critical that you utilize all available channels to reach your customers/prospects and give them what they need. That means that you must build a professional web presence and develop integrated marketing strategies to engage your target audience.

Nothing else comes close
The World Wide Web is not the gold rush. But it is a new frontier - offering almost boundless opportunities. The use of the Internet is growing daily among almost all demographic and geographic markets.

Out of all the communications media, the web is the one channel that can embody all the factors that make up your brand. The design capabilities allow for dramatic, colorful presentations including photographs and animations. There is virtually no limit to the amount of information that can be provided about your products/services, and the ease of updating information makes for an unlimited life span. The database and ecommerce functionalities encourage interactivity with your customers.

What other medium allows prospects and customers to actually "experience" your company, 24 hours day/7 days a week? And what other channel can provide access to a global market for no additional cost?

WWW means "What We Want"
People go online to find information. If you don't give then what they want, they will go somewhere else - and quickly. Website design and content must be created from the user's perspective and based on your business objectives. The first step is to determine what you want to include - the content. Next, you map out how you're going to organize your content - the site structure. Only after you've done these, do you turn to how you will present it - the website design.

Your viewers will feel most comfortable when there is a seamless integration between graphics and content. Graphics should support, rather than fight the content. And your site's navigation should be built around the user's activity patterns, not your corporate organizational structure.

What if you put up a website and nobody came?
In the earliest days of commercial web sites, a company stood a reasonable chance of receiving visitors by merely being on the Web. Not so today. There are currently over 1.5 billion web pages. If a potential client is looking for information on the Web, how will they find your site instead of a competitor's?

The true fight on the Internet is for that most finite resource - people's attention. Rising above the sea of Internet clutter requires creativity and constant work. A website is much like an 800 number, just because you have it, doesn't mean people will call.
There are three primary ways people find your website: through search engines/ directories, through links from other sites, or because they know your website address. You need to employ a consistent, integrated marketing campaign that reaches your customers on all three levels.

A website is a process, not a product
Your website not only lends itself to frequent updates and changes, but demands it. Just like you continuously measure customer satisfaction or sales performance at your company, so should you measure the results of your website. The web is a fluid medium. Your online audience is constantly changing, and to hold their attention your site has to be fresh and interesting.

One of the main reasons websites fail to perform to expectations and provide a return on investment is a lack of consistent marketing and monitoring. Your objective should be to develop a continuous communication with your prospects and customers.

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression
If the design of a website is poor, unprofessional or unclear, people will assume that the product or company is just the same. Marketing is not so much a battle of products or services as it is a battle of perceptions.

You must instill a perceived value in your customer's mind. The companies that succeed on the Web are those that, through design, navigation and content, communicate to the customer that there is the implied added value in choosing them.

Our mission is to translate the unique qualities of your company onto the Web. We approach the website construction process from the user's perspective. We can design a website to fit your company's specific needs and budget. We will create a simple, professional-looking corporate marketing site; or we can produce a more sophisticated site including database functions, cutting edge graphics, audio and video, and interactive forms. We also offer the full range of e-commerce options for those wishing to conduct secure transactions online.

Written by Anne Richardson / Channel Marketing, Inc.