Marketing on the Web

Entrepreneurs have been doing business on the web now for several years, and in that time, certain lessons have been learned. Many of the sales approaches we use doing business in the real world marketplace will work in cyberspace, and many will not. When you first set up shop on the WWW, it is important to integrate into your site those principles that are common factors in the most successful commercial web sites.

This is not to say that all sites should be clones... precisely the opposite is true. By all means be creative, be unique, stand out. But initially at least, establish your cybershop within a framework which takes into account certain well defined criteria, then if you want to push the envelope, explore uncharted new terrain as your e-commerce presence takes hold with your customer base.

Finally, be realistic about your short term and long term prospects. Just like in the real world, some products will do better on the web than others.... it is always going to be easier to sell books online than it will ever be to sell abstract art, for example.

That being said, here are 25 marketing principles that you should bring to your own commercial presence on the World Wide Web:

• Concentrate on keeping the customers´ attention before you worry about getting their money. The longer someone stays on your site, the more likely they will buy;
  
  
• With 50+ years of television behind us, people want to be entertained when they are looking at a screen, so make your site an enjoyable experience. Don´t fall into the trap of creating a "brochure-ware" site;
  
  
• Develop a sense of community... build a following;
  
  
• Think in terms of attracting quality customers, not just a quantity of eyeballs;
  
  
• Give people a reason to do business with you instead of someone else. If your product is unique, tell them why it´s unique. If they can purchase this item elsewhere, then you better have the best price, the best service, or the best rap;
  
  
• While it is generally true that an attractive site will produce more sales than an ugly site and an interesting site will sell better than a boring site, DON´T confuse style with substance... people have to care about what you offer and be willing to pay for it;
  
  
• Target your specific customer niche.... go after them and deliver what they demand;
  
  
• The web is a powerful two-way interactive communications tool, not a one-way loudspeaker... offer bulletin boards, chat rooms, etc;
  
  
• If you want something from your visitors, even something as simple as an email address, you´ll have to give them something in return, such as a special discount coupon;
  
  
• Provide valuable useful information with your products or services... remember, there are no salespeople standing there for your visitors to turn to for assistance. Where necessary include "after-the-sale" troubleshooting information in the form of an FAQ for customers who may have follow-up questions;
  
  
• Don´t make your customers have to wait for you to "get back to them" if they want to purchase something... online surfers expect to "serve themselves", so the easier you make it, the better. Get out of the way and let them shop!
  
  
• A website is a process, not a one-time project. If you don´t stay fresh, then you are getting stale, and just like stale bread, it´s not exactly appealing to those who want to feast at your table;
  
  
• Establish a sense of trust and credibility:
  

  - by telling visitors about yourself and / or your company;
  - by clearly offering a "satisfaction guaranteed / money back" policy;
  - by promising to keep all personal information private and secure;
  - by telling people how they can contact and find you in the real world;
  - by offering "testimonials";
  - by listing awards you have won, and which civic groups you have joined;
  - by using secured electronic transactions;

• Guarantee the same level of outstanding service at your online store that you would offer to someone who walked into your bricks and mortar establishment. Especially, guarantee speedy delivery;
  
  
• Be as prompt as you can possibly be in answering email. No one likes to take the time to type out a message only to have it ignored;
  
  
• If you offer paper brochures or catalogs, set up PDF files so your customers can print them out;
  
  
• Understand how techno-savvy the majority of your customer base is likely to be in using the Internet, then do not exceed those capabilities;
  
  
• Make your cybershop easy to enter, and once your customers are inside, make it easy to navigate from one level to the next, then back again;
  
  
• Put your best offers right up front on the home page. If you don´t get the customers´ attention here, the rest doesn´t matter;
  
  
• Put the biggest bang in the least amount of space. That means being concise by using only as many words as necessary to effectively and fully get the message across;
  
  
• Use as many graphics as it takes to get the job done, but make sure all graphics load quickly. Any page that takes more than 40 seconds to load has already lost half the viewers;
  
  
• While you may have limited shelf space in your real world store, you have UN-limited space at your cyberstore, so once you find a product line that customers respond to favorably, offer complementary items. Why settle for one sale when you can do two?
  
  
• Periodically check your own site to make certain everything is working properly. Visitors will leave in a heartbeat if links malfunction, credit card numbers cannot be properly entered, graphics do not load [the dreaded broken icon syndrome], etc.
  
  

  If you would like your website to be professionally designed taking all these principles into account, please contact us.