|
Millions of people will spend billions of dollars online this holiday season.
Should that matter to you? It depends, on what your business offers and who
your customers are. Obviously, if you are in retail, the lack of an Internet
presence means you are going backwards. After all, that’s the industry
sector that is behind the sales projections of $13.2 billion dollars between
Thanksgiving and Christmas.
According to Forrester Research, that’s a 20% increase from last year;
the growth between 2002 and 2003 was 31%. Does the lower percentage rate mean
that online is a passing trend? Of course not; it means the medium is becoming
mainstream and exponential growth becomes much more difficult to sustain. That’s
why this is a good time to assess both the value of your Internet presence and
your company’s web strategy.
Your web site should be a digital reflection of your business plan. It’s
a good exercise to dust off the plan every now and then anyway, to update it
in response to market trends and/or unforeseen events to ensure that your business
remains relevant. Your web site is an extension of that. Internet consumers
are relatively sophisticated; they may not understand the behind the scenes
aspect of a site, but they know what they see. Sites that are difficult to navigate,
so loaded with text that they read like novels, or have slow-loading graphics
are exited as quickly as they’re found. A person who leaves your site for
those reasons is not likely to come back.
I’m telling you this to get back to the central point of re-examining
the goals of your company site. It’s how potential customers first find
you; Google and Yahoo are the new Yellow Pages with a global audience. While
the dollars spent online are impressive, the Internet also influences a great
deal of offline buying. There is no easier way to research products, comparison
shop, and learn about vendors than through a PC. For small businesses, in particular,
the web is a tremendous equalizer, affording them the opportunity to gain exposure
to millions of people who would otherwise be unreachable. Think about that for
a second. BusinessWeek reports that 25 years ago, a marketer could reach 80%
of the country by advertising on the three major networks. Today, that same
market saturation would require advertising on about 100 channels.
Add to that the more than 6,000 titles on the magazine stands. Virtually every
one of them caters to a niche market and the Internet is ideally suited to filling
niche needs. People search for product information online without regard to
geography. That means the oyster farmer in Virginia is making regular sales
to consumers in the Midwest, and the motorcycle accessories business in Colorado
has a national clientele. Those opportunities simply would not be available
without the Internet.
The success of a web site is more than just direct sales. A service business,
for instance, is not going to makes sales that way. However, a web site offers
information, provides a forum through which visitors can ask questions, and
gets you get contact information (read: sales leads), etc. If nothing else,
your digital doors are open even when the physical ones are closed. Consumers
can check you out at their convenience without cutting into your staff’s
time. All of these factors ultimately impact the bottom line, and each approach
reflects a purposeful effort.
This is also a good time for some analysis of who is visiting your site, how
long they are staying, how many pages they view, which pages are most often
viewed, and which are the most frequent exit points. The hits your web site
generates contain information that can help you make decisions that improve
your business. What keywords do people use in finding your site? Which products
/ services do they spend the most-least time looking at? What questions do they
ask, either on the phone or through online forms? There are several stat tools
available and many of them are free. Chances are that your hosting provider
includes one with your service plan.
Your web site is reflection of both your business and you personally. It will
be the first contact many people have with your company. Be sure that each page
represents what you stand for, what your company offers, and how consumers benefit
from doing business with you. None of this necessarily easy, but nothing worthwhile
ever is. It will also be a continuous process, but for the effort to be successful,
you must first be clear on what defines success.
By Alex Lekas
AIT, Inc. http://www.ait.com |
