• Why does your company have a web site?
• What are your company’s web site strategies?
• What do you expect out of your web site?

Can you answer these questions? They are not easy ones for most businesses, but they are fundamental to developing a web site that is a marketing asset--and not a liability.

All business web sites are about commerce–connecting buyers and sellers

There are dozens of possible strategies for your own web site that complement your business and marketing strategies. But upon closer examination, there are really only three primary rationales for web sites–each related to commerce–and each interrelated with the other two:

1) Marketing your goods and services: that is informing, educating, and communicating as a step toward selling, using--

• Your own "content"--the key messages and information that you develop about your company and its products and services--communicated via words, pictures, audio, or multi-media.
• Others’ content–that is, being a conduit to others’ information using links from your site to other web sites. Search engines, as an example, have very little of their own content but rather point users toward the content of others.

All effective web sites need marketing content as a foundation, and this is the Achilles heel of a majority of business sites. Since most web sites are marketing-only sites, we’ll take a long look at what makes these types of sites work–and fail--in several future debunkers. One hint with many to follow: Clear, accurate, timely and compelling content is prerequisite to realize any significant benefits from your web site.

2) Selling goods and services directly–that is, actually taking orders and receiving payments online.

This is where a lot of folks thought that the big bucks would magically happen on the Internet–ringing up orders and dollars. Thousands of firms, worldwide, do successfully sell their products and services (or those of others) and collect payment via their sites. But a small minority of those businesses rely exclusively on their respective web sites to sell goods and services and collect money. Rather, their marketing and sales sites complement their other marketing and sales efforts. As we all know, billions of dollars were spent by dot.com’s whose flawed business models assumed that the web would supplant all marketing, sales and delivery (below). Bad assumption.

Should your company sell (some or any of) your products and services directly online? It’s an option for many companies, but taking orders and payments online is not prerequisite to the success of your web site. We’ll examine the strategies for selling wares and services, directly via your web site, in future debunkers.

3) Delivering your products/services online

Increasing numbers of businesses are not only marketing and selling online but also delivering products and services online: web sites themselves, photos, graphic designs, music, books, newspapers, magazines, educational programs, professional advice, not-so professional advice, business intelligence, software, ASP hosted software, etc. There are still security and intellectual property rights issues for some types of digital content, but the web is an amazingly efficient and secure way to deliver most digital products and services today.

Delivery of your particular products/services may not applicable to the digital world–unless you have a lot of customers. Then, whether you recognize it or not, you’re in the customer service business in a big way almost every hour of the business week or sometimes 24/7. Whether you sell widgets or software, the web offers too many advantages to ignore. Delivery of web-based customer service facilitates a wide array to two-way and multiple-way communications via email, instant messaging/chat, audio or phone, video, etc.– for purposes of answering questions, handling complaints, providing feedback mechanisms, offering product/service training, just staying in touch to understand new needs, etc.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software and services abound and can bring efficiencies as well as helping to retain and increase business. A preview hint though: by itself, web-based CRM is no panacea–it’s just a new tool. More on the delivery of products and services, including customer service, in future debunkers…

And remember to send me your examples of your favorite business web sites. Thanks, and I’ll talk to you next week–or any time you want to contact me.

Tom Ranseen NoSpinMarketing 615.383.7157

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Tom Ranseen NoSpinMarketing 615.383.7157