Internet Marketing - Where to Start  

21st March 2003

Internet Marketing – Where to Start

First of all, and most importantly, develop a strategy before you develop, or update, a website.  You wouldn’t think of renovating your house without first having a vision of how you wanted it to look. 

Let’s start with the basics.  Before you develop, or update, your website, ask yourself these questions:

 

1.      Why do you want to have a website? 

-         So you can say you have one?

-         So you can communicate with your potential and existing customers?

-         Because everyone else has one?

-         Because it’s part of your marketing communication mix?

-         You want to use your website to explain your products and services, rather than have brochures printed all the time?

2.      What do you want to achieve with it?

A few comments worth mentioning:

ê      Think about who is the intended audience for your site, and make it user-friendly and appropriate to them.

ê      Think about your target market and your customers.  For example, if your customers are auto repair shops and service stations, they are unlikely to use computers, email or the internet like office-based customers.  Would they look at or use your website if you had one?

ê      If your site is under construction, it is not ready.  That does NOT mean that because you have a site under construction your visitors will keep coming back to check when it is up and running.  Either build it, or don’t, but don’t have it ‘under construction’ forever as no-one will bother to revisit.

You may approach the use of your website in several stages:

ê     Stage 1 is to have a point of presence.  Your site is up and it  explains the services of your company like a brochure would, and is nothing more than that.  If visitors have been there once, they are not likely to return if the information is static.

ê     Stage 2 could be to update the site with your latest news more frequently, enable some interaction with your visitors (subscription to newsletters, record responses to questions for market research purposes, provide downloadable enquiry or fax back forms, etc.)

ê     Stage 3 may be an early stage of e-commerce, if you want your customers to be able to order products or services via your website.  Then you must consider the costs of setting up an electronic funds transfer facility with security over the internet, against the revenue you expect to receive from initial orders.

3.      Who Will Develop It?

ê      Choose a web developer who could potentially deliver all of the above stages for you – it’s preferable that you don’t switch developers mid-way.  Many web developers will also host your site and your email, and look after things like domain name registrations (the address for your site).

ê      Make sure you select a developer who has technical ability as well as marketing knowledge.  Remember, your website is a business tool, not a piece of artwork or technical wizadry (it may be that too, but first and foremost it must serve your business objectives).

ê      Do some research, ask for referrals, visit sites you like and find out who developed them, and compare prices and service offerings.  Think about:
o       Domain name registration
o       The design of the site
o       The development of the site
o       Hosting for your site and your email
o       Cost of updates
o       User friendly tools for you to do your own updates
o       Ongoing support

4.      Some considerations for the design of content

ê      Update your site with news on a regular basis.  People will tire of it if there are no updates between their visits, and they will ‘defect’ to another site.  I recently viewed a site where the ‘latest’ management article was written in 2001.

ê      Have your credentials on the site.  If you’re a known, large organisation, this is not required.  However, smaller companies need to establish their credentials for visitors who are new to the site.  Why should anyone do business with you?  Give them a reason.

ê      When designing your website, make it consistent in look and feel to the rest of your marketing materials.

ê      Don’t fill it with clever animations and graphics – it makes the site slower to download, so visitors could potentially get bored waiting and search elsewhere.

ê      Make the site easy to navigate.

ê      Give visitors something to register for, or a reason to leave you their email (for example, to register for a free newsletter).  This enables you to build a database of prospective customers over time.

ê      Give the recipients of any of your email marketing an opportunity to be deleted from the mailing list.  This should be a standard option on all email marketing.

5.      Promoting your website

ê      Invest some time in registering your site with the search engines.  If you run a sporting goods store in Mosman, and a general search of ‘sporting goods’ generates a listing of several thousand websites, narrow your service down to ‘sporting goods Mosman’, ‘sporting goods Sydney’ or even ‘golf clothes’.  Your web developer should be able to help you with this activity.

ê      Spend some time identifying the key words for your website – this will dramatically improve your ranking among the search engine listings.

ê      Link your website with other sites if appropriate, as it will likely generate traffic to your site from the other site.  For example, you could be a sponsor of another company’s product or service, or you could have a link from a business partner site to your own website.  It all increases traffic to your site.

ê      Don’t confuse ‘hits’ with unique visitors.  Many people become enthusiastic when they see how many hits they’ve had to their site.  A more significant measure is unique visitors, that is, how many new visitors are coming to your site.

ê      Promote your site – on your stationery, on your email signature, on your message on hold if you have one, in any directory listings, on your signage, and so on.

6.      Identify costs and revenue objectives of your web strategy

Like any marketing activity, identify the costs involved against the expected returns you will receive.  Develop a budget for the start up costs, and the ongoing maintenance costs, and stick to it!

7.      Refer to the links provided in the Marketing Matters e-news update to give you some useful tips and hints for your overall internet marketing activities.  Good luck!