WEB-BASED MARKETING

1. WEB-BASED MARKETING

2. Web Marketing: What Are You Trying to Accomplish? Marketing on the World Wide Web finds us stepping off the highway of 500 cable channels into a quiet field of 500 million channels. These aren't broadcast channels. They don't spew reruns, sitcoms, and talk shows sprinkled with infomercials and 30 attention-getters. These are informative messages patiently waiting for us to interact with them.

3. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out • If your delivery medium was water: • broadcasting would be like using a big hose to spray a crowd of prospects, hoping some of them will enjoy getting wet.

4. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out • If your delivery medium was water: • Narrowcasting, a term used by producers of specialized cable TV programs, is like using a smaller hose and only aiming it at people who have already expressed an interest in getting wet.

5. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out • cybercasting (marketing online) is the act of creating a pond of water in cyberspace, telling people that you now have a pond, and inviting them to come for a swim. • prospects can visit your pond anytime they want, stay as long as they want, and dive in as deeply as they want. • the extent to which they immerse themselves in your pond is determined completely by their own personal interest.

6. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out Some people may come just to look around. Some may take a dip. Some may swim, and some may stay submerged for days at a time. The faster, better looking, easier to navigate, more fun, and more informative your Web site is, the more likely it is that people will want to come back—and even bring their friends. But let's get these in priority order, shall we?

7. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out • Here's what's crucial: • Fast • Interesting • Useful • A slow Web site will work against you • An interesting site will draw people in and keep them coming back • A useful site really takes advantage of what the Web is best at: getting things done.

8. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out • The whole point is to engage your target audience right up front and give them: • something of value, • something that holds their attention, • something they find useful, • something they'll tell their friends about.

9. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out The World Wide Web allows an organization to create a library of materials that can be accessed by anybody with an Internet connection. The ability to allow prospects and customers to get things done by entering data, looking things up, configuring product solutions, and so forth, means the possibilities are more restricted by the limits of imagination and available resources than by technology. Therefore, the first step toward marketing on the Web is to get a handle on realistic goals.

10. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out Improve corporate image Improve customer service Find and test new prospects Increase visibility and awareness Perform transactions Discover and enter new markets Improve customer retention Reduce costs

11. The Web offers information to people who might be willing to reach in and pull it out a major part of the marketing function is to find the largest number of the most qualified buyers, so it falls to the marketing department to keep the salesperson selling instead of prospecting.