1. Establish A Presence
Approximately 100 million Americans have access to the World Wide Web (WWW). No matter what your business is, you can’t ignore the millions of people on the Net.
2. Make Your Information Accessible
What is basic business information? Think of your own customized Yellow Pages advertisement: Your hours, the Nature of your business, your Practice Areas, your Accomplishments, Honors and Awards, how to contact you. The location of your office and directions to how to get there. Additionally this advertisement would allow customers to contact you immediately or even chat with you online if there is that feature installed. If you could keep you customer informed of every reason why they should be represented by you, there is not much reason you don’t have a business deal there.
Making business information available is one of the most important ways to serve your customers. But if you look at serving the customer, you’ll find even more ways to use internet technology. How about making forms available to pre qualify for loans, or have your staff do a search for that classic jazz record your customer is looking for, without tying up your staff on the phone to take down the information? Allow your customer to punch in sizes and check it against a database that tells him what color of jacket is available in your store / all this can be done, simply and quickly, through the internet.
3. Create a 24 Hour customer Service – Customer relation is the entire buzz nowadays.
People are always talking how good of a service to a customer would make them to come back and patronize your business again. Through the internet now, you can serve your customers online 24/7. You can answer their questions through emails, or send them loyal customer discounts or inform them about new products available. You can send them newsletters or article to make them feel belong to a community or anything else you can think of that could not be done in the past which have to be done manually and tediously. With the Internet you can create an excellent customer relationship service with 24/7 ability.
4. Network
In the business world connection sometimes means everything. A smart business man understands that it is not what you know but who you know to allow you to move forward. Maybe you know that passing out your business card as much as you can, will increase your chance of a business deal or a meeting. Then think about this what if you can send your business card or be present on a search list when someone is looking for a specific service online to thousand or even hundreds of thousands of people online. How much greater potential of a business deal are there?
5. Sell Products and Services
Having a website would enhance your chance of selling something. This statement is not made boldly on speculation and can be explained by simple common sense. A few years ago if a telemarketer wants to sell something he can only rely of his talent of speech and in the 3 minutes time frame the listener is willing to five him to convince the listener. Having a website however would revolutionize all that. You can now let potential customer take all the time they want to browse through information, products, qualities, feedbacks from previous buyers of users. You can convince a potential customer through high resolution picture, music and virtually no time limit. Compare this to the traditional telemarketing or paper brochure and you would find out you have more convincing power and more money left when trying to sell a service or product online.
6. Make Changing Information Available Quickly
Ever in the situation of having to change information on paper after one is printed and find it impossible or time consuming? If you did then you would appreciate the flexibility of online information and mass publication through email. With electronic publishing you can send important promotions, news or anything you want to your subscriber or potential customers. No need for pens or printing on paper as electronic publishing changes according to your needs not you accommodating what you have. You save energy, time and money through one simple step.
7. Reach a Highly desirable Demographic Market
People who use the internet is usually college educated or being college educated. This concludes to the fact that college educated people make higher salary or soon to make a high salary. Therefore it is safe to say also the purchasing power of these people on line would be stronger than those on the streets given the chance you have products to offer online. It would also be safe to say that since the world is going to the phase of more and more people getting online, the prospect for online marketing would remain strong.
8. Statistics/ Tracking & advertising
One benefit of advertising on the internet is the ability for you to see statistical and demographic reports on who visits your website. Other than that you can see from the report where your visitors are from, which pages they are in the most of their time of visit. Knowing this information can help you tremendously in where you want to place or target your market according to the statistics. All of these can done economically through the website you have.
9. Answer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Answering a phone call and answering the same question over and over again is time consuming and inefficient. However it is also crucial for potential customer to get this information. Post those frequently asked questions on a web page and you will have removed another barrier to doing business with you and free up the phone operator for some real operator business.
