It was '96 when I made the first successful sale of a website. I admit that the customer was really interested in new technologies and ways to sells his products. We started around April and published the project on early September. The product was acceptable by the public and the sales arrived almost immediately. The ROI was fast and the customer was pretty satisfied. Competitors where also interested to develop similar websites, and they started changing radically their marketing policy. The website survived two and half years. It still exists but the orders are 10% of the starting months. Why? It is still the same brand, the same products and the same marketing. Though, the last one misses an "e" in front.
E-marketing extends the principles of the standard marketing (the well known marketing mix of the 4P's - Product, Price, Promotion, and Positioning) in the following points:
Update: Keep your customers, always wanting to access your website. Provide them with new products but describe them briefly in a way not just to convince them, but to make then feel that your product is what they want. Websites that do not update their home page and do not allow customers interactions / feedback, in about two years maybe be found in Google archives, just because their managers assume that products are more important than existing or potential customers and how to establish relation with them.
Design: Voice of the customer: "I want my website's elements to move... to drag them and drop... to listen to my favorite music... to have a large image as background with extremely good quality... plus I want it blue as my favorite color". Reactions:Developer/Designer: faint or over tired - Customers: watch for 45" a label telling them "Loading, Please wait..." (it will also move) and visit the competitor. Of course we want and need the best way to present our company and products but this doesn't exclude that simplicity is also nice. Customers need to access information fast, which they are presented accurately and nicely.
Service - Support - Privacy: Write always a Disclaimer and always prove that you follow it. Relations between companies and customers (like eBay or Amazon) are successful due to the fact that those companies honored what they claimed.
Budget: Why are, most of the financial department head confused when they a digit with more than three zeros after it, with the "e" reason in front, ready to get a stroke? They should think that this budget will secure also their salary. Don't forget, we are living in a difficult era!
FYI: The girl is just playing... The boy doesn't know it!
I often get the question: "Why should I have a nice website, I have a great company and a adequate web page with my contact information and some products... why pay to make it better?"
Simple answer:
You will gain appreciation
You have a store 24/7 with low cost ready to bring you money!
You will get more customers and unexpected sales
I suggest:
Have a perfect design for your website that will be in common with your corporate profile
Optimize your website for the search engines (SEO)
Often, I get questions about the quality of websites. Most of the times I reply it's quite good. But... you don't follow some principles:
First of all, Quality means: Act + Plan + Do + Check (APDC) with the mentioned order. Most of the websites don't have a serious plan and they are not thourougly checked.
What I mean in plan is the WWW questions: "Why - Who - What" . Why you publish the website, Who is your audience / niche, What is your target. You don't just need to sell and provide your products / services but reassure that those will be of value to the public.
Now check is having three dimensions and you should put same gravity on each:
marketing
content
technology
Next one is the content and actually how direct you are. Take this an example, before we had:
Apogee is an innovative software applications development company. Based on the maximum utilization of the web platform, Apogee focuses on Intranet and Extranet modeling and enhancement. It was formulated and established in the middle of 2002 by distinctive and experienced Information Technology Professionals and distinguished Marketing and Sales Executives.
Now we have... At Apogee, we develop software solutions and provide services with a focus on covering the actual needs of medium/large sized companies and organizations. Since 2002, we expanded our provision of services in the majority of countries across Europe.
Finally... Gautama Buddha - Siddhartha said that "All that we are is a result of what we have thought". If you think that you are small, then you will be. But if you think you are big... then you will!
