Marketing Your Business on the Internet

In preparing to write this article on marketing, my first thoughts were to focus on the four "P's" of marketing: price, product, promotion and place. These are all critical parts of the marketing mix, but there is another area to which businesses must give attention if they are to be successful in the future.

This area is the Internet and electronic commerce, or "E-Commerce" as it is called. This is the fastest growing sector of the Internet. Jupiter Communications, a research company that tracks online spending, predicts that business-to-business E-commerce sales will be $327 billion by the year 2002. This company also predicts that business-to-consumer online sales will rise to $41 billion. As you can see, most of the E-Commerce taking place is business to business. What are the implications for you and your business?

If you don't yet have a presence on the Information Super Highway (WWW), plan now to get on board! This phenomenon has created an opportunity for businesses of all sizes to serve a new market of customers. The speed at which this innovation has been adopted has far exceeded any other innovation in history and continues to be accepted at a very rapid rate. Some 72 million Americans (37 percent of the U.S. adult population) are connected to the Internet. The number of online shoppers is estimated at 23.1 million people, and this number is expected to almost triple to 61.1 million by 2002, according to the National Retail Federation and Media Metrix.

Studies show that people use the Internet to find product information more than any other purpose. This indicates that companies that are going to survive and thrive are those using web-based and digital technology to improve their businesses and reach their customers.

Recently I was looking for product information for a pop-up camper trailer. The company had a very nice website, filled with everything you would want to know about each trailer in their line. They had color pictures, specifications and prices on each model, all within three clicks of the main page. When I accessed information on the nearest dealer (whose phone number and address were provided on the site), I was pleasantly surprised to find an even less expensive price than that listed on the company web page.

When you develop a web site for your business, keep several issues in mind.

First, address your security issues right up front. Then customers will feel at ease doing business with you. More and more businesses are using credit cards to conduct transactions with one another.

Second, price your products competitively. Search engines are available that will search for your product and compare your price to your competitors. This is an important part of the marketing mix.

Third, be prepared to handle the volume of business that may be generated by your web site. Jupiter Communications reports that 42 percent of the leading web sites either take longer than five days to reply to e-mails, don't ever reply or have no e-mail address on their web sites. You wouldn't let the phone go unanswered, so give the same prompt service to your E-Commerce clients. If you have a sales force, be sure to offer a place on your web site where a potential customer can select "Have a salesman contact me." This alone can generate several good leads a day.

Fourth, be sure to monitor your competitors and their web sites. And be sure to keep your site updated regularly. If people continually see outdated material on a web site, they will stop visiting.

A final point: Approximately 60 percent of people find your web site by using a search engine. One web site you can visit is searchenginewatch.com to learn how to promote your own web site, as well as how to use search engines to find information on the Internet. Also, related to this topic, if you have lots of great content on your site, you should have your own search engine to help people find a particular item. This allows visitors to enter a key word and search for items just on your site, not the whole Internet.

In summary, a successful web-based business has the following characteristics: (1) a secure method for conducting transactions: (2) a marketing strategy that includes product, price, place and promotion; (3) the ability to handle generated business volume; and (4) a fresh and up-to-date website.

Although electronic commerce is not a panacea for every business challenge, the Internet offers so much potential to businesses that it should not be overlooked as a way to help you sell more products and services!

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Authored by: Rick Sparks, Business and Industry Specialist, University of Missouri Extension Center
Source: Creating Quality Newsletter, Volume 10, Number 7, July 2001

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