1. To
Establish A Presence
Approximately 750 million people worldwide
have access to the World Wide Web (WWW). No matter what your business is,
you can't ignore 750 million people. To be a part of that community and
show that you are interested in serving them, you need to be on the WWW
for them. You know your competitors will.
2. To
Network
A lot of what passes for business is simply nothing more
than making connections with other people. Every smart business person
knows, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Passing out your
business card is part of every good meeting and every business person can
tell more than one story how a chance meeting turned into the big deal.
Well, what if you could pass out your business card to thousands, maybe
millions of potential clients and partners, saying this is what I do and
if you are ever in need of my services, this is how you can reach me. You
can, 24 hours a day, inexpensively and simply, on the WWW.
3. To
Make Business Information Available
What is basic business
information? Think of a Yellow Pages ad. What are your hours? What do you
do? How can someone contact you? What methods of payment do you take?
Where are you located at? Now think of a Yellow Pages ad where you have
instant communication. What is today's special? Today's interest rate?
Next week's parking lot sale information? If you could keep your customer
informed of every reason why they should do business with you, don't you
think you could do more business? You can on the WWW.
4. To
Serve Your Customers
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 WWW 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, on the WWW.
5. To
Heighten Public Interest
You won't get Newsweek magazine to write
up your local store opening, but you might get them to write up your Web
Page address if it is something new and interesting. Even if Newsweek
would write about your local store opening, you wouldn't benefit from
someone in a distant city reading about it, unless of course, they were
coming to your town sometime soon. With Web page information, anybody
anywhere who can access the Web and hears about you is a potential visitor
to your Web site and a potential customer for your information there.
6. To
Release Time Sensitive Materials
What if your materials need to be
released no earlier than midnight? The quarterly earnings statement, the
grand prize winner, the press kit for the much anticipated film, the
merger news? Well, you sent out the materials to the press with
"The-do-not-release-before-such-and-such-time" statement and hope for the
best. Now the information can be made available at midnight or any time
you specify, with all related materials such as photographs, bios, etc.
released at exactly the same time. Imagine the anticipation of "All
materials will be made available on our Web site at 12:01 AM". The scoop
goes to those that wait for the information to be posted, not the one who
releases your information early.
7. To
Sell Things
Many people think that this is the number 1 thing to do
with the World Wide Web, but we made it number seven to make it clear that
we think you should consider selling things on the Internet and the World
Wide Web after you have done all the things above and maybe even after
doing quite a few more things from this list. Why? Well, the answer is
complex but the best way to put it is, do you consider the telephone the
best place to sell things? Probably not. You probably consider the
telephone a tool that allows you to communicate with your customer, which
in turn helps you sell things. Well, that's how we think you should
consider the WWW. The technology is different, of course, but before
people decide to become customers, they want to know about you, what you
do and what you can do for them. Which you can do easily and inexpensively
on the WWW. Then you might be able to turn them into customers.
