Issue 10, April 1, 1996

This article contains older information. Go here for newer information on ecommerce and selling online.

In this issue:

• Can Small Office, Home Office (SOHO) Entrepreneurs Really Compete with Big Corporations on the Web?
• Nice Words about our Web Site
• Web Tales: Part I -- To Be or Not to Be on the Web
• Easter Stories

Can Small Office, Home Office (SOHO) Entrepreneurs Really Compete With Big Corporations On The Web?

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

Does the Internet really level the playing field? Is it realistic to expect small businesses to compete on the Web with the big players?

My answer is a qualified Yes!

Unlike television or print advertising, it isn't a matter of who can afford the largest ad or advertise the most frequently. On the Internet, the real question for small business people is, can you get enough people to come to your Web site to bring you enough business to prosper. Fortunately, your "enough" is much less than the "enough" required by the largest companies, and herein lies one of your assets.

Big companies have two advantages: (1) they can afford banner advertising on Yahoo and other high traffic sites, and (2) they can afford to refresh their content frequently. This allows them to (1) attract many new people, and (2) keep them coming back.

But big companies have some major disadvantages, too. First, they are so bureuacratic that they aren't quick on their feet. Too often they can't act or react without decisions from the top, and that takes time. Often people at the top are out of touch with the power of the Web, so advantages are not siezed rapidly, nor are mistakes fixed expeditiously. Being small has its advantages. Jay Levinson would call it the advantage of Guerilla Marketing.

Big companies often have a strong conservative streak, so in an effort not to offend anyone, their Web sites can be ... bland (for want of a better word). More often than not they are looking to enhance their already known names, not to sell directly over the Net.

Now let's look at some of the advantages of small office, home office (SOHO), entrepeneurial Web marketers:

• You have just as much the space in the heavily-used Web search engines as the big companies. They have one listing, you have one listing (unless you take advantage of the "Multiple Doors of Entry" strategy discussed in issue 8 of WMT archived at http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt).
• You can do niche marketing through newsgroups and mailing lists that few big companies are exploiting.
• You can pursue multiple strategies, and experiment freely with new approaches. Few large companies give that kind of freedom to their Webmasters.
• You can find creative ways of being discovered by thousands of people if you work at it. Big companies need their Web sites to be discovered by millions of people.
• You can pay less for your Web site than big companies-- much less. When big companies approach advertising agencies, the ad agencies see dollar signs in their eyes. They produce first class Web sites for $50,000 to $100,000s and more. You can get a first class Web site developed by an independent Web site designer for $1,000 to $2,000, and sometimes less.
• Small companies don't have the tremendous overhead that their bigger competitors have. Your profit doesn't have to be as high to succeed.
• Small companies can offer the kind of personalized customer service that their big cousins only write advertisements about. Potential customers don't have to go through layers of bureaucracy to get to someone who will actually help them.
• You'll never find a less expensive way to market your goods and services globally.

But there are some things you ought to think twice about. For example,

• Don't expect to build a high traffic Web site you can sell advertising on. Those are very expensive to develop unless you just happen to get lucky.
• Don't wait to develop a Web site until everyone else has done it. Early adopters have an advantage they should sieze now. The entry cost isn't so high you can't learn as you go.
• Don't expect to sell items directly over the Web without paying for (a) a Netscape Secure Commerce Server to offer buyers a sense of security, and (b) a convenient shopping cart buying system (unless you have just a few products).
• Don't expect to get rich, but do expect to expand your present business.
• Don't give up the successful advertising you are doing now. Add a Web site to your existing advertising mix. Then if your Web site is wildly successful....
• Don't be surprised if people don't come to your Web site if all you have are goods or services for sale. Offer them something of value (e.g. information) and they'll be more ready to look favorably on what else you have to offer.
• Don't spend your money on a Web site to advertise a service or product to a strictly local market (unless you live in the Silicon Valley).
• Don't sit on your hands while more expensive bells and whistles emerge to give the advantage to bigger companies. Act now!

To sum up. Does the Web really level the playing field? It'll never be precisely level. But the Web is a wonderful opportunity for the aggressive entrepreneur to expand a business successfully, right alongside the largest corporations in the world. What are you waiting for?

Nice Words About Our Web Site

Home Office Computing, April 1996, p. 61, pointed readers to our "Small Business and Effective Web Marketing"(http://www.wilsonweb.com/webmarket/) Web site as #15 in "The 45 Best-Kept Business Survival Secrets."

LAN Times, March 18, 1996, p. 84, showed a screen shot of our article "How to Shop for an Internet Service Provider to Host Your Business's Web Pages" as part of their article entitled "To Buy or Rent Internet Services?"

Web Marketing Today is being translated into Dutch (http://ibs.reference.be/)

Web Tales Part I -- To Be or Not to Be on the Web

by a Global Marketer

The following column is part of a 6-part series written by an anonymous Web marketer (and a Wilson Internet Services client), feeling that anonymity will allow him to be more candid. We include this because he struggles with some of the very issues many of you are facing. RFW

If you're a net surfer, you probably want to have your own Web site. If you're an entrepreneur, it's not an issue; you definitely want a Web site. If you're like me, this conviction won't go away, because you know the Web is where it's at, and where it'll continue to be. I decided to go for it. I hope you'll find these real-life Tales helpful as well as entertaining in your quest for fame and fortune in Webdom.

As a small service firm with clients throughout the world, we were realizing significant savings (and communicating more than ever) by using e-mail instead of faxes. We knew how much additional value a Web site could be for reaching new potential customers as well as keeping current ones informed.

We started the due diligence process ... attending seminars, responding to ads, inviting people in for demonstrations, collecting quotes, trolling for competitor sites on the 'Net, surfing the "best" sites of the day, week, month, considering (and rejecting) the do-it-yourself route.

Our research was discouraging. We were quoted $6K - $9K for 10 or so pages scanned from our own materials, one graphic permitted/page, no outside links, standardized formatting, no advice, no identity separate from the "mall". Design advice? We collected quotes in the stratospheric $35K+ range! Do-it-yourself was definitely out. An amateurish site ... done by us or by someone moonlighting on lunch breaks for about a thousand dollars...would be worse than no site.

After checking out more than 500 sites, some of them good, lots of them awful, we knew what we wanted (well, we thought we did, but that's another episode). Was it at all possible for us to find a Web site developer to help us create a site we'd be proud of, who'd take the time to understand our business, at a realistic price? (Tune in next time for Part II.)

Easter Stories

Easter is nearly here. Why don't you take a look at a collection of our Easter short stories and articles at the Christian Articles Archive (http://www.wilsonweb.com/archive/) which was reviewed by Point Communications and awarded their "Top 5% of All Web Sites" recognition. May God bless you as you celebrate Christ's resurrection!