Issue 14, May 25, 1996

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

In this issue:

• Is Your Product a Good Candidate for Web Success?
• Apologies and Notes
• Web Tales: Part 5--Opening Day

Is Your Product a Good Candidate for Web Success?

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

How do you know your service or product will succeed on the Internet? Perhaps that's the same question as whether your business will succeed on Main St., Your Town. You don't know until you try. And, thankfully, the entry price for marketing on the Web isn't so high it's out of your reach. But these are some questions you should be asking yourself:

What keywords would someone use to search for my business?

Once upon a time a couple of entrepreneurs came up with a T-shirt with a cartoon of someone "surfing" the Internet. It was cute, moderately-priced, and attractive to Net citizens. But how would someone find it? Keywords: T-shirt, Internet, gifts, novelty, first edition? If you were to look on any one of those words you would find thousands of entries in a Web search engine index. To succeed, you need some angle to differentiate yourself on the Web search engines. It may be geographic location, a unique niche, perhaps a combination of services that will bring you up when someone searches on two words at the same time. If your product is primarily an impulse buy, you'll have to find another way to get people to your Web site.

How many items will I have to sell from the Web to break even?

If your product is $9.95, you'll have to sell a lot. If it's $10,000, you only have to sell one every once-in-a-while. Another way to look at this is to ask how many items you have for sale. If you are selling a single product, the chance a Web surfer will purchase is low. If you sell a number of products, the chance someone will buy goes up dramatically. Usually it costs little more to sell many products.

Will I actively market my Web site?

I don't know of any successes for people who fell for the "you don't even need a computer" hype which sold them a Web site. Web marketing needs to be active to be effective. (See my article, "How to Attract Visitors to Your Web Site"). Small business people may need to learn to do this yourself.

Do the people who need my product or service surf the Web?

A rapidly increasing number of people do surf the Web. But the number of blue collar families is substantially less than others, for example. Make sure your product or service is a match with Web demographics.

Ask yourself these hard questions. Then, if you still think your product or service can succeed in this medium, why don't you give it a shot? Just make sure you proceed onto the Internet with hopes based in some semblance of reality.

Apologies and Notes

Issue 13 of WMT contained a scattering of gibberish symbols at the end of every line and elsewhere. My most abject apologies for this disaster wrought from using a new program without testing it first. I thought about sending out a clean copy, but decided to wait for this issue, since both my server and your mailboxes don't need overloading.

Thanks to you who alerted us to Web pirates who have reproduced our materials without permission and attached their own names. I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but our loyal readers' expectation for integrity on the Web does make a difference. Thank you.

We had a hard disk crash which trashed back text versions of WMT. If you have saved text versions, perhaps you could let me know. I would like to receive them on a diskette, if possible. ;-)

Web Tales. Part 5--Opening Day

[Editor: This is the fifth in a series of six articles by a Web marketer, one of my clients. Some of you will identify with his experiences.]

The time was nearing. Our Web site soon would be "open to the public." Tweaking here and there. Adding another index page to help visitors navigate around our site without getting lost. Adjusting some of the color elements to project a consistent image. Providing for the additional pages we knew would come later. Testing the image maps at the bottom of each page and various links to be sure they worked as planned. The final walk-throughs, so to speak, before taking the keys and opening the door.

Our site's "debut" just happened to be in public. We were attending a ribbon-cutting reception celebrating the opening of a tech center the evening after we declared our site ready for the world to visit. Someone was demonstrating the Internet workstation and asked "Where shall we go today?" We suggested our site and the address was dutifully typed. There it was! New parents could hardly have been prouder -- we had arrived.

Thinking back to that moment, I feel sorry (kind of) for a few colleagues who leaped onto the Web with the first direct-mail solicitation they received proclaiming "For a few dollars you too can have a Web presence!" It's interesting how they don't usually volunteer that they've even got a site, much less publish their URL addresses on their stationery, business cards and other materials.

I've visited their sites and can understand why. They're stuck with a mediocre product, sometimes in a lonely mall, receiving occasional "hits" and even rarer inquiries (if any). They're not registered with any of the search engines either and don't know how to. They've never gotten any advice on relevant newsgroups and the value of participating in discussions. The 200-character abstracts that accompany their company name (when search engines do happen to find them) don't say anything of value to their prospects. Little wonder they don't publicize their Web sites. I wouldn't either.

Our experience, on the other hand, was that of a complete turn-key operation. Next time, I'll describe our exciting first two weeks in Webdom. Stay tuned.