"How can the Web help my business?"

In this section we're going to look a little deeper into the question and try to offer some possible answers.

The Little Book of Virtues
To start, let's look at a few of the ways that the World Wide Web excels as a communications and marketing medium...

Impact
The Web allows your viewers to learn about and interact with your products and ideas in ways that would be downright impossible by any other means. While the idea of custom- tailoring a presentation to your customer's interests is certainly not new, the hyperlinking features of the Web which allow your viewers to build their own presentation are unprecedented. Because the entire technology is digitally based, working on the Web gives you and your viewers access to a palette of multimedia tools that aren't available anywhere else. Looking for a memorable way to introduce your boating fans to your new Sport Fisherman? Don't just talk about the helm, sit them down in the captain's chair and let them explore for themselves. QuickTime® allows your viewers to pan and tilt their virtual camera anywhere within a 360 degree panorama and select objects from the scene for a closer look. Don't just talk about the engines. Give them an MPEG video tour of the engine room. Use RealAudio® to let them hear the sound of the motors. Don't just show them the boat. Let your imagination run wild. Give them a taste of The Life. Take them fishing for Marlin off the coast of Venezuela. Invite them to a Yachtsman's charity ball on Fisher Island. Dream up something fun every month or two to bring them back to your site. With virtually unlimited space to tell stories, and exciting new technologies coming on line every day, you'll never be at a loss for memorable ways to hold their interest.

Reach
Unlike your other marketing tools, your website is available on demand at any time to anyone in the world with Internet access. If prospective customers should become curious about your product or service, they can simply go to your site. They don't have to wait for the next issue of Weed World to see how they can order your new seed catalog.......they don't have to sit through a rerun of Becker to get a glimpse of your new model line......they don't have to wait for your office to open, or drive to a dealer. Your site never closes, so your message can always get through. The simple addition of your Web address to your other marketing materials instantaneously ties your entire campaign together, and with a little extra effort, your site can be listed on hundreds of search engines so that it can be easily found from anywhere in the world.

Focus
The Web delivers a targeted audience. The Web is not primarily a "push" medium. In order to see what you have to say, your audience has to come to you. You're not trying to catch their attention for a few seconds between feature articles of a magazine or scenes of CSI. You are the reason that they've come. Think of it as Cable TV with a billion channels. Your company is the channel and your products are the show. By definition, anyone who comes to your website has at least some curiosity about your company. If your demographic represents 1% of the population, you are pretty much assured that the people who visit your site are part of that 1%, otherwise they wouldn't have come. No wasted process-color brochures. No wasted time. No wasted money. This kind of pinpoint broadcasting is only available on the Web.

Accountability
The Web allows you to check your progress. With traditional media, the best you can hope for are educated guesses about the effectiveness of the elements contained in your marketing plan. "Hard" data on numbers of impressions, retention, and pass-along readership are often based on seat-of-the-pants extrapolations and assume control over an impossible number of variables. On the Web, the results of your efforts are knowable. Each person who visits your site leaves a digital trace, so you can see exactly which files were downloaded and viewed and which were not. Click-through rates give you direct readings on the effectiveness of your banner ads. The numbers tell all. This kind of accountability is new almost everywhere except in the field of direct marketing.

Cost Effectiveness and Scalability
Unlike the impression left by a static medium such as a magazine, which is gone once the page is turned, your website is always available to make an impression. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. For the price of a few full-page insertions in a magazine, you can provide your customers with in-depth, lavishly illustrated coverage of your entire product line. And because your website is easily revised and infinitely expandable, you can start small and build it to a depth and level of interactivity which would be prohibitively expensive or even downright impossible by any other means. You're no longer limited to sound bites or catch phrases. Take your time. Tell the whole story. You can do it on the Web for a fraction of what it would cost to do on film or process color.

While all this is well and good, it's all for naught unless there's somebody watching, which brings us to our next question.............

Is There Anybody Out There?..........

Contrary to popular belief, those words are not just the idle musings of an acid-soaked rock band. Ever since there was a Web, there have been people studying it's use. Although early "data" consisted mostly of hand waving and wild speculation, real numbers began to emerge once the big boys joined the fray. Now that serious, ongoing studies by researchers like AC Neilson, Intelliquest, and Georgia Tech's Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center are in place, a pretty amazing picture is starting to emerge. Here are some of the highlights from the latest surveys.........

Over 165 million Americans have access to the Internet...This represents a substantial growth in the number of users in the last year. Here's the age breakdown according to survey.net....