Get Prepared
Take a look at a few sites, especially (but no limited to) your competitors. See what sorts of services people offer over the Internet. Consider how you can fit various strategies into your web site.
Putting your brochure on the web is easy. Oftentimes a company or organization will take a one sided approach to Web Site Implementation. That goes across the very nature of the Web: a multifaceted interactive learning/exploring environment. Successful web sites take full advantage of the ever expanding and far reaching capabilities of the web.
What comes next is the desire and vision to leverage the power of the Internet into more and more aspects of your day-to-day business. By passing typical customer service duties and inquiries, typical long-distance voice and fax calls can be all but eliminated. Areas for order inquiry, customer support and shipping status, alongside the electronic version of your brochure, shows visitors to your site that you care about keeping your customers happy.
Consider the following as you plan your site. These ideas can be used to get a dialogue going among the people responsible for ongoing maintenance, development, and enhancements of your site.
- The brochure approach is a good place to begin conceptualizing the design and feel of your site. You want (and need) to project a corporate identity that makes sense to your audience, and your market.
- Take a look at your most common customer service and sales inquiries. These questions can be cataloged, itemized and posted on the web.
- Plan on setting up an area where a visitor to the site can request more detailed information. Perhaps a form which, when filled out, can serve as a basis for quoting a job or qualifying a lead.
- Keep the site active and up-to-date. Post company news, employee of the month, promotions and appointments, new accounts. You could consider posting company memoranda for the growing number wired employees. Job opportunities are great for attracting technical talent.
- Consider ways internet communication can help streamline work flow for your business.
There are broad possibilities of what is possible to incorporate into your site. The simple beauty is that it can start out small and grow as you find new ways to use the power of the Internet to empower your business.
