Marketing in the Internet Age... It's Not Just About Using the Internet

First published in 2003

We're on the rebound. The past 10 years have proven that the Internet is here to stay, but they've also proven that the Internet isn't the panacea that some have made it out to be.

As some of you may know, I've been around the Internet since a bit before it became known to the general public; like almost another 10 years before. I've also been around business for a while too; like about 30 years or so, including quite a spell as owner and manager of both retail and service businesses. This has given me a perspective that is somewhat unique.

On the one hand I see the opportunities inherent in sales via the Internet; those where the product is portable or digital. On the other, I see the problem of the locally oriented retail and service type companies and their struggle to find the right formula for the use of the Internet in their businesses. It's no wonder that many people have pulled back from the use of the Internet for their businesses.

At a friend's birthday party recently I spoke to Laura Krown, the owner of specialty book store Abrahams's Books here in the Vancouver area. Her tale included both the Internet and the Yellow Pages in her quest for customers. She handed me her business cards (one for herself as an artist and one for her store) and I noted that the store had a web site. "...we registered the domain but the site is still under construction..." and still is offline as I write this despite the fact that it was registered in May of 2000.

"Last year we bought an ad in the Vancouver volume of the Yellow Pages for what turned out to be almost $500 per month." she said. I asked if she had seen a rise in sales of $3,000/month (figuring a 20% average gross profit which may be low) and she said they hadn't seen any rise in sales at all. "The money was just wasted!" she said.

She's had estimates ranging up to thousands of dollars for the creation of the store's web site which is why it isn't up. "We actually sell books through the Internet via sites like www.worldbookdealers.com and that has actually been a saving grace but the number of walk-ins has declined despite our advertising." When I said that in my estimation the store's site should cost no more than a few hundred dollars a year if it was to be cost effective Laura was a bit taken aback.

"Your web site needs to be complementary to your other advertising and marketing, not a replacement for them," I said. "It should be aimed at making a potential visitor comfortable with your atmosphere before they walk in the door or call on the phone."

This attitude is in keeping with my whole philosophy about the Internet's use for location-based businesses. The Internet should encourage the face-to-face atmosphere of the physical premises.

For a business such as Laura's, where some of the traffic is from walk-bys and some is people from farther a field who come because of the specialty nature of the goods, the marketing and advertising must be tailored to the nature of the product and the people who buy it. This means knowing your market and your customers, and knowing what else they do, where they frequent, and where they get their information from.

New customers for such retailers are hard to come by. Scatter-gun techniques probably don't work well because they are not cost effective. In many cases, actually using traditional advertising to attract new customers may not be cost effective at all. It may be far better to do some clever marketing instead; things like visiting other stores that cater to similar types of people and swapping marketing materials (cards, brochures, samples, etc.) with them to cooperatively market both stores.

Another method is to put some time into creating things like articles for publication in local papers or periodicals, or in magazines that cater to the same types of people.

Such articles can be reprinted as content for bi-fold brochures that again can be distributed to other establishments as reading materials for potential customers (coffee shops, etc.)

Any and all such materials should have pointers both to the physical store (address, phone number, etc.) and to the Internet web site "for more details". The web site then becomes in effect an extended brochure for the store and some of the products; but especially for the people and the (hopefully) friendly and helpful attitude they have towards new and repeat customers - the image you want to portray to your potential new customer.

Next month we'll deal with what the web site for a location based business should and shouldn't contain, and how often it needs to be updated and added to.

richard