The Local Wide Web
by Andrew Shedden
As published in Small Business Canada Magazine
Unless you are a proud card carrying member of a local technophobe club, it’s a safe bet you realize the Internet is firmly entrenched in modern business culture. The increasing ease of computer use coupled with the growing legions of web sites represent tremendous opportunity for all entrepreneurs. Although some small business owners tell me they feel overwhelmed by the whole “new economy thing” there really is no reason to be intimidated by the Web. At the end of the day the Web is just another step in the evolution of communications.
What if you don’t want to sell all over the world?
Simply view the Web as a localized advertising and promotional channel. The global nature of the Internet doesn’t preclude you from utilizing its immense power to effectively market to prospects and customers across the road from you. With a little bit of imagination and some basic promotional flair you can use the Web with great effectiveness to sell your local market.
Before you start…
Whether you want to market your company to increase sales from existing customers or for prospecting purposes, you need to keep the following in mind:
The key to online success is to ethically procure targeted email addresses
You must give a compelling reason to obtain email addresses
You must ask for permission to send emails
You must not bombard recipients with emails
You must make it easy for them to instantly unsubscribe
What you need to succeed
Conventional wisdom suggests 5 to 7 trust-building contacts are necessary to convert suspects into viable prospects. This can mean considerable expense in terms of offline advertising. Because email is nearly free, it is a fabulous way to spread the word. It also means that email is subject to wholesale abuse. Be sure that everyone receiving your promotional messages have asked for them.
Promotional options
The easiest way to come up with effective offline promotional options is to consider how you would encourage people to give you their mailing address and adapt this method to also obtain their email address. The first thing to do is to come up with an irresistible offer only available on your site. You then need to drive traffic to your site without driving yourself to the poorhouse. Online options can be incredibly expensive and untargeted. The following are some low-cost, targeted, offline options.
How do you get them to know about your site?
Put your URL everywhere
Your URL should be tattooed on a prominent part of your forehead equidistant from your left and right eyes. If this seems a little unpalatable, you can also place your URL on your business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, statements, print ads, radio ads, television ads, key rings, pens, ball caps, and any other form of marketing communications.
Ask for email addresses at the point of sale
This technique is so obvious that you almost never encounter it. When was the last time a sales clerk asked you for your email address? When you are obtaining your customer information at the point of sale simply ask for their email address. Be sure to tell them you need their email address to send them special web-only offers.
Send a statement stuffer
Statement stuffers are a great way to get the word out for those of you offering credit to your customers. You have to pay the postage anyway so why not put your irresistible web-only offer in with each statement?
Print a Post Card
Print a post card that drives people to your site. Once you have your post cards printed you can mail them as unaddressed admail to targeted residential areas or businesses for about 10 cents each. You can optionally drop a card in every bag leaving your store.
What do you do once you get them there?
Capture their email address
One of my favourite sayings is “If you’re waiting for the phone to ring, you’ll understand the true meaning of suffering in silence.” You need to actively market the benefits of receiving your email.
Once you’ve enticed someone to visit your site you need to make sure they keep coming back for more. Don’t rely on them bookmarking your web site, as they’ll promptly forget about you.
Be certain you have a short form to capture email addresses on the home page of your web site as well as a page within your web site explaining the benefits of your web-only offers. Take advantage of the Local Wide Web.
