Reflections in Cybereye

The other day I received a phone call from a woman who wanted to create a web site for my company. She represented an organization whose name will go unmentioned.

"For very little money," she said, she could put me on the Internet where my company could do a lot more business. "You want to do more business, don't you?" she asked in that salesperson's way of trying to get a "yes" to something before moving in for the close.

I answered, "I certainly want to do more business. That's why I'm already on the Internet. Does this mean you would be willing to link my site to your site so I could get people to click over to me?"

"Sure," she said. But I would have to have a whole page on her organization's site to do so. "You could have a picture on the page," she added enthusiastically.

Since she had not already caught on to the obvious fact that my company already has a Website -- indeed, we actually create them for others too -- I pursued the subject further by asking where her site is located so I could look it up and see a sample of her work.

She gave me the name and said she'd call back in a day or two. I said it wasn't necessary. If I liked what I saw, I would e-mail her through the site.

"You do have an e-mail capability in your site, don't you?" I asked. She wasn't sure. Even if the site did have an e-mail page, it would go to the organization, not to her, she explained.

"Well, can't I just send it to your attention at that e-mail address?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," she said, "There are about 200 designers here and I don't know how they would handle that."

Also within the last week, someone on an Internet forum to which I subscribe

asked the other forum members for advice. Her trade group had received a

solicitation from a company offering to do a six-page web design at no charge. They would host the site and the only charges would be "administrative." Turns out the

"administrative" charges are close to $1,000, and not just as a one-time charge.

After being advised by other forum members that 1) a web site design is only as good as its designer, 2) a web site is only one aspect of a brand's total communications

program and should be consistent with that program in strategy and execution, and

3) you don't get something for nothing, she wisely decided to decline the offer. Instead, she will work with someone who is more familiar with her organization and whose work she knows and trusts.

Internet Gold Rush

These two stories reflect the feeding frenzy that is taking place in the field of Internet page design and site hosting. It's like the Gold Rush days. Lawn maintenance operators are getting out of the grass cutting business and into cutting deals because they have a computer with a modem and a desire, as the recruiting ads say, "to earn big money."

To me, they are the Cyberspace equivalent of the guy who knocks on your door and tells you he is in the neighborhood to resurface a neighbor's driveway and, since he has some material left over, he'll do yours, too, for a couple of bucks.

Please don't interpret this to mean you shouldn't be on the Internet at all. It is one of the most stunning communications opportunities open to any company at this time. It hasn't always been so. About 15 years ago, I was involved in what then was called the Videotex industry. It was a precursor to the Internet. This brave, new system was going to "revolutionize the way we do business." For a number of reasons, the technology never caught on. The demonstration projects failed and died away.

The Internet, however, is not a fad or passing fancy. Because it is content-centered, computer-based, and serves a genuine need to get information more quickly and more

conveniently, it is here to stay.

More than that, it is booming. At last count, there were over 100 million people with on-line access according to Nua, one of Europe's leading on-line consultant agencies. These are people who can dial up, search, and use the World Wide Web (WWW).

According to a Business Week study done over a year ago, there are more than 40 million Web users in the United States. Based on projections of more than 200 million users by the year 2001, there could be 75 million Americans using the Internet at the start of the new millennium. No other marketing medium has the potential to reach so many people at such low cost, even if you hire the best people to design and maintain your site.

Even more important, the WWW provides the opportunity to tell as full a story about your brand and its benefits as each of your customers wants to take in. In this respect, it is like direct mail. But, whereas direct mail is "push" medium - it pushes out to the people you want to reach -- the Internet is a "pull" medium. Your customer finds you because he or she is looking for information you offer.

It's like operating a store. You can't take it to your customer. You must be sure your customers know where it is, what it offers, how to get to it, and why it's worth their time to visit. It also helps to have an address that is easy to remember and attractive

windows, for those who just wander by.

This means you must let prospects know your Internet address (or URL) through other media and be sure your site is constructed so that the customer's search for key

words will cause your site to show up on their search results list. You also have to be sure that as many search engines as possible know about your site and what it offers.

By now you may be saying it all sounds too complicated and probably isn't worth the trouble. But keep your Cybereye on the prize. One web site, an on-line auction called www.ebay.com, has over 140 million hits every week (that's not a typo.). It also is a model of Internet design, encouraging interaction and involvement. Visit it to see for

yourself.

Interactivity is another distinguishing property of the WWW. It has the ability not

only to get your message out to those who are interested, but also to encourage involvement with the message and actual response right up to and including making a sale. Any Website that doesn't encourage visitors to become involved is like paying for a hot fudge sundae and only eating the cherry. If web designer or ISP doesn't think a

response mechanism is important, ask them why there is an e-mail link to them at the

bottom of the pages they create.

By the way, the Lee County Visitor and Convention Bureau, which has one of the most consistent and reliable systems for tracking the behavior and attitudes of tourists to the Lee Island Coast, indicates that in July 11.8 percent of the people who visited Lee County and had access to the Internet actually booked their reservations on-line.

That equates to approximately 12,204 reservations in one month, off-season. At an average stay of five nights, we are looking at over 61,000 room nights. If