Internet Marketing
Content

Well let's take this to the logical conclusion... if every company worked that way then the web site visitor will never see anything that would differentiate your company web site from any of your competitors web sites.

So many web sites are simple brochure sites and most of them get visited once and then mostly ignored.  If you want to get your site referred to on a regular basis you must update the site on a regular basis and provide worthwhile information that encourages visitors to return. 

Now let's be realistic... certainly a good way to get your web site of the ground is to use a company brochure approach.  That said, to turn it into a major sales tool and/or customer support tool, you need to quickly dig deeper.  You should provide more detailed information that your site visitor can go to when required. This way they know that your web site offers "comprehensive" information and not just a gloss. Don't forget that many brochures are designed to be a "Sales Tool" and the salesman will use it as that but be able to fill in additional details on the spot from his own more detailed knowledge of the products.  That is why the brochure approach rarely works as the sales person is not there to fill in the additional details... you need to do that on your web site.

How often do we see an e-commerce site offering some delicious smoked salmon or the like.  How do they present it to the site visitor?  Most often they will give you a small picture with a few words of description.  They expect a first time visitor to purchase it?  They must be off their heads.  Why don't companies offer a link to a section where the whole process can be presented?  Like why not have a picture of where they are caught.. a picture of the smoking process.. some mouth watering words describing the flavour.  In other words do a proper selling job.  In real life they would likely give a sample of the product for folk to taste but as you can't do that on the web, unless you are willing to send a sample, you need to use words and pictures to express what is so good about the product and create the desire to purchase.

Remember the old sales saying - AIDA?

• Before you can sell a product or proposition you must grasp/seize the buyers ATTENTION so that he/she is prepared to listen to your proposition.
• You must keep the buyers attention by developing their INTEREST in your proposition - product benefits.
• You must stimulate the buyers DESIRE to buy by telling them - "What's in it for them".
• You must CLOSE the sale by being positive and making it easy to say yes and difficult to say no.

This is an old and tried selling technique and when applying it to e-commerce or your web design you will get results. I'm constantly amazed how companies use this technique in real life with their own sales forces but never even consider it when they design their company web sites.

Newsletter

Providing a newsletter where you discuss new developments, technical tips, etc., is an amazingly good method of ensuring you get regular visitors to your site. This can also be a conduit to adding permanent content onto your site as by providing a "Tip of the Month" you can also add that to a permanent part of your site which will build over time and become an increasingly important resource. The more interesting this is the more visitors will want to return.

At the end of the day if your site provides good depth of information and regularly adds new content your visitors will return on a regular basis and this gives you the opportunity to bring to their attention new products or services and special promotions.