november, 1997

industry

This is our fourth newsletter on how to promote your organization on the Internet using your website and local Internet access. Each month we publish suggestions on how to increase traffic and prosperity with your website and also update you on what's happening in the industry. Our aim is to make your Internet experience a success and we welcome your input on how we can better serve you. This has been a very busy month for CityStar and we are happy to announce that we have significantly upgraded our services and equipment. You should see a considerable boost in the performance of your websites and virtual servers. We are also offering some new features and if interested please feel free to send us an e-mail.

marketing tips

"Interaction" is the goal for any website you've heard us say again and again. Whether your pages are intended to generate online sales, stimulate press interest, answer customer questions, or capture market research information, it's the action that you ask your visitors to perform that produces beneficial results. For actions to occur, you have to tell visitors exactly what you want them to do. Some may figure it out on their own, but without an explicit stated "call to action," you run the risk of becoming just another click and run victim on the information superhighway. So if you are interested in generating sales don't just state that you have thousands of products or offer hundreds of services. Instead, give your visitors an incentive to interact by saving 10% off their first order...or give them the opportunity to win a prize for filling out a form which you can use to collect demographic information on the visitors to your website.

Be sure to include a comments block on your forms or have a mail-to link on every page. These sorts of things are key to soliciting feedback, which is the compass for any business trying to find its way through the unforgiving jungle of a market economy. Feedback comes in all flavors but there are basically three types of visitors with regard to feedback. The first type and the kind we all love is the glowing fan e-mail generated by the grateful visitor who has been enlightened, entertained and/or inspired by the presentation of your web pages. The second, is that "complaint mail" you can never seem to avoid. There is no shortage of folks who unfailingly point out every typo, broken link, or of those ill-tempered individuals who insist on persuading us to see things their way in LOUD CAPS. The third, and final, type are the non-participants or those who simply "hit and run" with keyboard and mouse and race away with opinions unspoken.

From a marketing standpoint, you might appreciate type "one" who reinforces what you are doing right. If nothing else they're good for the ego. You may also gain valuable insights and suggestions from type two, the complainer, about what to fix and how to fix it. Feedback complainers are really loyal supporters underneath all that electronic hostility. You may not always want to hear what they have to say, but at least these folks are taking time to complain in order to improve the site. If they didn't care for it at all then they'd drift off with the "type threes" never to be logged in again. The point is that the complimenter and complainer interact. The third type is the real marketing problem. The more interactive your website is the more type one and two visitors you will receive. On the other hand, if your site is bland and does not follow the principles we've outlined in previous newsletters, then you will get alot of type three visitors.

Regardless of how you view the types of feedback, it's important to go out of your way to coax it from your visitors in as many prudent ways as possible. Because if you don't ask, you don't get. To generate the maximum flow of site feedback include a feedback mailto on most of your web pages. Include a "Comments" field in your guestbook form. Conduct periodic site evaluation surveys. Openly ask visitors to challenge your opinions, information, and your conclusions. The Web is interactive, so interact!

industry

The big picture for the Web looks promising. What initiatives will the Clinton Administration push in the remainder of its second term? Everyone is speculating but what is abundantly clear is that the White House wants to push the growth of the Information Superhighway. Significant events of President Clinton's first term included passage of the Telcom Act, privatization of the NSF backbone, federal information on the web, and passage of the Communications Decency Act. Priorities for the second term are a $500 million Internet upgrade, Internet access for all classrooms, inter-agency use of web collaboration tools, digital authentication and transactions, and the elimination of barriers to global electronic commerce.

There is a lot of venture capital being invested in Internet start-ups. A glance at some of the hot Internet companie's stocks or IPOs tells why... Checkpoint +64%, Cybercash +60%, Mecklermedia +31%, PSINet +42%, Yahoo +52%, etc. The Internet is hot. But all this interconnectivity has a price - security. As companmies put more of their data online and allow customers to access their networks security has become a big concern. Virtual private networks over wide areas create unique security concerns and that's why the demand for firewall technology has increased four-fold since 1996 and will increase eight-fold by the year 2000 based on current demand. Expect to see alot of venture capital being poured into security solutions this coming year.

That's it for now. Within the next two to three months we expect to be offering a variety of hot technologies and we will keep you abreast of what's happening in the industry. We have our eye on the streaming audio and video, e-mail to fax and pager, and telephone to net technologies. If interested in any of the above, e-mail us to discuss the possibilities.

Warm Regards,
Artie Romero 
CityStar Group
http://www.citystar.net

back issues of citystar web marketing news:

April, 1997 | June, 1997 | September, 1997 | November, 1997 | December, 1997 | January, 1998 | February, 1998 | March, 1998 | April, 1998 | June, 1998 | September, 1999