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Perhaps the largest obstacle to overcome in improving the business use of the web is the concept of the web as a medium. Let's get this straight right now. I want you to put down your cup of half-warm coffee and repeat outloud after me: ``The web is not print. The web is not radio. The web is not a billboard. And above all else, the web is not television." If you design and promote the web the same as you do for any of these other mediums, you will eventually and unequivocally fail. Take for instance, the household goods manufacturer, Procter and Gamble. The producer of such longevity consumer products as Crisco and Ivory, you decide that they must have an interesting web site. So, after typing in their web address, you finally find what you were looking for one gigantic, web-sized billboard. After ten minutes of perusing the products on the P&G web site, your suspicions are confirmed : Procter and Gamble actually do manufacture Crisco and Ivory. Wow. What Procter and Gamble failed to realize is that the web is a two-way communication medium. Not only can you promote your products, but you can gain the ultimate gold medal in web marketing--increased information about your site visitors and your target market. Think about it this way: If each consumer is a dollar bill, getting their name is worth about a nickel. Gathering their age, sex, and nationality is worth about a fifty cent piece. Getting all of this information and their education and household income is worth the whole dollar. Obtaining this type of demographic information from people who read billboards is nearly impossible. However, this impossibility with billboard advertisements becomes not only possible, but essential with the web. We will be talking about how to actually gather this information a little later, but for now it is suffice to recognize the potential that the web has to offer as a two-way medium and a way to better identify and understand your target market. |
