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5 Keys To Online Success
It is being more commonly understood that the dot.com bust of 2000 was more the result of bad business models and execution than of some intrinsic fault within the Internet. Many businesses with models appropriate to the Internet are alive and thriving.
Perhaps you’re wondering if your own business has what it takes to be successful on the Web? While every situation is different, experts have noted that successful online businesses possess a number of common characteristics. Let’s take a look at five key characteristics that they share.
1. Management possessed a “Net” awareness.
Dun and Bradstreet’s 20th Annual Small business Survey reports that two-thirds of today’s small businesses have Internet access, and approximately 50 percent of those also have a Website. And more than 60 percent of those with Internet access plan to increase their use of the Internet in coming months.
As business owners and decision-makers, you will most certainly benefit by spending time online learning about the Internet. Look at how your competitors and industry are using it, try to discern where your markets potentially hang out, and ask lots of questions.
2. They had an organized plan.
Do you remember the story Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire cat? One day Alice came to a fork in the road. Looking around, she saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road should I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” the cat replied. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “In that case,” the cat said, “it doesn’t matter which road you take.”
Once you have gotten familiar with the Internet and its potential for your marketing, create a written plan of action. Simply putting your ideas down on paper will help focus your thoughts. Set goals and identify how you can get there.
How important is it to have a plan, or better yet, a written business plan? The Small Business Administration says that most successful companies started with a detailed business plan and those that didn’t plan were far more likely to fail.
3. Successful ventures implemented their creative ideas and then learned from what worked and what didn’t.
Kraft Foods is the largest branded food and beverage company in North America, and the second largest worldwide. Paula Sneed, one of their vice presidents, was a keynote speaker at an Economist Conference. She boiled down the basis for their success down to three simple “ingredients” which I believe are also important to all businesses, no matter what size.
Make smart bets. Kraft identified initiatives that build brand, increase customer loyalty, or cut costs.
Move fast. Once identified, they implemented their initiatives. I think one of the most notable things Sneed said was, “If we’re going to fail let’s fail fast and fail cheap.”
Make course corrections. Kraft expected both success and failure. They made mid-course corrections based on early feedback to improve the likelihood of success. Even failures provided good market feedback they could use for future initiatives.
4. Successful Web ventures did targeted marketing.
As a marketing consultant I find that many small businesses have great difficulty identifying their choice markets. I can’t tell you how many times I ask entrepreneurs what their target markets are, only to be told, “everyone.”
But targeting your marketing to “everyone” doesn’t make sense. Targeting means identifying those potential customers who represent the best prospects for sales and focusing your marketing efforts on them. This is simply the old 80/20 rule (that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers) in practice.
In fact, finding a niche and working to serve its unmet needs is one of the best uses for the Web. Why? Because the Web isn’t really a mass marketing tool, as some would believe. It’s actually a supreme targeted marketing tool.
5. They combined online and offline marketing.
I always hear people making either/or kinds of comments about offline versus online advertising. But successful companies recognized that online and offline advertising are synergistic. They support and amplify one another.
Here are two simple examples. First, including your website URL in all your offline advertising messages (yellow pages, magazine ads, circulars etc) will bring traffic to your website. Second, a signup form on your website that you use to send prospects your standard marketing printed materials (brochures, sales materials etc).
While these five Keys do not guarantee online success, including them in your business will certainly improve your chances for success.