News & Articles

Welcome to FutureNet Technologies - News & Articles section. Here you will find many useful news & articles which will update you with your subject requriment helping you in making better business decisions and developing your online business. You are welcome to publish these articles in their entirety, electronically, or in print free of charge.

Thirteen Reasons to Put a Business on the World Wide Web

Having worked on many, many marketing campaigns, we have come to abhor the business evangelists who claim to have narrowed down the entire art and science of conducting business into something like the "Seven Keys to Success." We don't want you to think for a second that this list is anything like that.

What this list represents are some of the very good reasons we've found for doing business on the Internet. However, we loathe the idea that anyone might try to limit themselves and their campaigns to these few items. Simply think of these as a starting-off point.

1) To establish a presence.
Globally, approximately 200 million people have access to the World Wide Web. Quite simply, there are few businesses that can ignore a market of this size. Having an e-mail address and Web site is llike having a phone number and business card—crucial to even small companies.

2) To network.
By linking your pages with those of your networked contacts, you are referring clients back and forth. If, for instance, your product complements, is used within, or uses a product from another manufacturer, a potential client can get a complete package of information with just a few clicks of a mouse.

3) To provide availability advertising.
There's little doubt that the most used resource directory is the Yellow Pages. Imagine a book of Yellow Pages that covers the globe—all a client would need to do is tell it what he or she was looking for, and it would automatically open to your listing. That's exactly how the WWW works.

Not only can you list basic information (your business expertise, location, hours, how to contact you, methods of payment, and so on), but you can update this information instantly (time-sensitive specials, current interest rates, announcements, and press releases). You can even have an entire catalog, including full-color photographs and graphics, available for instant viewing and ordering.

4) To augment traditional advertising.
Imagine including a brochure with every business card, piece of letterhead, print or broadcast ad, and even in your telephone's on-hold messages. By including your WWW address, that's exactly what you can do. A WWW address, such as www.hampton.org, is small enough to fit anywhere, yet it provides instant access to your entire sales argument. Furthermore, an instant e-mail response can be built into Web pages to get and give feedback while the questions are still fresh in your customer's mind, without the cost and lack of response of business reply mail.

If you read any of the nation's largest magazines and newspapers, you'll notice more and more WWW addresses printed within advertisements. The reason for this is simple: The WWW allows a much higher degree of communication for the advertising investment—"more bang for the buck."

5) Customer service.
People wiser than we have often said that it's easier to keep an old customer than to get a new one. Keeping an open line of communication is one of the most important ways to serve your customers. Via the WWW, you can post information, troubleshooting tips, request forms and the like that will enable you to "keep your finger on the pulse" of your customers.

6) Publicity.
The media is perhaps the most advanced profession today in regard to electronic communication, since their main product is information, and they can get it more quickly, cheaply, and easily online. Because of this, online press kits are becoming more and more common. Most pressrooms have gone digital in the past decade, so it is much easier for them to simply take a press release and photos from a Web site than it would be for them to strip-in hardcopy. The easier you make it for the press, the more likely you are to have your press releases turn to articles in a timely fashion.

7) To open international markets.
We were recently confronted by an issue where a foreign customs official held a package of print proofs for ransom. If these proofs had been made available on the WWW, this could not have happened. As the United States is discovering, digital information has little respect for international boundary lines. Because of this, markets that may have once been too difficult to approach can now be very profitable.

With a Website, you can open up a dialogue with international markets as easily as with the company across the street. We'll go so far as to say that you should decide how you want to handle the international business that will come your way before you start a Website, because it is a good possibility that your online marketing will bring international opportunities—whether it is part of your plan or not. We have posted an ad for an icecream manufacturer on our website and were contacted by people as far away as Uruguay, Lebanon, Philipines.

Another added benefit: If your company has offices overseas, it can access (and even add to) the home office's information for the price of a local phone call. So the Internet and Web make possible easier international communications within a company as well.

8) To test market new services and products.
The advertising costs of rolling out a new service or product can be enormous. Many times, because of the cost of printing and mailing, companies hold off releasing new products until the next generation of their catalog. On the Web, new products and services can be released globally and instantly; updating a Web page to include a new item costs a fraction of what it would to print a new catalog. The Internet's two-way communication also enables you to receive immediate feedback from your markets.

9) To reach a highly desirable demographic market.
The demographic of the WWW user is probably the highest mass-market demographic available. College educated, high income, credit card holders (most ISPs require credit card deposits)—it's no wonder that magazines that deal with the Internet and WWW are easily able to get high-revenue ads on a regular basis.

10) To reach the specialized market.
Thinking of selling photos of celebrities like Elvis Presely, Raj Kapoor etc.? With millions of Internet users, even the most narrowly defined interest group will be represented. And, because of the search capabilities of the WWW, your potential customers will be able to find you.

11) To provide 24-hour, 7-day accessibility.
A FAX may come in from Tokyo at 2:00 in the morning. By the time someone comes in to open the office, the sale is lost. By accessing your WWW system, however, the same potential client could have surveyed your brochure and placed an order—for less than it cost to send the FAX.

12) To save money.
Say your company prints 10,000 copies of a brochure. You send 2,000 out via the mail, give 2,000 to the sales staff, and put 6,000 in a warehouse for later use. Over the next few months, you add new products/services, or you move offices, or you add partners. You now have thousands of outdated brochures.

One of the main reasons that so many of the largest corporations in the world have rushed to the WWW is to try to contain print and print-storage costs.

13) To sell.
Obviously, sales are the most important part of any business—so why didn't we make this the first item on the list? Because a good businessperson will have seen that all of the other points listed add up to increased sales. The WWW is perhaps the most powerful marketing tool ever devised, but it is only a tool.

Even the most perfect promotional system can't make up for a poor product or service, inept staff, or any of the hundreds of intangible stumbling blocks that lie in the way of successful sales. However, with the powerful communication tools and enormous market available in Internet marketing, there's far less of a gamble.

The fact is that clients can find you; review your information in text, pictures, and even sound and video; contact your sales staff; and place an order from their own desks within a matter of minutes, 24-hours a day. No other form of business communication provides this degree of sales support.

How to Choose a Web Designer

You have the often unenviable task of finding someone to build your website. Chances are you know little to nothing about web design and, let's face it, you don't even know what you don't know. Let's change that, shall we?

Let me start by making a few assumptions about you and your business:
* You either own or are part of a small business.
* You're not trying to do this on the cheap.
* You're looking for an experienced professional or organization. Your nephew or your neighbour's daughter isn't going to cut it.
* You care enough about your business that you're willing to invest some time and money to get the job done right the first time (see the above two points).

Regardless of whom you choose to build your website you need to have, at the very least, a defined set of goals or objectives for your website. In other words, you need to figure out what you want your website to do.

Forget about PHP, ASP, CMS or any other acronyms you've heard; the right web designer will figure all that out for you. It's your job to create the wish list from the perspective of your business. Do you want the website to help sell your products or services? Recruit new employees? Stay in touch with clients? You define the problem and we'll let the web designer propose the best solution.

Armed with your high level requirements, here's how to identify the right web designer for you:
1) Decide on Geography.
A local designer/company will have more invested in ensuring that you're a happy customer. If things go poorly you can actually walk down the street and yell at them. That said, a web designer who has a good reputation or comes to you through a referral shouldn't be overlooked if they're not located where you are. Technology can greatly enhance communication and keep things running smoothly. Make a decision based on your own comfort level.

2) Locate Candidates.
This is easy thanks to the nature of web design and Google. Do a search for 'web design city' where 'city' is your city. Pay attention to two different areas of the search results:

a) The first three to five listings in the natural or 'organic' results, and
b) The top three to five paid advertisers. Create a list of between five and ten possible candidates.

3) Go Surfing.
Visit each candidate's website and look for the following:

* Quality content.
=> Are they interested in solving problems?
If yes, good.
=> Does the writing make sense to you as a consumer rather than a geek?
If yes, good.
=> Do they offer up their services in 'packages' based on number of web pages and whether you want fries or a side salad?
If yes, bad.
=> The right web designer will be someone who understands your unique issues rather than trying to jam your business into a bronze, silver or gold package.

* Presentation.
This is not only the design of their website, but the organization. Does it make sense to you? Do you like it? Would your customers like it? The design and layout of a web designer's website is typically indicative of their 'style'.

* Happy clients.
Look for testimonials, a portfolio and case studies. Do they show an aptitude at being flexible enough to work with different industries? Ideally their testimonials include full names, which means they're not trying to hide anything. Web designers without some sort of portfolio or client list are either bad or lazy; either way, they're not for you.

* Contact info.
Are you forced to fill out an online form to get in contact? Is there a phone number listed? A physical address (other than a PO Box)? You'll need to speak to someone before moving forward, so be sure you can actually call and get a hold of a human being. Companies without phone numbers or addresses are typically located in a basement.

4) Revise Your List.
Based on your surfing adventure, choose your top three candidates.

* Call.
Ideally, don't email or fill out an online form; pick up the phone. You want to ensure that you're dealing with a professional, so call them up and see how they respond. A good web designer will get you talking about your business. They will listen to your problem, try to assess whether or not you're a good client for them, and take things to the next step, which is:

* Meet.
Assuming your candidates are all local, meet with them. Sometimes this is referred to as a Needs Analysis meeting. The goal is to give the web designer enough information to prepare a proposal for you. You'll also want to ensure that you're comfortable dealing with them, and a face-to-face meeting is the best way.

* Proposals.
Get three of them. Any fewer and you're not exploring your options, any more and you're wasting your time. Three is the magic number. Ensure that the web designer gives you the proposal within a week of your meeting.

* Assess.
Here's how to assess the proposal:

* Problem solving.
They need to have proposed a solution to your problem that makes sense to you and is relatively free of geek-speak.

* Comprehensiveness.
Did they cover off all of your issues?

* Follow up.
What happens when the project is over? Will they help you market it? Train you? What about on-going maintenance? Do they guarantee their work? For how long?

* Ideas.
A good web design company might have some really good ideas that you never considered. These can demonstrate creative, out-of-the-box thinking.

* Timeline.
Ensure that they tell you how long the project will take, and that you can live with that time-frame.

* Budget.
You don't have unlimited funds, so be sure you can live with the costs. Your ultimate goal is to get quotes from a few web designers that you feel good about. You want to compare apples to apples, and only by going through the above process can you weed out the oranges.

Web design as an industry is still developing, so unfortunately this is not like shopping for a car or a pair of jeans. You'll need to do a bit more homework to ensure that you find and choose the right web designer for your business. Good luck!