TheWebsEYE.com

Economies of scale Online

Part 1 - Economies of scale in reverse
by Richard Igoe

We are at a turning point in the history of business practice. Because the internet is so new and dynamic, there are few set rules about how to market. Small businesses using non-conventional tactics are capturing market share from large established corporations.

Now here are 4 reasons why the internet empowers the individual or small business.

1. A website allows you to have an online presence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can have the presence of a superstore without the overheads. Quality web hosting costs less than $6 a month. A website that costs $50,000 or more to build does not necessarily mean it will make sales. What will generate the sales is how well you market your product and how good your sales copy is!

2. The internet allows you to use marketing tactics such as viral marketing or an affiliate program to reach your prospects. It is your marketing tactics which will determine the success of your referral program, not the size of your advertising budget.

3. The internet makes it easy for you to follow up. This is what builds repeat customers. A form on your website will allow you to capture your visitors' email addresses. You can then use autoresponders that will automatically follow up leads, thank them for buying from you, advise them of new products and services, and you can do all this for less than $20 a month!

4. The internet also allows you to track your marketing campaigns in real-time. You can find out exactly which headlines, which web pages, and which advertising is working, and you can change these at the drop of a hat. You can then channel your time and money to the marketing campaigns that are getting results.

These four features give an individual or small business what I call ECONOMIES OF SCALE IN REVERSE. A small business can build up and manage a database of customers as big as a large corporation but without the overheads. The internet is the perfect place for a company to take advantage of economies of scale in reverse!

An individual or small business can have full control over the website and online marketing whereas in a large corporation, these tasks usually have their own separate departments. The Web development team is not usually paid for their marketing efforts so optimisation of the website for the search engines for example is not top priority.

Also the marketing manager is usually someone with an MBA or traditional marketing qualification. These managers may not necessarily have the time to take in the kind of knowledge you are reading here as they are often too busy finding ways to allocate their advertising budgets and don't realise how integral the design of the website is to their online marketing.

Large corporations cannot adapt as fast as an individual to changing market situations, and the internet is dynamic and changes every day!

But what do you need to gain this advantage?

One essential ingredient should be "copy that sells". The first contact a prospect has with your site MUST grab their attention and every bit of contact thereafter MUST give them a good reason why they should choose you rather than go elsewhere. You need to ensure that your visitor does not stray away to another website, or delete your email message.

==============================================

Article by Richard Igoe, creator of the free 5-day "Website Success Course By Email" and owner of TheWebsEYE.com - a source of website design, promotion and internet marketing knowledge.