This is my guest column as it appeared in NJBiz.com. The full text is below…
Internet Strategy Involves More Than a Flashy Web Site
Guest Column
By Abe Kasbo
3/17/2008
IT IS TIME TO TAKE THE “E” out of e-business. It’s simply business in my book.
Today, more than ever, world-class business leadership demands a strong and strategic position on the Net. The Internet continues to prove itself as an indispensable commercial tool contributing to a range of business imperatives from bottom-line results, sales, branding, marketing and public relations to back-office functions such as human resources and distribution.
Businesses that are successful on the Net understand the Web is not necessarily an IT or even a marketing function, but a key driver of business that brings together the various talents in your company.
Internet business, first and foremost, is about business strategy, not about how cool your site looks. While yes, it’s important to have a visually pleasing and easily navigable site, it is far more important that you build your Web initiatives on solid strategies to advance your business goals.
Web strategies ought to be a critical component of your overall business plans and executed based on sound business decisions. With proper execution on the Net, businesses receive the benefit of both data and experience, which are essential because of the ever-changing nature of the medium.
Your Web initiatives, if done right in the near and long term, will mature with your market and become a natural extension of your business.
The Web is the only dynamic, real-time medium with the capability to both segment and aggregate markets at the same time and in one place. Amazon.com started out selling books, which appealed to a niche market, and when the retailer began to attract enough mass, it did what offline retailers do: added products like electronics, health and beauty, and baby products, to attract different market segments. Now, Amazon.com is a destination business rather than a Web bookseller.
Just because you have a Web site doesn’t mean you’re in business on the Web. Beyond search-engine optimization and banner marketing, successful Web strategies include distribution strategies such as positioning your business on social-networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Yelp. These portals are aggregators of powerful, segmented communities and markets. These dominant social-networking sites provide opportunities to sell products and build brands … for free.
And the brave launch user-generated-content portals that let customers spread the word about the business.
These range from blogs and blooks to video among other means. User-generated content has delivered dollars to presidential candidates, customers to fast-food chains and viewers to broadcasters.
According to a February 2008 study from AccuStream iMedia Research, user-generated video will reach 34 billion views in 2008. And with social-networking sites becoming an integral part of life, it is incumbent upon businesses to take a strong position there.
According to a December 2007 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “64 percent of online teens ages 12 to 17 have participated in one or more content-creating activities on the Internet, up from 57 percent of online teens in a similar survey at the end of 2004.” This trend will continue to climb in both teens and nonteens.
An earlier 2007 study by the same organization found 71 percent of American adults are now online, with people between 55 and 70 years old as the fastest newcomers. The same study cited 91 percent of users employ search engines to find information, 80 percent look for health/medical information and 71 percent buy a product.
People have embraced the Internet as an important part of their lives and more importantly have integrated it to daily living. They increasingly shop, socialize, search for health services, invest, buy insurance and cars and so on. So it is important to understand both the medium and how people behave online in order to develop a foundation for your business’ Web strategies.
The Web is here to stay. It is the only medium that I know of that is so radically connected to us, that if it is taken away, our lives would be adversely impacted. The Web will continue to transform itself, and with that businesses must recognize the market opportunities before them, adapt and innovate.
If not, they risk just having a Web site.
Abe Kasbo is CEO of Verasoni Worldwide, a marketing and public relations firm in Little Falls. He blogs at verasoni.com/vblog.
