When starting a business or web site on the Internet, it is
often easy to become intimidated by large companies or web sites
offering similar services to you. While you may not be able to
match the million dollar advertising budgets, or employee
numbers of your competitors, there are many things you can do to
make your business or web site stand out from the rest. The aim
of this article is to provide you with an approach, and the
motivation to take on those competitors you never thought you
could match!
Throughout the rest of this article, I will be using the example
of a hypothetical small web hosting company called "Host-It". As
you may or may not know, the web hosting industry is an incredibly
competitive market, which makes it an excellent example for this
article. With the huge amount of large, well established companies
active in the industry, it would be incredibly easy for a small
company such as Host-It to be swallowed and taken under in the
first few months of operation. We will explore some of the tactics
directors of Host-It may use in order to gain some kind of
advantage over their large competitors.
What do customers want?
It is important to get back to basics and ask yourself "What is
it that customers purchasing this service require?". Knowing
some of the decisive factors in customers choices is very
important. If you know what your customers want, you may be able
to tailor your marketing strategies to emphasise these areas.
Making a list
In our example of the Host-It company, directors may come up with
the following list (after researching customer needs) of six
features customers desire in a web host.
1. Excellent support
2. Package features (eg. disk quotas, email boxes, monthly
bandwidth)
3. Special language support (eg. ASP, Perl, PHP, C++, Java)
4. Reasonable pricing
5. Easy account management
6. Reliability
After reviewing this list, Host-It directors could choose areas
they believe their big company competitors are lacking. These
areas would then become areas of focus for both product
development and marketing.
The first item in the list (Excellent support) is often an area
big companies leave a lot to be desired. This opens the door to
create a major selling point for the Host-It service. The
reasonably simple task of ensuring the timely response to
queries could have customers singing your praises, generating a
lot of new business.
Suggestion: If it is feasible for your business, setting up an
account on one (or some) of the major instant messaging programs
(eg. ICQ, Yahoo IM) can leave an excellent impression on
customers. Think how happy you would be receiving a reply to a
query almost instantly!
Getting Info for the List
You may be asking just where you are expected to get such
information about your customers needs. Below is a short list of
suggestions to get you started.
Survey customers.
Participate in discussion groups relating to the subject. You
will often find forums around the Internet with real customers
discussing what they like and dislike about certain products
and services. Participating in these discussions may also get
you business!
Visit web sites and read newsletters which deal with the
subject.
Put yourself in your customers shoes and look at it from their
perspective.
Personalize your Service
I don't know about you, but I find it much more appealing when I
can actually talk to the owner or employees of a business
throughout the use of their service. A personal response to an
order beats auto responders any day!
There are many aspects needed to be considered when
personalizing a service. Listening to user feedback, being
available to talk and offering opinions on different issues all
contribute to personalizing a service. The common goal of many
of these aspects is to build trust with your customers.
Building trust with your customers is an incredibly important,
and often underestimated, aspect which must be considered. To
put it simply, no one is going to buy anything from you on the
Internet if they do not trust you. Personalizing a service is an
excellent way of gaining this customer trust.
Our Host-It team may decide to incorporate some of the following
things to help personalize their service and gain trust from
customers.
On sign up, Host-It should ensure customers have the contact
information for appropriate personnel to voice their queries
or comments. This information should be presented in a way
which welcomes customer interaction.
Every so often, Host-It directors should contact customers
personally to make sure everything is going well and answer
any queries they may have. Many customers will not go out of
their way to give feedback unless asked specifically.
Keep customers informed of updates, changes and upcoming
services.
Give explanations for any down-time which may occur
Provide an area for customers to give feedback and talk with
each other.
Charge Reasonable Prices
The last point I am going to make in this article, is that you
must charge reasonable prices. Although you may not be able to
match the extremely low prices of big companies in some
industries, it is important that you do not over-charge your
customers. Nothing scares customers off quicker than ridiculously
high prices.
If you use the techniques described in this article, customers
may not mind paying that little bit extra. Especially if it is
going to get them a service which the big competitors do not
provide so well.
In conclusion, the best thing you can do as a small business or
web site starting out on the Internet is to understand your
customers and their needs. You must exploit the advantages many
small businesses have over large companies. Using the techniques
outlined in this article, along with your own initiative and
creativity, will help you gain respect, build a reputation and
hopefully reach your goals!
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