by Jay Linden
Jay Linden is a veteran web designer
and consultant.
He is currently an information developer
for networked
applications at IBM's Toronto Software
Laboratory.
Author's
prologue: I first wrote this article
early in 1995, when the World Wide Web
was still a new medium and largely unknown
to the general public. While a few things
have changed since then -- everybody has
a URL, and more people have better software
and hardware to give them better access
-- the underlying concept of a communications-first
medium driven by content is as legitimate
today as it was at the web's inception.
- JL
It always amuses me when I hear Internet
marketers describe the challenges of doing
business in "cyberspace," on
the "Information SuperHighway"
or on "the TV of the future."
Surfing around the World Wide Web, it's
easy to find sites that are trying to
outdo each other in terms of creating
the most dazzling multimedia presentations
they can achieve.
If you hang about the Usenet and the mailing
lists, you can't go for more than a day
or two without someone trying to tell
you how you, too, can become rich in no
time on the Internet.
If you want to
do business successfully on the Internet, you're probably
better off thinking of it as a very large small town.
Welcome
to the Community
If
you're new around here, I'd like to offer
you greetings, and welcome you to the
community in which I live and work.
It's just us and tens of millions of our
closest acquaintances.
We're a full-service community here. We
have galleries and museums, lots of wonderful
schools and libraries, places of worship,
millions of clubs and other places where
you can meet your neighbors and talk about
everything under -- and over -- the sun.
Thousands of shops, too, with more springing
up every day.
We're thrilled by your visit; delighted
if you decide to move in. There's plenty
of room. Although you'll find all types
in any community this size, most of us
will do backflips to help you find your
way around and make your stay enjoyable.
There are a few differences between this
community and your real-life hometown,
though. We've never taken an accurate
census, but we think there are over 30
million of us. We know that more of you
are joining us, by the busload, every
day.
Up here, we don't
often meet face-to-face. It's easy to forget that the person
on the other end of the modem is as flesh-and-blood-and-feelings
as the person at the next table in the local diner.
Opening
Up a Neighborhood Store
Doing
business here is a completely new endeavor,
and frankly, companies still try to advertise
at us, as if we were watching commercials
on TV, forgetting that they are the whole
channel, and we have to want to see the
program before we'll be willing to sit
through the ads. Other companies recognize
that what we really want is information.
But even some of these still just upload
their brochures and flyers to websites
like the junk mail we receive every day
in our real-life mailboxes, and mistakenly
expect that we will go out of our way
to pick them up and read them.
Our businesses operate best when they
use a "gift economy." This has
to do with the way people relate to one
another on the net, the way that most
of us -- companies and individuals alike
-- try to help one another, and the joy
with which we offer information and entertainment
for free.
Our better shops offer free coffee and
samples, with no strings attached. Our
successful businesses go out of their
way to be an important part of the community,
to create shops that people will want
to visit repeatedly and tell their friends
about. Revenues will follow.
Some businesses are discovering that the
best way to be successful on the net is
by offering improved customer service,
valuable information, and by being a part
of the community. Traditional advertising
and direct sales don't work very well
here. It's easy to distinguish people
who care from those who just want to make
a killing.
Frankly, a lot of companies up here haven't
yet learned this. Whenever I suggest this
in a post to a marketing mailing list,
I get a few surprised responses from people
who suddenly realize that this sounds
just like the success formula for the
neighborhood store of an earlier, pre-television
era -- a harkening back to when customer
satisfaction and community spirit were
paramount.
Those stores were
a part of the community; the owners lived there, they contributed
to the betterment of the community.
Developing
Trust and Loyal Customers
The
beauty of the Internet is the way it empowers
everyone -- the small business, the student,
the consumer, as well as the large corporation
-- to communicate globally on a one-to-one
level that is unsurpassed, in some cases,
by face-to-face encounters. It also enables
us to see through, and tune out, the hype
that comprises most of today's advertising.
As a business, you have a better opportunity
than ever before to create loyal customers.
But you need to supply the real goods,
and the realest of them all is respect
for your customers.
Here, people don't know your name, your
face, your history (at first, anyway).
They relate to you as a neighborhood business
might, though the shop may be 10,000 miles
away.
Shops and customers start out with a clean
slate, but also without any reason to
trust one another. In most cases, nobody
has recommended the shop to the customer,
or given the customer the store's address.
Remember, this is a very large little
town.
But one of the real advantages of this
computer-mediated environment is the opportunity
to create levels of customer loyalty that
are absolutely unsurpassed, plus word
of mouth recommendations -- for better
or worse -- which speak more loudly than
a dozen multimillion dollar ad campaigns.
There is no "magic button."
But if you stick to a general path of
providing information of real interest,
being helpful at every turn, showing genuine
concern for customer satisfaction, taking
obvious joy in making their stay at your
site as pleasant and useful as possible,
and demonstrating a real, not hyped, commitment
to the quality of what you're selling,
then you've got a good shot at making
your customers as enthusiastic about your
business as you are.
These principles are not unique to the
Internet, of course, but their effects
can be greatly magnified here. They are
the most important rules to follow if
you want your business to grow and flourish
in the world's largest, most diverse small
town.
