The Internet Roadmap

I could dive right in and propel us into a discussion of what’s coming in the next few years — yes, the "tsunami" of business that will be coming to interactive e-mail, interactive web, interactive everything. And here’s a serious warning: Most marketers, let alone companies, are not really ready for the opportunity that awaits, and we'd better get our act together or we might really blow it.

I’m talking about moving forward with action steps full of ideas on the roadway to Internet success. There are five steps that drive sales and relationships offline and online:

1. Drive traffic to the website via advertising, marketing, and communications.
2. Capture leads via landing page registrations.
3. Acquisition of new customers as the desired result of a specific campaign—a sale, download, survey submission, or the like.
4. Retention: Duration and lifetime value of each customer
5. Referral: Leveraging satisfied customers to find referrals

The Internet road map is clear in setting the route to success using the Internet. However, as clear as the map may be, improving the "customer conversation" has emerged as the key missing link. That missing link is the absence of any special experience for the customer surfing on or in your website. The effectiveness can be expressed by means of moving the soul or spirit of the visitor who enters a website.

In today's highly competitive markets, it's not what you sell but how you sell that matters, and it’s the same with a website. It’s not what you offer on the website that matters most - it’s your presentation.

Salespeople tell me, “It's not about where I show up. It's about what I say when I get there that really counts.” It’s the same with a website. The customer conversation has become the last bastion of competitive differentiation. I am still baffled at how many websites look like so many others. It seems so many feel comfortable looking like everyone else on the web and have no intention to give their website the same respect as they would any other part of their brand the customer may take part in.

Today’s website is a visual communicator, interactive and user friendly. Again, the relationship between your website and your web visitor is communication. How you escort a visitor through your website is key to winning the Internet marketing game and is done by means of careful planning and development. Certainly a website embodies promotion and education, but even more so it can embody a personality, charm, a reflection of the company’s values and integrity. Consider every click of a visitor in your website and every second of their patronage an investment in you and your company.

This area of discussion is one of my most passionate topics, as I hunger to find prospects and clients who are willing to analyze what is special and different about themselves and the company they represent. This is much deeper than a mission statement or tag line, and taking what I call the “Who, What, Why and How” exercise to reveal all of the answers and provide a road map to a rebirth, a rebirth that can change a company’s goals and vision forever for the better.

Try it. Sit down for a moment and simply describe the “Who, What, Why and How” of your company. Oftentimes, your feelings will get in the way, and that’s exactly what you want! Let the feelings flow and pull up from your heart, your soul and, of course, your experience, the most descriptive explanation of your past, present and future.

The results from that short quiz, augmented with a marketing web design firm that has your best interest at heart, give you a combination that no competitor could touch. Look around: Most websites are not developed to be a special place. Why is the presentation of websites given less importance than brick and mortar presentation? Why do so many websites look like hood ornaments? Why are they littered with regurgitated brochure wear, when we all know we are reading less and less when surfing the web? Statistics show that not only do 80% of people visit a website never to return, they spend less than 10 seconds reading any one section of a website. Unless you’re a speed reader, most pages on most websites are probably not absorbed, despite what we might think.

Starbucks is a great example of a company that found a formula it replicates through every store. The formula is special and in many ways indescribable. Try asking anyone who patronizes Starbucks to describe what they feel when they walk into their coffeehouse each day. When I ask, I commonly hear, “I love their coffee.” When I probe for more on what draws Starbuck fans to repeatedly spend $4 on coffee every day, I get very little back in response. Why? The brand is indescribable. When a fan of any company’s services or products is unable to define what they get back from their store of choice, you know this company has won the “branding game.” Funny as it may sound, the moment a customer can define a brand they enjoy, the brand may have lost that special touch it once had.

In the brand is a carefully crafted formula. You have it in you, and your customers are hungry to experience it, too. Don’t expect them to ask you to implement the formula — they can’t describe the brand let alone define the formula.

The formula has the ability to move your emotions in such a manner that you’re willing to pay $4 for a cup of coffee. Add that up over a month and you’re spending close to $100 to get that Starbucks caffeine jolt every morning on the way to work. Amazing? Yes! The brand of Starbucks has created a cult that has sent the message back to the company. The customer has spoken and is deep into a long-term relationship with their coffee providers.

A process, a formula, and value statement backed with commitment from Starbucks we all should ponder and then integrate the very values we’ve seen Starbucks execute so beautifully directly into our websites and e-mail messages. My goal is to energize you and provide a compass that will help you incrementally understand, adjust, and inject that indescribable feeling into your brand. When you reach brand nirvana, no competitor can touch you.