Marketing Yourself In the Next Millennia

 

Note:

The reader may utilize this paper as an Online Tutorial by opening their Web browser and connecting to their Internet Service Provider. Double- clicking the highlighted and underscored links will allow the reader to directly view the associated information. These sites provide orders of magnitude more information than the author could ever relay in this paper.

 

Introduction

Plan of Attack (Where to start)

Step 1 - Update your technology

Step 2 - Gather Information (Find out what others know)

About Marketing

About Small Business

Learn More about your specialization

About Creating your Website

About using your Browser

Step3- Join Online discussion Groups and Forums

Step 4- Learn to make your own Website

Step 5 - Publish your Website

Step 6 - Market your Website

Step 7- Get Information back From site Visitors

Step 8-  Form Online Strategic Alliances

Conclusion

 

 

 

 

Introduction

One of the hardest things for a consultant or other self-employed businessperson to do is to create that first exposure of their business and their ideas to their target audience. Typically the person already has the abilities and the background to make the consulting business work and fortunately, there is little capital required so the financial aspects are relatively straightforward. The real hurdle is marketing. Luckily, with the help of recent technological advances, this crucial step in the success or failure of the consultant’s business has been made significantly easier. That is if one knows how to access this technology and has a plan to follow to maximize their time, talent, and treasury.

This paper will investigate the sources of help available to a self-employed business person to properly market their services or product utilizing the most promising technology of the Internet and the World Wide Web. In addition paper will focus on what initial steps to take to make the " most bang for your buck" from a marketing standpoint.

Before getting to the actual steps, it is helpful to look back to the past and look at how the marketing of a consultant, or self-employed businessperson has changed over the years. There are some interesting similarities between original marketing methods and concepts at the turn of the century and the ones that will work into to the dawn of the 21st century and the Information Age.

In the good old days a consultant or provider of services would go door to door to offer their services to customers. It was the best and only way in that time, except for mail to reach your target customer market. It cost nothing but the independent businessperson’s time and his success was directly related to how well he could "sell" himself. Much of the success in marketing oneself was how well one could present his ideas and convince the customer of the value of his service or product when he met in the client’s office.

Along came telephone, radio, and TV. With radio and TV came the ability to advertise over the airwaves. They offered to reach more people than one could do in a lifetime in a single instant. This sounded great, and probably was great for certain businesses like large retailers. But for the single businessperson such as a consultant, it was first very expensive and secondly very hard to get any significant content out during the message. Another drawback to was that TV or Radio messages were sent out when you and the station decided that they would go out. It didn’t matter that the potential clients might not have been looking for the services or products you provided at that time. The best you could hope for was that one of your potential clients was watching with a pen in hand to write down your phone number. The marketing of your business lost the interactive nature that it had when the customer could interact with you, to answer his questions or to provide more specifics on his particular requirements.

Even when telephone directory services began offering business listings and advertisements, they lacked the interactive nature of a seller – buyer interface that had existed before. The main benefit of these services over Radio and TV was the permanency of the advertisement. Even so, this was probably the most cost-effective manner for a consultant or individual business to market themselves. The amount of information you could provide about yourself was still a function of how much you paid for the ads. Additionally if you wanted to be listed in another geographic location, you had to pay again.

Until recently, an independent consultant or businessperson was limited in the impact he could make due to a limited marketing budget and the effectiveness of the channels available to him to get to his target market segment. The evolution (some insist Revolution) of personal computer and networked telecommunication technology in the last decade of the Millennia has broken down those barriers for those who can obtain the knowledge and tools to utilize them. Remainder of the paper will demonstrate to the single businessperson that the ability to profit from the cutting edge of Information Technology is within the reach, capabilities, and budget of most any person that is considering a individually-run business.

During the course research while going through the Yellow Pages and their online counterpart YellowPages.com, a revealing view of how technology has affected marketing can be gained by comparing their two slogans.

Yellow Pages "Let your fingers do the walking…."

Yellow Pages.com "Let your mouse do the walking……"

That sums up the progress of Marketing for small business in a nutshell. The next progression of this will be " Let your mind do the walking…" and that day may be here sooner than one would think.

 

Plan of Attack, How to Start

The remainder of the paper will be a step by step plan to help the individual consultant (or individual businessperson) leverage the available Internet and other Information Technology to provide maximum marketing impact. Every great success in battle, the business world, or in personal endeavor has come about because of a good plan. But more importantly what created the success was the execution of that plan. Dwight D. Eisenhower said regarding the difference between a successful person and one who fails " People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan." These eight steps should help one from becoming the latter.

Note:

The reader may utilize this paper as an Online Tutorial by opening their Web browser and connecting to their Internet Service Provider. Double- clicking the highlighted and underscored links will allow the reader to directly view the associated information. These sites provide orders of magnitude more information than the author could ever relay in this paper.

Step 1 - Obtain a New Computer and get connected to the Internet

 

This may sound like an outrageous statement at first, but if your computer is over two years old just the time savings alone you will realize with a faster CPU will pay for the new computer within a very short time. Also many of today’s Web Sites run video intensive content and the newer CPUs incorporate MMX technology that dramatically increases multimedia performance.

With the huge downward cost spiral of all types of computers and the incredible speeds of today’s new PCs there is a very convincing argument to buy at least a 266 Mhz Pentium MMX machine or even a 300, 350, and 450 Mhz PII machine. (This is not an endorsement for IBM compatible over Mac, but most business software is still designed around the PC not the Mac). If you already have a computer setup at home, you don't need to buy another Monitor or Printer or peripherals, just the computer itself.

For more help on deciding on the purchase of a Home (or small business) PC the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons has a good site http://members.ync.net/dphilips/pcguide/index.htm for help in selecting an appropriate PC. There is a multitude of sites on the Internet for suppliers of computers; a search of www.yahoo.com under Computers will provide the broadest starting point.

Secondly, if you don't get a new computer, get a 56K modem. You will greatly increase the possible information transfer speed and increase the efficient use of your time.

Lastly f you will be providing 24 hr per day presence (E-commerce or an online service) you may want to consider getting a permanent IP address and a Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) to bypass the problems of posting webs sites to other servers. This orders of magnitude better than trying to conduct business over a traditional ISP Account. The cost is relatively low about 40$ per month greater than a normal ISP. For more information on DSL, Bellsouth© has a good presentation about the availability and implementation of ADSL on their Web at http://www.bellsouth.net/external/adsl.

 

 

Step 2 - Gather Information - Find out what others know.

Most people that consider the World Wide Web in any business context automatically think of it in terms of "WWW?… Sure, it’s the place where I can put my Website and advertise to the whole world. " Although an important function, they unfortunately fail to recognize that the fundamental advantage that it provides to a small businessman, is knowledge. As an old Greek philosopher once said "Knowledge is Power". One of the most informative and highly praised sites for business and technology on the Internet is at www.brint.com, the Business, Technology & Knowledge Management Network. In particular for a great overview for business knowledge is http://www.brint.com/Business.htm. This site is probably the best stepping off point to increase your business knowledge regardless if you are a beginner or a weathered business professional.

About marketing

 

There is a wealth of knowledge to be gained about marketing in general at http://www.smartbiz.com/sbs/cats/mktg.htm . Look at the general marketing category for many articles concerning the nuts and bolts of a good generic marketing plan and strategy.

 

About small business

Articles on small businesses and the Internet: This is a wealth of knowledge with both and Articles area and a Resources area that provides an entire breadth of information to small business owners.

http://www.brint.com/Elecomm.htm#ECsmall

The Cyberspace Chamber of Commerce provides a list of chamber of Commerce sites to help the small businessman especially from a networking perspective. It provides links to local sites that may help in targeting a smaller geographic area if the business itself doesn’t lend itself to a complete cyberspace existence.

http://www.ccc.net/uschambers.html

 

 

Learn more about your selected specialization.

 

For those who don’t already have a business and want to do some specific research you can start by going to the Small Business Administration site for starting off. The other portions of this site are also good for established small businesses.

http://www.sba.gov/starting/indexsteps.html Starting your business.

 

About creating your Web site

Enough cannot be said about following site. The links that are provided here are outstanding!

                                        http://www.brint.com/web.htm

Some specific sites that answer more specific issues can be found at:

http://www.webdeveloper.com/categories/design/design_qa.html A good FAQ page on Website development. Especially graphics and page layout
http://www.brint.com/webtech.htm#HTML An Overview of many sites that can help both the novice and expert on Web Design.
http://www.hooked.net/~larrylin/web.htm A great site for the NOVICE web designer! This could be the only one you need to create your Website.

 

About using your Web Browser

 

As you use the Internet and WWW to search for knowledge, it is very important to catalog particularly good areas so you can go back to them later for more (just like marking your favorite fishing hole on a lake!) Make sure to Bookmark or Favorite Place interesting sites so you can go back to them using your browser’s built-in features. In a very short time you can amass a huge list of Favorite sites so you may want to segregate your favorite list into folders so you can easily locate them. If you want you can save a particularly good web page by selecting SAVE AS from your browser and save that HTML document to your hard drive. Try to avoid printing out Web pages to your printer to save them. This defeats the whole purpose of the having information available in an electronic form.

 

 

 

Step 3 - Join Online discussion groups and forums

 

The term "Networking yourself" takes on a literal meaning with this step. What most people fail to realize with the Internet is its real time communication potential. Just like mingling after the local chamber of commerce meetings or other professional forum meetings, there are literally thousands of different sites where you can join in discussion groups or online forums to interact with either associates or potential clients online. Some of these are:

http://www.dejanews.com/ -- You can join a multitude of forums and also create your own forum if you like.

 

http://clubs.yahoo.com/ -- This is by far the most advanced discussion group setting on the Web today. You can setup your own virtual community online without ANY knowledge of HTML or web authoring in MINUTES. There are thousands of existing "clubs" as Yahoo likes to call them in the Business area alone.

 

 

 

The Cyberspace Chamber of Commerce provides a list of chamber of Commerce sites to help the small businessman especially from a networking perspective. It provides links to local sites that may help in targeting a smaller geographic area if the business itself doesn’t lend itself to a complete cyberspace existence.

http://www.ccc.net/uschambers.html
 

Step 4 - Learn to make your own Website.

This step may scare you at first, but if you are comfortable using a simple word processing program such as Microsoft Word, you can make your own Website and save a huge amount of money. In addition by maintaining your own Website, you can make changes to the site as frequently as your time and priorities permit.

Some ISP's such as AT&T WorldNet and AOL provide areas and free Web-based software for creating your own web site. Both these services also offer up to 5 Mbytes of free space on their servers for each member to post a Website. The software that they both provide is very basic and very slow to use for Website creation. However, if you create your Website with the applications listed below, you can follow the instructions at both sites to upload your Website from your computer and post it under your own Web space.

Your first step should be to go to the following site:

http://www.hooked.net/~larrylin/web.htm

This is a great site! This could be the only one you need to create your site. It also has links to other tools concerning posting and marketing your site.

Secondly you may want to look at purchasing a Website authoring application. Some very popular and highly praised applications include:

http://www.sausage.com/hotdog/ HOTDOG

http://www.homesite-now.com/ HOMESITE

http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage FRONTPAGE 98

http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/pagemill/main.html PAGEMILL

Some pointers when creating your site:

Differentiate yourself. On your business Website a good way to do this is to include a page about yourself and your interests and hobbies and charitable causes that you support. You would be surprised at the response this tactic may generate. This is where you can really drive home your company’s mission or what it believes in from a civic viewpoint, not a business one. More and more customers are selecting their services and products from businesses based on their core beliefs. This is one way to capitalize on that.

 
Look at the Way Newspapers layout their site and their pages. They have been masters of getting and holding a viewer’s attention in the ink and paper world for hundreds of years. They have some very good ideas for presenting a lot of information in a noticeable and concise manner. Don’t worry, about trying to make your site look as good, just look at how they arrange their information. http://www.sun-sentinel.com is a good example.

 
Remember, since you are creating your own Website, you can make (and should make) it reflect your personality and creativity, because your site is really a "virtual" first meeting with that potential customer. The goal of a well designed Website should be to make to much impact on a potential customer as would you meeting them in person.

 

 

Step 5 - Publish your Website

Publishing your Website could be the trickiest part of the process of getting your business presence online. You won't encounter too many problems if you create your Website from the online applications that your ISP provides, since you are actually creating all the files and content needed right on their server. However, as was pointed out earlier, a Website created by one of these services is very basic and might not as professional or as functional as one that you build using one the Website design software packages listed above. The problem with these is that you first must create all of your web pages on your local computer and modify them until you are satisfied with their look. Some programs actually have a preview option that allows you to see how your site would look to someone else viewing it through a web browser.

If you are if you plan to use free space that is offered by your ISP such as AT&T or AOL, you must familiarize yourself with their procedures and processes that must me followed to transfer your Website to their server. This can turn out to be a rather tedious process but there are support forums for first-time web users to access to find out answers to Frequently Asked Question (FAQs).

One of the detractors to posting your Website in this manner is that the sites address will be a long, hard to remember string like:

http://www.home.att.net/~WebdesignsbyMary/index.html.

One way to avoid such a long name is to register a Internet domain name such as WebdesignsbyMary.com with on of the many Internet Domain Name services listed on the WWW. These services will register you with a .com, .org, or .net name for your service for a 70$ fee for a 2 year license to the name you desire (if it isn't already taken) Several of these sites are:

http://www.register.com/
http://www.yournamefree.com/
http://soa.granitecanyon.com/

These sites provide a registration service and additional names are obtained from an appropriate registrar, such as the InterNIC - one of the organizations responsible allocating, tracking, and charging for such names. Remember that if you want to create you own Internet domain name, you will be unable to use most of the Website posting services offered discussed earlier. One web page that lists good sites for information concerning posting and hosting web sites is http://www.brint.com/web.htm#isp. Additionally, there is a site devoted entirely to rating different ISP's and their service http://dogwolf.seagull.net/isprate.html and provides a feel of what types of issues one may confront when trying to utilize a ISP to be the host of your Website.

http://budgetweb.com/budgetweb/index3.shtml offers a great search engine for low cost service providers and has options that the user can select for the specific services that they provide.

 

 

Step 6 - Market your Website.

Once your site is published to a server that is connected to the Internet, you will have a presence on the Internet, but unless someone types your exact Internet address, no one will visit your site. This is akin to getting an unlisted phone number, without posting the name of your business to the Yellow or White Pages. No one except your mother is going to call you.

There is a prevalent "If you build it They will come…" misconception about web sites. Although there are automated search engines on the WWW that will try to place your site in a business relevant category, there is no guarantee that you will be consistently or correctly listed. You must be proactive in this case and submit your site to these search engines in order to ensure you have the most accurate listing possible. Many sites offer free listing of your Website, all it costs is your time to post the required information.

There are hundreds of search engines that scour the web and provide search results to Web users, http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/major.html provides a list of the most successful ones. Each one of these sites provides you the opportunity to list your site. This can become a daunting task if you want to do a thorough job. There are services online that will do this task for you. Some will even post up twenty for free. However, one must be careful to ensure that they are actually getting what they pay for if they choose this route. One of the benefits having a service do the listing to the search engines is that they offer a periodic re-posting option that will re-post at specified intervals for a monthly fee.

The following tips should help you out if you decide to do the work of submitting your site by yourself.

Improving your search engine placement is a never-ending process, not a one-time activity. Don't contract this service to anyone who guarantees the first position.
Unless you can invest the time yourself or pay someone else to constantly monitor your rankings, you'll actually see more lasting results from other marketing activities.
For example, understanding who your visitors are and adjusting your content to meet their needs may be a better use of your time. You should study your log files so you know who your visitors are.

Setting Up Your Page to Be Found

Use strategic keywords and keyword phrases in your page title, your page headline, and early in the page text. These are the words your visitors may use when searching.
Try to use keywords that are unique but descriptive. Using words and terms used by thousands of other sites won't help you be found. Ask colleagues who understand your business for their ideas.
Use ALT tags for your graphic images. Some search engines will include those as the text that they index.
Don't spam the engines with overuse of keywords in Meta tags or on the Web page itself. You'll be penalized by most of the engines for doing this.

Submitting Your Site to the Search Engines

Manually submit your site to the top 10 search engines (rather than using automated services).
Monitor your search engine listings frequently. Check your placement in the rankings and make sure your site is indeed listed.
Study your log files to see which search engines send you the most traffic. Are there adjustments you can make to be found by the other engines? It's An Ongoing Process
Some engines give you a higher ranking if other sites are linked to yours. Develop an ongoing program to request links from other sites.
Check your competitors' pages to see how they're ranked using the keywords you've chosen.
Analyze the pages with the highest ranking using your keywords. Analyze the page composition including page title and use of the keywords throughout the page. Are there changes you can make to your page to move up in the results?

One of the most important points that can be brought up here is that listing your Website is not a one-time occurrence. In order to keep and increase your online presence you must continually analyze how your Website does on each search engine. You may be fortunate and land a good "first page" listing on Yahoo® or AltaVista® with your submission only to find that a month later you are no longer listed. Resubmitting and modifying your Website to these search engines is probably going to be the most time intensive portion of your efforts at creating and maintaining a viable online presence.

A complete tutorial on listing and promoting your Website can be found at:

http://www.123promote.com/workbook/seminar.htm

This site will walk a novice through a detailed discussion of each segment of the web posting and marketing procedure and is very easy to follow.

 

Step 7 - Get Information back from site visitors

 

One of most important aspects about the WWW is the possibility of two-way flow of information between you and your potential customer. Web sites have the ability to include forms that site visitors can fill out to either request additional information, make comments, or ask questions. If you want to capitalize on this you must incorporate a form feature into the design of the Website so visitors can send you back information. http://budgetweb.com/budgetweb/index3.shtml provides a good example of this on their first page by providing both a form and a guest book page to sign - in. FrontPage 98 has easy to implement form templates that will send that information back to the email address you specify (In order to use all of Frontage's features you must ask if you're their operating system software supports Front-page extensions on their server).

If you want to use other web design tools other than FrontPage 98 and want to include forms, Matt Wright's site at http://worldwidemart.com/scripts provides some excellent FREE HTML script code. With the HTML code from his site one can customize their web pages to create forms, questionnaires, threaded discussion forums, and a variety of other very useful tools.

 

 

 

 

Step 8 - Form Online Strategic Alliances

 

Just like in the real world, the more one can network with other businesses the greater synergistic affect it will have on your business. In the same manner, by searching for, and contacting other online businesses that may share a complimentary relation with your customers, you may be able to multiply your online presence several fold. Some of the more prominent strategic alliances that are very visible online include:

Oracle and Sun Microsystems
NBC and Microsoft
Intel and Microsoft

You may be able to incorporate some of your web content into their sites, or have them provide an endorsement for you or provide a link from their sites to yours in return for the same type of assistance from you.

 

Conclusion

Whether one considering starting a single person business or consulting practice or already is in business, utilization of the many resources available on the Internet will be crucial to your future success. The most important thing that Internet Technology can do for an independent businessperson or consultant is put a world of information, wisdom, and opportunity in their hands. What they chose to do with it is up to them.

 

 

 

 

Nova Southeastern University School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Assignment for course: GMP 5070 Marketing

Submitted to: Professor Joos

Submitted by: Dale A. Birosh

(561) 848-1826

(561) 845-9366

Date: 03 Feb 1999

Title: Marketing Yourself in the Next Millennia

Certification of Authorship: I certify that I am the author of this paper and that any assistance I received in its preparation is fully acknowledged and disclosed in the paper. I have also cited any sources from which I used data, ideas, or words, either quoted directly or paraphrased. I also certify that this paper was prepared specifically for this course.

 

 

 

Dale A. Birosh