Client Support
Why utilise the web for your business?
The Internet provides several strategic advantages for your business, in particular a small business that targets younger, urban or overseas markets.
If you have an establish business that utilises print based advertising to promote it's brand and you have routine procedures in place to manage customer transactions you should take advantage of the benefits of advertising and providing customer services via the Internet.
NOT ALL BUSINESSES BENEFIT IN THE SAME WAY FROM A WEB SITE
A small percentage of businesses are not suited to the Internet in their original format. Some primary industries or other services that have solid offline B2B trade relationships may simply require a yellow pages listing. But after exploring all of the possibilities, most businesses will find some level of benefit from a web presence in Australia.
Whilst you may not attract more business you may be able to fulfill leagal requirements more economically, produce an annual report or submit your tax online.
Your business can now utilise web-based services that have been developed by corporate 'early implementers' and now released by third party providers for small businesses. Here are some examples:
Publishing
Web sites
Nowadays you can find ways to publish your own web page for free or for very little cost. In the nineties web pages started at $2,000 now they start at $200! Bob Larkin looked a Web Note who seem to offer a free web site service.
Web Node allows you to build a web site. Not just any web site but a full featured web site plug and play construction, impressive widget embeds, RSS feeds, elegant templates, multiple file upload. You can even point your own domain name to the site. It is sensational. Signing up is straightforward. [http://blog.larkin.net.au accessed 17/12/2008]
This is truly a tool worth your exploring. I have really just scratched the surface. I wonder what will happen to the client based software tools such as Dreamweaver now that tools such as these are beginning to become mainstream?
"The Web Node home page states there is no catch and I checked out their Media, About and the Terms and Conditions pages. There was one condition that I do consider a “catch” per se."
There are several catches with such free service. They do have your email on file which may be sold on to advertising agencies or worse. Your time is worth money and whist you may not pay for the web publishing tools the time you spend in front of your computer could be substantial. Template based sites without the input of a web designer cannot compete with a professionally developed web site.
See John Larkin's full article here!
Photos
Google's Picasa 2 photo application is fast, fun, and free. The new version builds on the original's strengths (namely its image-handling speed) and significantly improves on its weaknesses (specifically its photo-editing capabilities). However, while some users will embrace the app's take-charge method of photo organization, others will likely chafe under its rules.
We tested a shipping version of Picasa 2. The first time you launch the app, it gives you the option to scan specific folders on your PC (like My Documents or My Pictures) or your entire hard drive and connected drives for photos. Scan time depends on the number of shots you have, but as with most Google-powered searches it's an amazingly speedy process.
Picasa 2 goes on to sort the photos it finds, showing folders containing all the images that reside in one place on the disc (for example, your Desktop), and then listing the images by creation date (the program determines the year by looking at data stored within each photo); you can also sort folders by name or by date last changed.
Movies
You Tube is pretty well known as a place to upload and share videos. Teachers may recall stories about children secretly filming teachers and posting it to the web. However, there are also very positive educational uses for these tools and situations like the one above should not stop the majority of sensible users from making the most of the tools.
You Tube allows you to set access levels but you have to make a video public to embed it which may open your video up to a larger audience than you would want (especially with the types of comments some people leave on the videos in You Tube).
Nevertheless, you can now upload a movie to You Tube and cut and paste an embedded link into your web site, in a matter of minutes.
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Ecommerce
Online orders
It is possible to set up online order forms with very little technological input. As a starting point for many businesses, they may develop a PDF document that allow the client to fill in their details and fax it back. One good example that has worked for over 3 years is Paulmara Wines.
Mara developed her own online form that clients would fax back to here with their credit card details. She recently had the form upgraded by Wine Boss to now use a checkout system.
Shopping carts
Once an expensive security risk, the shopping cart solution is available out of the box for a few hundred dollars. Ashop have a Shopping Cart solution tat is available from $69.00 AUS per month.
Pay Pal
Another new alternative is to use a link to PAY PAL which allows you to add a button to your web site when you are a merchant.
Transform your web site into an online store easily with Web site Payments Standard, and get paid online by adding payment buttons to the products or services you sell. You can also receive donations or sell gift vouchers. We provide the HTML code, which you just copy and paste onto your site to display the buttons.
- Accept credit or debit cards
- They don't need a PayPal account to pay you.
- No merchant account or application is required – start accepting payments right away.
- No monthly, set-up, or cancellation fees. Only low transaction fees.
Visit the Pay Pal site for full details.
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Internal communication
Intranets
An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols and network connectivity to securely share any part of an organization's information or operational systems with its employees. Sometimes the term refers only to the organization's internal web site, but often it is a more extensive part of the organization's computer infrastructure and private web sites are an important component and focal point of internal communication and collaboration. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intranet Accessed 18/11/2008]
Again, the Intranet once required server access and some technical skills to set up the security required to protect company data. these days there are plenty of 3rd party companies that can provide small business with many of the advantages of a corporate Intranet.
Meet online whenever you want with on-demand web conferencing. You can schedule meetings in advance or start an instant meeting with the click of your mouse. Send invitations via email or IM--you can even start the meeting from within our secure instant messenger.
Video conferencing
Even teleconferencing required a switch and a few thousand dollars worth of handsets to implement. In a similar fashion state of the art video conferencing remained within the realm of corporates and Universities for most of the nineties.
As smart small businesses begin to export or import we are seeing more and more use of Internet telephony(VoIP) to stay in touch with the office more economically. Our clients have used Internet phones (below) and Skype to video conference one-on-one with offices overseas.
Voice over IP can facilitate tasks and provide services that may be more difficult to implement or more expensive. Examples include:
- The ability to transmit more than one telephone call over the same broadband connection. This can make VoIP a simple way to add an extra telephone line to a home or office.
- Conference calling, call forwarding, automatic redial, and caller ID; zero- or near-zero-cost features that traditional telecommunication companies (telcos) normally charge extra for.
- Secure calls using standardized protocols (such as Secure Real-time Transport Protocol.) Most of the difficulties of creating a secure phone connection over traditional phone lines, like digitizing and digital transmission, are already in place with VoIP. It is only necessary to encrypt and authenticate the existing data stream.
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Customer contact
FAQs
Some new customers feel that they are quite busy and 'do not want more clients.' After investigating their business needs they did a lot of tendering and provided specialised engineering solutions that needed explaining to clients.
So by diverting new web site they could increase the quality of the tenders that they were filling in the future. The inclusion of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on their web site was a good way to answer technical and administrative customer queries. Follow the link below to visit their web site.
Email marketing
E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:
- sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,
- sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,
- adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers.
We have used a package called Machmailer successfully to send up to 20,000 emails a day to promote SA education.
M5 Mailer is the perfect application for delivery and management of your organization's email infrastructure. Windows 2000 and above. Great on XP and Vista!
What's New in 4.5!
* Drive Outgoing Email Merge and Email Marketing
* Manage Inbound Email and Responses
* Integrate your Web site with your Email Merge
Outgoing Email. M5 Mailer sends each customer, member, or newsletter subscriber an individual e-mail customized Send direct mailings with Mach5 Mailer. directly from your own data source.
With direct connection to Access and Excel, no importing necessary. Full support of other databases through ODBC, and of course text-based databases. Visit the Machmailer web site for more information.
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B2B
"B2B" is contemporary shorthand for a longtime sales practice called business-to-business. B2B transactions primarily target companies and other wholesale buyers, while transactions targeting individuals are called B2C, or business-to-customer. Many organizations have both B2B and B2C components, but it's not unusual for a company to specialize in B2B services or sales.
Trading goods and services
One major reason for the popularity of B2B sales and services is sheer volume. An individual customer may visit a clothing manufacturer's web site catalog and order two pairs of shoes or a sweater. The buyer for a national chain of clothing stores, however, may order 5,000 pairs of shoes and 2,000 sweaters. Without a B2B component, the manufacturer would have lost out on a very lucrative sale. This is why many companies provide B2Bptions alongside the B2C offerings at their web sites and other outlets.
Further Reading : 50 Bootstrap Marketing ideas for startups
Business development
Boot strapping
Every year, almost 8 million entrepreneurs start their own businesses in this country. They need lots of things to build a great company. Energy. Chutzpah. A really good idea. What they don’t need is money.
Bootstrappers ar epeople who start and grow successful companies with almost no money. Here you will find the justification and inspiration for Bootstrapping. The following article is also the home page for the book Bootstrapping Your Business which spells out exactly how to start a business with almost no money. The book contains the stories of dozens of companies in all industries that have grown sizable business with little or no money.
Related Article: Bootstrapping: The Secret to Entrepreneurial Success!
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