November 2006

You and the web revolution
Dear GetMoreCustomers Reader:

There's a revolution going on.

In case you haven't seen the signs (and who outside the tech industry has time to watch?), you might not realize that the Internet is growing up. Like a teenager winning over her parents on a too-early curfew, the web is working its way towards a new maturity in which increasingly users themselves are contributing the material that makes websites valuable.

Blogs and wikis are becoming mainstream. As the new interactivity spreads, it means your users are more engaged--with you and with each other. It means online communities, it means user-generated content, it means interactive web-hosted applications that have drag-n-drop, resize and other functions we take for granted in our desktop applications. It means that instead of just sitting there and reading web pages, your visitors are more often going to be doing something when they visit websites.

An early example is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia of everything. It's far more extensive than any book could ever be and is created solely by users. Have you seen Google's online calendar? You and your colleagues, coworkers, and staff can review each other's schedules online, anytime, without any special program installed. Google has also introduced an online Documents and Spreadsheets application--create, edit, collaborate, review documents between team members, clients, and any other concerned parties. You can save docs both online and on your computer simultaneously--a handy feature. People are paying money for these functions--they're f*r*ee at Google.

Target has just started advertising its food section with a campaign that lets you pick from hundreds of 30-minutes-or-less recipes, click to get a complete list of ingredients needed to make it (available at Target, of course), and then--get this--click to select the number of servings you want to make, and the website automatically adjusts the quantities. THAT's what you call user-friendly, interactive, got-the-picture marketing.

Your challenge as a business owner or executive is to figure out how to leverage this expanded technical capability to engage your users. What can you invite your customers and prospects to interact with? A few starter ideas:

• If you're a financial services company, how about an interactive spreadsheet in which people can list their assets (in general terms, not necessarily actual), input their financial goals, and click to get a list of possible suitable investment vehicles?


• If you're a manufacturer who sells widgets, maybe give them a form to fill out to describe exactly how they will use the widgets and then with a click show them every variety of widget that might work for that application.


• If you're a training company, wouldn't your customers like to be able to put in their top training-related challenges and see your website deliver a curriculum that could address those issues?

You're not giving solutions away; you're giving f*ree tips that help establish you as the expert. Use your imagination. Your customers want to help you make your offerings more valuable. It's up to you to issue the invitation.

Sincerely,
Barbara

P.S. Questions about getting started with a corporate blog? Check out Work.com for my Guide to Writing a Successful Corporate Blog - 5 Steps.