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Read a magazine; flip on your TV or listen to the radio and all you hear and read about is Internet, Internet and more Internet. There are over 20,000,000 computers connected right now with thousands jumping on every month. President Clinton has vowed to get the public schools "wired" to the Net by the year 2000—creating the "web" generation. Internet prices have dropped dramatically and you don't need to be computer-savvy either. A new product called WEB TV allows anyone to surf the Internet on his or her television; just click the Internet button on the remote control. WEB TV will add millions of new onlookers that normally wouldn't be there— all of those who keep computers at arms-length. Millions of potential consumers browse through the World Wide Web (WWW) daily; the fastest growing section of the Internet; pointing and clicking through an enormous buffer of information to perform research, shop for products and visit electronic "chat rooms" where people of similar interests get together for discussions. Well folks, if that's where the growing audience is; let's investigate the marketing potential for your service business. You might be thinking..."We have a service business that deals in a local service area; we can't do much for a new customer in Canada or Japan." In an ideal world; your customers would all be lined-up in a row within a tight geographic locale that surrounds your shop. Street after street; every potential customer would enlist your company's services. Fuel and vehicle maintenance expenses would recoil immediately while sales, efficiency and profits would skyrocket overnight. The name of the game is market penetration—more customers within your service area.
To attract attention to the store, numerous flags and road signs are posted throughout the Net. When a potential customer performs an electronic search for an item or service, your home page is cited or "linked" as a potential source. Click, click and your home page appears on-screen. The weary travelers are invited inside to see what you have to offer. Once inside, you control the environment, but the customers can leave whenever they choose, just like the real world. In the near future, more eyes will fall on your well-crafted home page by accident, than will see your yellow-page ads on purpose. What you're trying to do is capitalize on the growing Internet population within your service area, which by all indicators is exploding.
With the cost of yellow page advertising spiraling ever upwards where everyone wants the front position, the Internet can be the equalizer. It's happening right now. There are plumbing companies currently on the Net that espouse all the benefits of doing business with them. They provide a fill-in-the-blank form on your computer screen that a customer completes via keyboard. A potential customer can place an order for service anytime— day or night! Essentially, the Internet is your cyber marketing team and hidden dispatcher.
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Service companies and the Internet form an ironic partnership. Ironic because the Internet train is being boarded by tens of thousands of new passengers daily who want to look out of the windows and explore the new cyber-world. The appeal of the Net is it's tremendous magnitude and far reaching tentacles—all at the tips of our collective fingers. The Net can take us anywhere as we sit in our living rooms and offices. The Internet frenzy is an opportunity to develop niche markets within your service area with an electronic, customer-interactive brochure on the Net, commonly referred to as a home page. A home page is like an electronic store along the train tracks.| Peter Morici - [Intro] | [Articles] | [Email] | [Website] |
| The views expressed in this article are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of MasterPlumbers.com |
