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 Issue #7 - October 7th, 2002 Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses
Brought to you by idesignbusiness.com http://www.idesignbusiness.com Issue #7 Monday, October 7th, 2002 In this Issue: ARTICLE: FREE RESOURCE: Welcome to another issue of the Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses. As always, I encourage reader feedback. Let me know what you like, or don't like about this newsletter and what topics you would like to see in the future. Please direct all newsletter correspondence to newsletters@idesignbusiness.com You can view all past issues of the Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses at the newsletter archive. Click below to visit the archive: Newsletter Archive Neal St. Clair idesignbusiness Advertisement Does your website need a face lift? Are you happy with your logo, letterhead, and business cards? idesignbusiness provides professional graphic design services and we cater to a small business budget. Quick turn-around and the lowest rates available for both print and online projects. Click below to request a free quote for your design needs. ARTICLE Making the most of your website: Online Forms The majority of small business websites are static. This means they are basically an online brochure promoting a service or product with contact information. While this is a great marketing tool, it only scratches the surface of what your website could be doing. This article marks the first in a series I am calling "Making the most of your website." This issue will focus on the value of online forms and communicating with your users. Online forms give users the ability to interact with your website and provide you valuable information. This information can include their contact info, feedback, requests for more information or anything else you want. Why is this important you may ask? The most powerful thing online forms allows you to do is communicate with your website visitors and generate leads. I'll use a real world example to stress the importance of being able to communicate with your website visitors. Let's say ten people visit your website in a day. Of those ten people, 7 are just surfing the net, come across your website and don't have a real interest in your products and services. You will probably never know who these people are, and in reality it doesn't matter because they have no intention of becoming your customers. Now, let's assume the other three people that visit that day have a genuine interest in your business and are potential customers (leads). Without online forms, they have no way to communicate with you other then finding your phone number and calling you or writing you an email. While this isn't too difficult, it is work for your potential customer and you want to make their visit to your website as easy as possible. With an online form on your website, they could simply fill in a few fields of information, hit submit, and the message would be automatically delivered to you. In summary, by providing users an easy way to communicate with you, you are making there life a little easier, and making your website much more useful. The example above illustrates some very basic, and powerful advantages of online forms. In addition to providing an easy way for website visitors to communicate with you, all information entered into your form can be saved in a database for future use. This means you can build a target list of leads that have expressed a real interest in your business. Not only do online forms allow your users to communicate with you, but after you have built up a database of leads, you can now communicate with them via email, phone, fax or snail mail. Hopefully this article peaked your interest in adding forms to your website and uncovered some of the reasons to make your website interactive. Forms are created using HTML, and the code is not too difficult. There is a great tutorial giving by WebMonkey.com. You can view the tutorial at http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/99/30/index4a.html. If you don't have the time or interest to learn the HTML, you can also outsource the project very inexpensively. idesignbusiness offers web development services and can quickly create customized forms and database applications for your website. If you would like more information on our web development services, please click here. Stay tuned for future "Making The Most of Your Website" articles in upcoming issues of this newsletter. If you would like to see any specific topics covered, please drop us an email with your suggestions to newsletters@idesignbusiness.com. Advertisement If you're looking for a reliable host for your website or looking to change from your current host, I would recommend Burlee.com. They offer numerous hosting packages ranging from small personal websites to large professional sites. While many hosting packages seem the same, Burlee stands out with exceptional customer service and technical support. For more information on Burlee and their hosting packages, please click below. FREE RESOURCE: Each issue of the Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses will include helpful free resources to promote your website. Javascript is a client-side programming language with many helpful applications for business websites. Don't be intimidated if you have limited programming experience. JavaScript Source, http://javascript.internet.com/, provides complete code and instructions on how to use it. If you know basic HTML, you can use Javascript to validate forms, re-size browser windows, make pop-ups and much more. Visit JavaScript Source and try out some Javascript today! ABOUT idesignbusiness idesignbusiness provides Web marketing and technology solutions for small businesses. We utilize a combination of consulting and technology expertise to create customized and flexible solutions. Please visit http://www.idesignbusiness.com for more information. SUBSCRIPTION NOTICE This newsletter is only sent to opt-in subscribers. If at anytime you would like to be removed from this list, please send an email to newsletters@idesignbusiness.com with REMOVE in the subject line. Spread the word - Please forward to friends and colleagues. Copyright 2002 - idesignbusiness.com http://www.idesignbusiness.com |
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