Chapter Four. Promotional Web Sites for Offline Businesses

Hardly anyone talks seriously about how to make promotional Web sites for offline businesses. Ecommerce gets plenty of attention, but there are many businesses that can't use the Internet directly as a sales medium.

There is, as yet, no way a hairdresser can do a permanent wave online; customers still need to go to the shop in person to get their hair done. Auto mechanics and building contractors still need to wield physical tools to do their jobs. Hospitals get more computerized and Net-savvy every year, but you still can't get thoracic surgery delivered to your door by going to a Web site, clicking on a "cure my disease" link, and typing in your credit card number.

But hospitals, auto mechanics, hairdressers, building contractors, law firms, real estate brokers, restaurant owners, and many others whose products or services require in-person contact can and do use the Internet as an effective business promotion tool.

The primary difference between an ecommerce Web site and a promotional site for an offline business is that the promotional site is designed to generate sales leads, not sales. The ecommerce site needs to supply every bit of information a prospect needs to make a "buy" decision and the tools to carry it out, then and there, through an online form while the promotional site needs to offer only enough information to generate a phone, postal mail, email, or walk-in sales inquiry.

The amount of information needed to produce that inquiry depends on your individual business and the market it serves. No book can give you a stock formula that will fit all situations. The old rule, "The more you tell, the more you sell," certainly applies, as long as you use information layering so that each individual site visitor isn't forced to wade through pages full of information which he or she doesn't need to get to the information which he or she does need.

The more your site tells potential customers about your products or services, and about your business in general, the less qualifying you will have to do when they contact you. The perfect customer, in many ways, is one who already knows what he or she wants, walks in the door, and buys it without a great deal of conversation. But at the same time, telling so much on your Web site that a customer fixates on one item may kill your chance to offer additional products or services or to show other products if the customer doesn't like the first one after seeing it in person.

As a general rule, the first promotional Web site you put up should err on the side of simplicity. Just as it is most prudent to start with a small showroom and expand later if you get enough business to justify it, and a small, busy restaurant is more likely to make money than a large one that is never full, it is best to start with the simplest possible site for your business and expand it gradually.