Another hot-shot dot-com’s gone belly up. The NASDAQ’s taken a dive. Is the internet really that important to my business?

With today’s headlines, it’s a good question. But don’t misread the cues. The net is here to stay. Recent slips in the high tech sector have everything to do with poor business planning and execution. Gone are the days when using half your first-round funding on a single Super Bowl ad is considered marketing genius. Companies today— dot-coms and brick-and-mortars alike — are being held to traditional standards of accountability. Profitability has come back in vogue. And with it has come a need for better business planning.

Take a lesson from those who have suffered and re-think what you’re doing on the net. Your web site needs to be a part of an overall internet strategy that’s driven by your business objectives.

To make the internet work for you — and I mean really work — start with your business objectives. Ask yourself what you need to achieve this year. Do you need to:

• Create brand awareness
• Launch new products or services
• Establish new markets
• Increase sales
• Improve market share
• Enhance customer care
• Streamline operations
• Cut costs
• Reduce employee turnover
• Improve staff recruitment, training and retention

Now, take your business objectives and evaluate how you can achieve them using all facets of the internet, including the Web, e-mail and Usenet.

The Web

Your web site can take many shapes: internet, extranet and intranet.

An internet site is one that’s available free to the public. It’s typically your corporate site where you conduct most of your business online. A corporate internet site is essential. Deciding whether it should be an informational site or an e-commerce site depends on your business objectives. Would your objectives best be met by providing information, generating leads or selling direct online? You can also develop micro- or mini-sites to market new products or launch new promotions. If you sell online, consider establishing satellite stores on sites like Yahoo and AOL.

An extranet site is one that’s available via password to a select group of individuals. It’s typically a business-to-business site set up exclusively for customers, partners, distributors, etc. to conduct business with you in a highly personalized way. It should provide services that your core customers or business partners find extremely useful. Perhaps your customers would like to search an online catalog of products, spec sheets, white papers, and other detailed information for fast and easy access. Or maybe they’re ready to place and track their orders online 24/7. If they do, you’ll see an increase in incremental business and a decrease in operational expenses.

An intranet site is one that’s available internally to company employees. It’s where you share news and information throughout your organization, as well as implement internal software applications. It can be your most important internal communications tool. If reducing employee turnover or staff training are key objectives, an Intranet can be very useful.

When planning your internet strategy, ask yourself what type of web site(s) would best meet your business objectives.

E-Mail

According to eMarketer, there will be 96.6 million e-mail users aged 14 and older in the U.S. by the end of 2000. This represents 43.8 percent of the total adult and teen (14 and older) population. E-mail volume will increase to 536.3 billion messages in 2000 — a 142.3 billion increase from 1999.

With this kind of usage, e-mail should be an important part of your internet strategy.

E-mail’s key characteristics — fast, easy, low-cost, two-way communication — make it an ideal tool for achieving a wide array of business objectives. Use it to launch new products as well as increase sales. Use it to inform your customers and solve problems. Use it to communicate with staff. Here are a few specific ways to harness the power of e-mail:

Permission E-Mail Marketing

Build your own e-mail list by asking your customers if they would like to hear about new products and special offers that are relevant to their needs. To make this more effective, create a database that ties customer e-mail addresses to their order history and personal preferences. Imagine e-mailing your customers automatic re-orders of regularly purchased products or reminders for essential services. You’ll increase business and streamline operations while providing great customer care.

Opt-in E-mail Marketing

If you’re trying to penetrate new markets, try using opt-in e-mail. The internet economy has spawned a handful of good direct marketing firms that specialize in opt-in e-mail — that is, e-mailings to people who have indicated they want to receive mail about their particular areas of interest. Like their traditional direct mail counterparts, e-mail lists are numerous. Do you want to reach consumers of electronics who live in the Great Lakes states or IT professionals interested in e-mail software? No problem. Through a good opt-in e-mail company, you can reach them quickly and easily for 15 — 25 cents each and drive them to your web site with one simple click. You can reach new markets, build new business and cut costs, all without spamming a single person.

Online Customer Service

Every web site should have a mechanism for contacting the company directly. But not every business does a good job of responding. Make sure that you respond to e-mail inquiries within 24 hours of receipt. Personal responses are the most effective, but if your volume is too high to manage within 24 hours, consider implementing an auto-responder that can handle frequently asked questions and/or inform customers that you’ll respond personally within the next couple of days. Fast, informative responses are one of the most effective, low-cost ways of improving customer loyalty and increasing business.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a term that was coined by VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson to describe a unique referral marketing program created by HotMail. This free e-mail service was the first to implement viral marketing when it included a promotional line for HotMail at the bottom of every message. Users of HotMail were automatically promoting the free service to their friends and colleagues. HotMail received 12 million new subscribers within 18 months of their launch from this simple, no-cost technique. You too can implement viral marketing. Run a contest and give entrants a chance to increase their odds of winning every time they send a promotional e-mail for you. Or accrue discount points to customers who refer business your way. Think creatively and you’ll come up with your own viral marketing techniques.

Usenet

Long before the Internet and e-mail became household terms, people with similar interests used electronic bulletin boards to communicate over computers. Today we call them discussion forums or newsgroups and there are thousands of them, hosted all over the world, covering every topic imaginable.

In the course of doing business, you probably participate in trade associations, speak at industry meetings or publish topical papers. You do these things to engage with, and lend your expertise to, like-minded colleagues. You can do the same thing by participating in newsgroups.

Now be careful. Newsgroups are meant for dialogue and non-commercial information exchange. They are not meant for self-promotion or direct sales. But if you are an active participant, sharing your knowledge with others, you will be seen as an expert. Be sure to include your signature file in your posts so when someone in the group needs your particular brand of expertise, they’ll know how to reach you.

Participating in newsgroups should be a part of your overall internet strategy. It’s a low-cost, high impact way of building awareness and reaching new markets. And, for someone who has something worth saying, it’s a rewarding experience.

If you’re interested in making headlines — and I mean the right kind of headlines — then work on your internet strategy. Let your business objectives guide every action you take online, and you won’t go wrong.

Amy Harcourt is the owner of Definitive Marketing, an internet marketing firm located in Ann Arbor. Amy can be reached at amy@definitivemarketing.com or 734.320.1054. For more information on Definitive Marketing, visit www.definitivemarketing.com.