Welcome to Issue 35 of Web Marketing Today, distributed to 25,682 subscribers around the world. In this issue you'll find:

• Get Yourself a Yellow Tie: Differentiating Your Business from Competitors on the Web
• E-Mail to the Editor
• WilsonWeb Retail Commerce Center
• Targeted Advertising Now Available on Our Website
• Is WMT Too Long?

Get Yourself a Yellow Tie: Differentiating Your Business from Competitors on the Web

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

You began with a small but comfortable health food store in Toledo. Sure, there were a dozen or so other health food stores in your city of one third million, and a number of people selling multi-level marketing food supplements. You had found your niche in the northeast side of town. You developed a steady clientele that patronized your store, and it didn't matter a great deal what your competitor across town did. Geography was your ally.

Then you decided to put your store on the Web in late 1995. You had a few health food competitors even then, but you began to make some sales. What you didn't figure on was the hundreds, then thousands of sites selling organic and health foods. Even in a "city" of 30 million US Web surfers, you find it hard to be noticed -- and you're one of the pioneers! Your website looks a bit dated by today's standards -- and (more importantly) as measured against some of your competitors.

The Web dramatically broadened your marketplace, but the rules have changed. Geography isn't much of an issue. The face-to-face contacts and relationships which are your mainstay in Toledo are absent. What can you do? Get your store to show up on the top of the Web search engines? Yes, though few can be on top in today's glut of similar stores. That may get people in the door, but what will bring them back?

I'm a big fan of Jay Conrad Levinson's Guerrilla Marketing series. Sneaking up in camouflage paint, peering through a night scope at the enemy camp, and moving your small but highly skilled band into an entirely new position overnight based on your intelligence strikes a responsive chord. It reminds me of playing Army in the Santa Cruz mountains when I was a boy. Guerrillas are alert, they're mobile, they aren't afraid of change, and they move quickly when they need to.

I want to suggest three guerrilla-style strategies necessary for gaining business on the Web. (There are many more, of course, such as understanding your customers and market, but we'll save those for another time.)

Know your competition

First, know your competition well. Just because someone is selling organic vitamins doesn't mean he is your direct competitor. He may be selling just a tiny slice of what you offer. Which Web stores have a similar range of products or services? In the Web site design part of my business I've tried to analyze my tens of thousands of competitors, and have concluded that one of my biggest competitors is the Microsoft Corporation, that is, the illusion of design power offered by their excellent FrontPage Web page editor. How does one compete against Redmond? Often it isn't until small business people have spent scores of hours deciding they don't have the artistic talent to design their own site that they'll call me. So part of my marketing effort is education and relates to a substitute product, not really a direct competitor.

I recommend that you regularly surf to several bookmarked competitor sites to see what they are doing and how good they look. Learning about your competition on the Web is fast and easy, so there's no excuse for not conducting "competitive benchmarking" or "industrial intelligence." Search your competitors' sites for weaknesses in their offering. Look for gaps that are unfilled, needs that are unmet.

To carve out marketshare on the Internet you need to match or exceed the quality look of your competition. No, it isn't fair, and has little to do with the quality of your service, but it's all people can see. Perception of what looks great has gone through an evolution since the early days of the Web, two chronological and a dozen "Web years" ago. Once a gray background was the standard, then embossed and textured underlayment. These days people put text on white and use color differently. I've had to keep changing my own site design so it looks up-to-date. So do you. Certainly your competitors aren't standing still.

If you determine you are still the best on the Web in your particular field, how can you stay ahead? I find that reading widely helps me keep up with trends. Books are learning tools. Trade magazines are always looking for new angles, and you'll find some Web sites that specialize in bringing you industry news months before it can be printed and mailed out as a print periodical. Keep learning, keep pushing the edges. In the Web site design business I have to keep learning at a horrendous pace just to stay on the leading edge. I just hope your field isn't changing quite as rapidly as mine. ;-)

So first, study your competition regularly, and be ready to reposition yourself as often and as much as necessary to keep at the front of the pack.

Learn Web Page Editing

My second suggestion may come as a surprise, given that Microsoft FrontPage is my chief nemesis. But I believe every serious Web marketer needs to learn how to do her own Web page creation, or have someone in-house who develops this skill.

The Web is the marketplace, the vast global marketplace where we are doing business. And Web pages are the display cases and shelves, the office accoutrements and signs over our doorway. But if you have to wait a week or two to make the change on your Web page that should have been done yesterday, you'll find it hard to compete like a guerilla marketer.

I firmly believe that secretaries a year or two from now will be asked about their Web page design skills, just as today they are asked about typing speed and facility with Word and Excel and PageMaker.

How can you have excellence when you do it yourself? you ask. Your commitment to excellence lies in outsourcing the overall design. Your website designer, however, leaves you with a template with which you can clone scores of content pages whenever you like. Outsource the artistic, technical part, but bring the routine tasks of Web page creation in-house. Only then can you be fast on your Web feet (so to speak).

Leverage your strengths to differentiate

Last week I had an appointment in a public place with a visitor from Asia. "I'll be wearing a yellow tie," he told me. All I had to do was to scan the room for yellow ties and bingo, I found him. But if he had said "brown slacks," the task would have been considerably more difficult.

In northeast Toledo, you can be a generalist. But on the Web if you don't differentiate yourself you'll have a very hard time being noticed. But if I focus on one or two specialties, you protest, too much business will pass me by. And if you don't, all the business will pass you by. You can carry many products, but your advertising needs to emphasize something. Grocery stores may sell twenty or thirty thousand products, but advertise where they feel they can shine, such as in the meat department or produce.

Where are your competitors' gaps in service? What are you best at? What do people remark about when they learn of your business offerings and strategies? Determine what your strengths are and then leverage those to differentiate yourself. Brands in the marketplace do this all the time.

• "Have it your way," highlights Burger King's willingness to cater to individual tastes in a "same-old" fast-food market.
• "If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face," makes a play for customers in their 20s who like to see something radical. I ate at Carl Jr.'s the other day and made sure I had plenty of napkins.
• "You deserve a break today" attempts to set "my" McDonalds apart as a person's right, a fast food restaurant they feel they own.

Sure, in Toledo you can be that health food store on the northeast side, but on the Web become the prime information source and price leader on the hottest new health food. While others may have established themselves with the traditional products, look for the new directions your industry is taking and gain mastery in those. Ride the wave of the future. Once you've carved out your specialty on the Web, why don't you develop a second specialty using different Web pages linked to the same site. Web search engines will pick up those "specialty" pages separately, and they become new doors of entry to your store. You may not have enough capital to become the biggest health food store, but you certainly can become the best in one or two areas if you commit yourself to excellence.

Face it. The early halcyon days of Web entrepreneurism are over where you were the only show in town. It's time to study your competition intensely, learn HTML so you can move on the Web like a guerrilla, and -- by all means -- get yourself a yellow tie.

Guerrilla Book recommendations (which you may order through Amazon Books):

• Jay Conrad Levinson and Charles Rubin, Guerrilla Marketing Online Weapons: 100 Low-Cost, High-Impact Weapons for Online Profits and Prosperity (1996)
• Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business (revised and updated 1993)

E-Mail to the Editor

"Does the use of FRAMES hinder the performance of a search engines response in any way?" -- Tom McFadden

We recently received the following note which provides a thorough answer: "Prior to using a frame-based design our 100 page site was winning top spots in most search returns. Six weeks after incorporating frames we all but disappeared. Shaken by the reality that we were getting fewer and fewer hits, we threw ourselves into studying each and every robot. You can read everything we ultimately learned at http://www.123promote.com/workbook/plan3.htm -- Nancy Bargine of 123Promote

Our article entitled "How Valuable Is a Mall to the Merchant?" which appeared in the Web version of Web Marketing Today, Issue 34, disparaged most malls as being of little value to the merchants. We received this response:

"The idea that all Web malls are doomed for failure, just is not true. I run a site called The Internet Antique Shop Mall. We have over 110 dealers. On an average day we get about 4,200 individual visitors. We consider our site to be quite successful. We often tell dealers who want to join our service to talk to dealers who are already in our mall. They are our best salesmen. We take great pains to register each of our dealers in the major search engines and promote their sites. Many of our dealers use our automated database system which allows them to upload their merchandise on-line using a Web based form. This system also includes shopping carts, and starting soon it will also give them the ability to auction merchandise directly from their store on-line. Their inventory is also searchable from our search engine, which currently contains about 20,000 items. We maintain mailing lists for each category of collectibles in our mall. We post daily "press releases" on our home page from our dealers, regarding activity at their stores. These press releases are also mailed to subscribers on our targeted mailing lists. We currently run banners in Yahoo and Curioscape.com. Next month we will have banners in Yahoo, Excite, AOL's Netfind, Webcrawler, Magellan, Curioscape.com and Krause.com. My advice to anyone considering a Web mall for their on-line store is to pick one that is very targeted. Also, talk to the folks who are already in the Mall. Are they happy?" -- Phillip Davies, The Internet Antique Shop Inc.

WilsonWeb^TM Retail Commerce

Our WilsonWeb Retail Commerce Center is maturing. This month we've added the Electronic Commerce Research Room which provides links to hundreds of articles and resources focusing on direct sales over the Web, much of itto the general public. Pull up a chair; you'll want to spend some time here. If you've appreciated the Web Marketing Info Center, then you know the kind of coverage we offer. Our many hours of research will save you a great deal of time -- and money. Keep your eyes on this site. It is becoming an increasingly valuable resource.

Targeted Advertising Now Available on our Website

For the first time this month wed our Web Marketing Info Center, Web Marketing Today archives, Web Marketing Articles, and Retail Commerce Center to banner advertising. Since our visitors are strongly interested in doing business on the Web, and promoting their business there, our advertisers are reaching a very targeted group. So far, our advertisers are experiencing click-through rates of between 4% and 15%. For more information and rates, see our Advertising page.

Is WMT Too Long?

We've had several complaints that WMT is too long. What do you think? We would really value your feedback. How about taking new links out of the e-mail version, and including them in the Web version only? Please take a minute and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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