Dateline:  06/22/97

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Web sites are the hottest means of communication today, and unless you live under a rock, you are aware that nearly everyone seems to have one...from the young kids on your block to the law firm down the street.  If you watch Saturday morning TV or MSNBC or CNBC or the Discovery Channel, you are bombarded with programs about ``cool" destinations and ``hot" sites.  If your firm doesn't have a web site now, you are probably considering one. They are a great way to stay in your ``corner" and go out to the world, literally, at the same time.

There are three common misconceptions about web sites that this article should help to clarify:

1)  An ``Internet address" is NOT an E-mail address.  An Internet address or URL is the location of your web site on the Internet's network of computers.  You can have an E-mail address without having a web site and you can have a web site without having E-mail. 

2)   Web sites are not there to be looked at.  They are there to be interacted with.  If you want to put up an electronic version of a static firm brochure or service line description,  no one will come back.  Aren't most corporate brochures and information big yawners? So are static web sites. Make it lively, make it interesting and use a lot fewer words than you think in order to attact visitors and get them to return.

3)   Visitors will not start at the beginning and proceed to the end. Because of the amazing facility of hyperlinking, visitors expect to jump around in their own patterns, to see what they want to see in the sequence they want to see it. Your web site must make it easy for them to do that, or they will go somewhere else quickly.  And you need to reward them with information, entertainment, free offers or some other bonus for visiting your web site.  Marketing 101. 

Why You Should Consider Having a Web Site
Here are ten reasons you should consider mounting your own web site.  If you'd like to see further discussion of this topic drop me a note.

1)   Education.  Provide information to the public and your prospective clients about timely issues or complex concepts.

2)   Customer support. If your client base is technology oriented, they may wish to interact with your professionals in this way. You can provide explanations, sample documents or other information on your web site in a place they can reference without taking your valuable (and costly!) time.

3)   Online sales.  Secure servers are more common and recent research studies show that within two years there will be a very sharp increase in online purchasing.  Identify any services, products, publications, etc. you could sell online and start getting it set up now.

4)   Competition. If your most visible direct competitors have a web site, you may feel obligated to have one, too, just so you don't get overlooked. Try to identify your unique qualities and target audiences, and then create a web site that will appeal to them, rather than try to imitate what you see other firms do.

5)   Internal communications.  If you have multiple offices but don't have a WAN (wide area network) or Intranet, consider placing newsletters, press releases, announcements, even your firmwide telephone and E-mail address lists on a web site.  It will be easy for your employees to access it and find information they need seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

6)   Pride.  To many in a firm, having a professional looking web site is a source of pride, a sign that the firm is taking advantage of technology and is a good place to work. It gives employees something to brag about and point to.

7)   Recruiting.  Today's recruits go to the Net first to look for information about accounting and law firms.  Since they are typically comfortable with the technology, they will want a firm in which they can expect to use their technology expertise.  They will expect you to have a web site.

8)   Vendor and strategic partner relations. Cross-linking to key suppliers and strategic partners is a way you can each get more visibility than with just your own web sites.

9)  Part of a marketing/communication plan.  You have defined your target audiences, you know how to communicate with them, and you know they use the web.  You can use a web site to provide information and appeal to prospects round the clock if you set specific goals for your web site and then measure to see if you accomplish them.

10)   Widens the prospective client base.  Your professionals can't meet everyone they need to meet or attend every event they need to attend in order to meet prospects and talk about your firm's capabilities. A web site is your silent ambassador to people you might not have thought to contact, to get into executive suites you might not be able to enter.

Reasons Why You Should Not Have a Web Site
Only your marketing or executive committee is in a position to determine whether a web site is the right marketing communications solution for your firm.  Here are some reasons that argue against it.

1)   It's expensive to create.  No matter what kind of a deal your internet service provider or local design guru offers, it will certainly cost you at least double what you think it will.  The biggest hidden cost is the inexperience of your firm in determining what the web should be. Typically firms start thinking it will be a simple couple of static screens. By the time the designer has brought the third revision, everyone is excited about the possibilities and wants much, much more.  Get experienced advice from the beginning. Don't rely on someone in the office who just learned HTML and has a personal web site to produce something that will give the right image of the firm.  Start right and end right.

2)  It's time consuming.  Planning takes time. Design takes time. Reviews take time. Revisions take time.  Maintenance takes time. Responding to the requests that come in from the web site takes time.  Creating the new materials needed to put up on the web site regularly takes time.  It's going to take much more time than you can imagine in the beginning.

3)   Software and hardware issues must be addressed frequently.  Programs have bugs and software iterations make sweeping changes that can affect other programs you use.  Someone with technical knowledge needs to be on call or on retainer or on staff in order to deal with the technical matters no one else can handle or advise the firm on.

4)   Your clients may not yet use the Internet regularly. If your target audience is mom-and-pop stores or small family businesses or retailers or the elderly, then only about 25% of those groups use the Internet with any kind of regularity, and most of them have a younger family member in the house who actually does it for them.  Know what the right communication vehicle is for reaching your target audience and use that.

If you are interested in further information on any of these topics, send me an E-mail and let me know what you need.  I'll be glad to help if I can.

Next week's feature:  What Your Firm's Marketing Director Would Like You to Know

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An Accountant's First Web Site
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The Hermes Project
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Broadbased Survey Reveals Surprisingly Little Regional Difference in Web Manager Pay
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What is the purpose of your web site?
If it's a wisely-designed, pay-its-own-way tool, read this article.

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Copyright 1997 by Kaye Vivian (kvivian@cloud9.net).  All rights reserved.  Permission to reprint is granted provided this article is not altered and the copyright notice remains attached