Thinking Australia’s Internet Management Newsletter takes a look at issues that go beyond the web page.
 
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In this issue
 
1. Interact with your e-future
   1.1 Interact Expo, no longer interacting.
 
2. Audience Management
   2.1 Improve the customer experience with a cuter computer?
   2.2 Internet behaviour vs Audience Behaviour
   2.3 Follow your customers through the magic of Audience Logs or    Profiling your internet audience behaviour
 
3. Brand Experiences
   3.1 E-Business is not just about sales.
   3.2 New Media on Traditional Media
   3.3 Someone else’s turn to tell you.
   3.4 Consumer Empowerment - serve them or they’ll dump you.
 
4. Offer of the Month
   4.1 WebWorthy Report. 10% off.
 
 
1 Interact with your e-future
1.1 Interact Expo, no longer interacting.
Last week Thinking launched Interact through Thinking. A movement designed to help people realise their potential in the new media and provide solutions that can ensure a successful e-future for everyone - not just the technical few.
 
The first phase of this movement was introduced in an open letter written by Mark Bergin, Managing Director of Thinking and the Foundation Creative Director of Interact back in 1996.
 
The letter appeared in The Age on 14 September, 1999. Part of it reads: “Interact’s direction was clear and the major players from the supply industry supported it. The specific state government brief was to create a solutions-based event that helped move us away from products into a more complete understanding of systems and more importantly, solutions that businesses could explore… However, I feel it's now time to address the issue and bring to light that Interact is not leading the market into a great new future - it's more akin to creating a forum to exploit the market while on a path to oblivion.
 
“As we all understand, the keys to success are business and community solutions, not devices or software packages. Over the past 3 years the Interact show has not taken this challenge forward - in fact it has regressed into Boxes on Tables - the very antithesis of the original show.”
 
The response to this letter was amazing and showed the distinct need for such a movement here in Australia to have a forum for real solutions. Out of this response was formed a pool of talented and committed people from various industries who are willing to help companies on the road from a to e.
 
They cover many different professions such as Marketing, Internet Management, the Law, Public Relations, Content Creation, Accountancy, Online Training, HR and Design.
 
For a short time, their expertise is provided free for the first consultation. How valuable that consultation is depends on how well you brief the team.
   
Over the following weeks, there will be a major announcement in regard to this group that will help you become a driver rather than plod along as a passenger on that difficult road from a to e.
 
If you want to know more about how to interact with your e-future, contact e-future@thinking.com.au.
 
2. Audience Management
2.1 Improve the customer experience with a cuter computer? Recently, Intel show cased a new range of personal computers. Obviously there was “Intel Inside”, but it was the outside that fascinated.
 
Among the collection was a “huggable green children’s computer called the Magic Bean.” However, the ultimate experience was the PC Ottoman, a round plastic footrest covered in faux leopard fur that opens to reveal a built-in LCD screen, a DVD player and wireless keyboard.
 
Wow, fantastic, until you use it and then the Ottoman performs just like any old desktop - it crashes just when you least want it to. It seems websites are built along the same lines.
 
There’s so much talk about the look and style and too little on function.
 
Too much time on internal sign-off not enough time on understanding the market’s needs. You can’t hide an inadequate experience behind a faux leopard exterior.
 
It’s why internet researchers in the US predict that around $6 billion dollars in potential sales will go unrealised due to bad customer experiences. It’s the reason 57% of shopping experiences are abandoned out of sheer navigational frustration. It’s why 87% of regular web customers are turned off due to slow or poor navigation.
 
To counter this, the ANZ Bank have designed a front page that downloads in a mere 7 seconds. After all, if you want to wait, go stand in a queue. To see how your customers can become sticky, contact stickycustomers@thinking.com.au.
 
2.2. Internet behaviour vs Audience Behaviour
Far too many people are being consumed by the technology and forgetting why or to whom they are talking. Anyone with retail experience will know that a store layout is designed for a reason.
 
A Supermarket layout - with the fresh fruit providing the welcome and the milk at the rear giving customers a reason to walk past lots of goodies - has been designed for a reason.
 
A car dealer will place his best vehicles in the showroom. When Daimaru first opened in Melbourne Central, people had enormous trouble navigating the store. It forced management to place walkways through the carpeted areas, as a way to guide customers through departments and various items.
 
The designers may not have liked it, but the designers may never return to your site once they’ve finished building it. You don’t want your customers following in their footsteps.
 
2.3 Profiling you internet Audience Behaviour
It’s like placing cameras around your store. It’s like hiring thousands of researchers to follow each customer around the store, noting where they are going and how long they are spending in each location. It’s the most efficient and cost effective research you can do.
 
The Audience Logs that every website generates are full of magic details that track every footprint your customers leave. If you know where to look, you can get a clear picture of how your audience interacts with your site. Audience Logs can tell you where customers are coming from, how they travel through the site, how long they spend in each section, they can highlight areas of interest and where weaknesses lay.
 
Unlike any other medium, a website is a dynamic, living entity. Audience Logs can help you breath fresh, vibrant life into your site. Audience Logs allow you to reshuffle sections, reorganise site areas and re-think parts to provide a better audience experience.
 
After all, aren’t our customers the reason we exist. It’s fantastic to get acknowledgment from our partner at home for a site. It’s pure bliss to get acknowledgment and financial reward from our workplace.
 
And what is the one thing that’ll make our superiors act in that unnatural and rare manner? Not pretty buttons, but a site that is producing results and is attached to a healthy, living, breathing, constantly returning target audience.
 
Some people are just so hard to please.
 
For all those thinking about the entire Festive Season experience, remember a website is not just for Christmas.
 
It’s a living medium. The information revolution is about your information being alive.
 
If you need to bring your website back to life, hand it in here lazarus@thinking.com.au.
 
3. Brand Experiences
3.1 E-Business is not just about sales
 
At a recent ComTech Forum, 80% of organisations attending said they planned to increase their investment in e-business by an average of 36% over the next financial year. According to the survey, average expenditure on e-business this year was $340,000 per organisation.
 
The impact of e-business initiatives included: streamlining business processes, increasing efficiency 70%; improving relationships with customers, suppliers and partners 58%; and better customer service 51%. E-business applications were mostly being used for customer service (66%); marketing (37%); employee relations (35%); supply chain (32%); sales (30%) and education (24%).
 
Almost all (94%) of organisations saw e-commerce as critical to their business strategy. (www.comtech.com.au)
 
This follows Robert Gottliebsen’s comment in BRW last week: “Managing directors are going to be rated on their internet preparedness. We are dealing with a revolution in consumer and business practices that has few parallels this century. I suspect the revolution will be most prominent in the business-to-business area, but consumers will not be far behind. Managing directors of vulnerable companies who do not set themselves an Internet strategy should not link their remuneration to the company’s share price.”
 
3.2 New Media on Traditional Media
There was a recent article that described traditional media outlets in the US as holding back space. They were finding that most of it was being taken by advertisers who were driving people to their websites.
 
Advertisers who were driving people away from one medium to another. This is probably similar to the experience of Cobb&Co at the turn of the century. Cobb&Co was most likely the form of transport that took people to trade shows across the country. Trade shows that unveiled new forms of mechanised transport.
 
The Company provided the important initial introduction to a transport medium that would eventually delegate Cobb&Co to an appearance in movies about the old west. Is the same thing happening to our traditional media? Is it surprising that some of the largest players in this new medium happen to be called Packer, Murdoch, Fairfax?
 
3.3 Someone else’s turn to tell you.
If you look back over the last four newsletters, you’ll find there is a continuing line about the main evolutionary steps that lead to a successful web presence.
 
A couple of weeks ago, Iconocast, one of the oldest and highly respected internet commentators put forth the following 4 distinct stages toward an interactive marketing evolution.
 
Here they are. The message they communicate, can’t be repeated often enough:
“* Stage One: Building an Internet Presence Interactive marketing service providers represent the first stage of development in this cycle. These companies help businesses establish an Internet presence essentially through the creation of a site. As this is a relatively mature and crowded sector, there are only two interactive marketing service companies waiting to price IPOs.
 
* Stage Two: Driving Traffic -- The second stage occurs once a site is created. To drive traffic to their site, banner ads and sponsorships are placed in high-traffic areas of the Internet. This spurs demand for online advertising networks and ad-serving solutions. Only one company, AdKnowledge, is in registration.
 
* Stage Three: Creating Stickiness Online properties need to create compelling reasons for users to stay and return to their sites, which is called "stickiness." Interactive marketing software providers help businesses create meaningful visits with personalization and customisation solutions. We're now in the midst of the personalization stage and, as a result, there are five new companies waiting to hit the public markets in this sector.
 
* Stage Four: Communicating One-on-One While we're still firmly in stage three, a fourth stage is clearly beginning to blossom. This stage fosters a dialogue between business and consumers through e-mail.”
 
If you’d like to go through them as they pertain to your site contact yourevolution@thinking.com.au
 
3.4 Consumer Empowerment - serve them or they’ll dump you
The internet is part of ‘the age of customer empowerment’. The technology, the navigation, the experience is not there to serve your purposes, but to answer customer needs.
 
This shift in power is in place across all customer segments. Evaluation is now a consideration in just about every purchase (for example look at the amount of space nutritional information takes up on cereal packaging.) No longer can you advertise blindly when your customers are approaching every purchase with eyes wide open.
 
The fastest growing evaluation medium is the internet. Consumers have become the CEO of their future. As CEOs they look for the most efficient and effective solution for their needs. The product solution may be a brand name, however it will need to have the features they require, it will need to have good service, it will need to serve them for their expected service life and it will need to evoke confidence.
 
If any of these criteria are not performing there are a number of suitors ready to whisk your customers away. And your customers will happily dump you for them.
 
How are you relating to your market through the internet? Thinking’s WebWorthy Report profiles your performance in the market place. Thinking’s WebWorthy Report is the quickest way to find out if your website is going to capture and empower consumers.
 
4. Offer of the Month - 10% off WebWorthy Report - Last Month
 
Thinking Internet Management Services can attend to all of the issues covered in this newsletter. One of the first starting points we recommend is a WebWorthy Report.
 
It provides your company with a quantifiable and comprehensive benchmark of your internet presence. And importantly, it does this from your audience’s point-of-view. It looks at such issues as your share of voice, reach, brand stature online, competitive activity, WaitLoss, potential brand risks, process and procedure, and recommendations.
 
Due to popular demand, Thinking is once again offering its highly popular WebWorthy Report. Thinking is offering 10% off a full WebWorthy Report.
 
If you would like more information, please contact webworthy@thinking.com.au.
Offer closes 31 October, 1999.
 
 
THINK MAIL is Thinking Australia’s Internet Management Newsletter. It is compiled and written by Mark Bergin and Joe Di Stefano.
 
For further information contact Thinking Australia.
 
Thinking’s mission is to help our clients establish, develop and maintain successful internet brands. We help them complete the transition from mere internet presence of their brand to the more important phase of internet - brand management which covers the management of their “voice”, “experience” and “audience”.
 
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