• To Use Email

Most people get connected to be able to send and receive Email. With email you can send an electronic note or letter to someone at 9.00 am and get a reply by 9.30 the same day. Sending an email takes only seconds. You can send the same email letter to say, 100 customers, for less than the cost of one ordinary letter, and if you send it at after 6 p.m. or at weekends, that one letter will cost no more than 5p (with BT). Daytime rates for email are the same as a minimum rate local phone call, but you can send to hundreds of addresses for the same cost as the one. The cost is no different if you want to send an email to Australia, America, Amsterdam or Accrington. It costs next to nothing. Not only that, but you can send software programmes, sound files, photographs and even video files with the email at the same speed.

• To Generate Awareness

The next most important reason is probably that a website of your own will promote your organisation 24 hours every day, seven days each week, and to the whole world. Nothing else offers this flexibility. If your business relies on the acquisition or distribution of information, you can't afford not to be online. Your customers can have a current parts list or delivery schedule or price list for your goods or services at any time, just by looking up the relevant page on your website. Just imagine, one price list alteration and the whole world can see it, instantly. No reprinting and distribution of expensive catalogues.

• To Do Business Online

Direct sales over the web are also possible via credit card purchases. Alternatively, one of your website pages can be structured as an order form for the customer to print out at home and send back with a cheque or their credit card number added. It is possible to establish real-time sales via credit card purchases. In the UK people are still nervous about the web and credit cards. That will change in time. The sort of things that sell well over the Internet are (obviously) computer related products, together with information such as books and music. Other markets are in development stages, with groceries, wine and flowers by mail order being amongst the first to show. In the service sector, travel agents, insurance, financial advice, solicitors, consultants, engineers, travel and holiday agencies, recruitment and training, and brokerage and agency work of all kinds, are the front runners.

• To Improve Communication

Some of the larger businesses use a website to keep employees such as sales representatives around the country, or even around the world in touch with head office. As teleworking grows, this is likely to become increasingly important

• To Receive Information

You might also want to get connected so that you can receive information from the Internet. Using a Web browser programme, finding new suppliers, comparing prices, and getting product specifications are all quite easy. You can even plan your train journeys from an interactive Railtrack website that asks you to type where you are gong from and to, and what time you want to leave or arrive. It then provides a list of train times and connections for the journey that you can print and take with you. It is as up to date as today.

• To Improve Competitive Advantage

One of the reasons that small businesses go online is that a well designed website for even a one man business can have just the same presence on the web as a multi-national corporation. Communication, marketing and printing costs are lower too, as is the cost of using full colour. Larger businesses see it as a way to reinforce not only their brand (which is becoming increasingly important), but also as a way to reinforce an image of leadership and potential. All businesses see it as the key to keeping ahead of the competition. There are other reasons too, the web is for you, and it is the future. It will change society; it will change our entertainment, and the way I do business. It will also reshape our town centres as financial organisations, brokers, agencies and other businesses first merge, then abandon their overhead-laden town centre shops, and opt for access to a bigger market with lower overheads direct and live on-line.

• Getting Your Own Website
• 
  You already passed first base - you have become aware of the need. Perhaps you saw the www. names and the @ email addresses and wondered what they are all about, or you have been speaking with colleagues or competitors who have Websites, or read an article about how the web is going to change both society and business. Either way, you want to find out more about getting your business or organisation on the Internet.

• Forming Initial Ideas

One of the first issues you will need to consider, is what you want to achieve with your website, and whether you want to be able to sell directly from your web page and take money in real-time. A website design checklist will raise a number of issues that you will want to consider, like what you want the website to do for you, how big you expect it to be, and so on. You will probably want to talk to your friends or colleagues about it. Having assembled your initial thoughts, and committed them to paper, it is worth getting independent third party advice to check the details with you. When considering these ideas it is worth noting that I have found from experience that a successful website follows an organic growth cycle with defined stages:

1. It often begins as a promotional site, providing information about the organisation
2. Then it becomes a focus for visitors and brings enquiries about products and services.
3. The site develops to provide some more detailed information about products and services
4. It develops a section that advertises products and services
5. This leads to email enquiries and orders, with goods and services paid for by traditional methods.
6. The pressure slowly builds for online ordering. The most advanced of the UK sites have crossed his barrier and have introduced online real-time sales, and more are partway along the path.

1. To register your domain name. (if required)
2. To sign up with your web site host. Your host to must be able to handle your needs such as supply you with cgi-bin files, scripts and server settings suitable for your needs.

• What's In It For Me?

A Website of your own lifts your horizons. The limit is your imagination

• Savings In Costs

You will undoubtedly find savings in costs and convenience over traditional methods, especially in communications:

• Email: Cheaper than a letter. Cheaper than a fax. Often cheaper than a phone call. Save costs and send information worldwide to 100 people simultaneously for less than the cost of just one stamp.
• Promotion: A global window on your organisation, your products and your services at remarkably low cost, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Effectiveness: Update your catalogue or price list once on your website, and ALL your customers or sales force have access to the new information. Instantly. Reduce expensive mailings of catalogues, technical specifications and price lists. Why not have your customers got the information they need? At worst it only costs them a local phone call.
• Convenience:Send and receive messages without leaving your desk. Get replies in minutes. No more "engaged" tones, or "Sorry they're out" stories. Make it easy and immediate for customers to request information. Send an order form or newsletter with each enquiry at virtually no additional cost

1. Advertise to a regional, national or even international audience
2. Reinforce your brand.
3. Get your name out there.
4. Project your values.
5. Build customer loyalty.
6. Build relationships with customers as individual web users.

1. Strengthen customer loyalty by interactive communication.
2. Generate additional business opportunities online.
3. Project a pro-active, customer orientated image.
4. Make technical product information and user product experiences marketing tools.
5. Disseminate your product news or your achievements worldwide, instantly.

1. 56% of companies with online access use it to obtain information about companies and products.
2. 47% use it for research.
3. Enable new customers to find you simply by typing your name or product into a search engine.
4. Provide a "Frequently Asked Questions" section to support new customers

1. Find previously unreachable markets.
2. 20% of UK companies report increased enquiries and publicity from outside their traditional geographic markets via the web.
3. You can conduct business on-line, take orders, and receive payments.
4. You can even deliver digitised information like typing, artwork, music and video over the phone line.
5. Do away with the delay. Get the orders from website visitors

1. Source new suppliers yourself.
2. See their product specifications and costs at your leisure.
3. See what your competitors are doing.
4. Research their latest news, their newest products.
5. Survey the needs of your customers as individuals.
6. In short, your web connection can help to stay ahead of the competition

1. You can improve the internal communications of large organisations via the Web.
2. You can create non-public sections of information, so where better than your Website to store information for use by your staff, your dispersed sales force, or by management, and even shareholders.
3. Could you benefit and build employee unity from a centralised, readily accessible source of information available to all your staff on policies; procedures; news; internal career opportunities; training promotions, and so on.

1. Above all, you will be seen as an up to date, technology aware and organised.
2. A Website will help to reinforce an image of your organisation as a leader in its field. Failing to do so simply reinforces the idea of a firm lacking in potential.
3. Your Website says more about you (and to more people) than a boatload of glossy brochures.