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Types of Web Sites

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Objectives

Determining your Web site’s purpose

The two primary categories of business Web sites

Brochure, account management, content, and direct gain Web sites

Differences between Web business and traditional business

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Objectives

Advantages and disadvantages of integrating traditional businesses and the Web

Target audiences and their impact on site construction

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Getting Started: Taking Your Idea Live

A Web site is not the business itself

The business runs the Web site

The business also handles any legal issues, marketing issues, investor relations, personnel problems, and other daily chores associated with running a company

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Getting Started: Taking Your Idea Live

Three primary tasks that need to get done just to get the business started:

• develop an idea

• develop an objective

• develop a needs assessment

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Honing the Idea

If the site being developed is for an established marketer, the idea is already there: the company’s products and services will be presented on the Web

If the business is not already established, the idea for a site comes from information or talents that the developer already has

The site subject should be one that the developer not only feels he or she knows better than most people, but also that fills a need in the market

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Defining Your Site’s Objective

The purpose of building any type of business site is to make money

There are other goals to take into consideration

What do you expect the company and the site to achieve in the short term and the long term

Depending upon what the ultimate goal is, the site and the company may be developed to reflect that goal

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Needs Assessment

What resources the site needs depends on its objective

Resources can include designers, developers, marketing, inventory, content, office space, salaries, supplies, etc.

The amount of money you will need depends on your goal as well as your ability to raise funds

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Needs Assessment

Although all companies should have at least a rudimentary business plan, it is an absolute necessity for a company seeking outside funding

Typically, companies seek outside funding either from banks or from venture capitalists

Venture capitalists provide the financing needed for growth and in return, usually take a large share of stock in the company and possibly hold a seat on the board of directors

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Needs Assessment

The business plan outlines and highlights the important aspects of the company and the Web site the site’s purpose what it will provide or sell what need it fills in the market what kind of audience it can expect to gain what competitors it expects to have how it intends to acquire and retain an audience the time frame for profitability

The business plan may range from 10-100 pages and is typically written by a business consultant

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Needs Assessment

Most business plans contain the following information: Executive summary: Overview of what the company

and its associated Web site will do and how the company anticipates growth

Market overview: A review of market conditions, including market size and the life cycle

Service: A description of the Web site, including highlights of any specialized sections, explanation of how it will serve the market, what it will do, and what opportunities there may be for growth and future expansion

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Needs Assessment

Company: A review of the company, including its mission statement, its current status, and biographies of the executive team

Revenue streams: A description of how the site intends to generate revenue, whether from B2C retail sales, banner ad sales, or other means

Strategic plan: An explanation of how the company intends to compete, what makes it unique, how it will position itself, and what type of development plan it has for future growth

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Needs Assessment

Marketing plan: Many investors want at least a few broad statements outlining how the company plans to bring the site to market

Technology plan: A review of the technology – programming and equipment – needed to make the site work, as well as the efforts for fulfillment

Financial section: Spreadsheet itemizing anticipated costs and revenues (3 years)

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General Types of Web Sites

Although there are seemingly endless ideas and products offered on the Web, nearly all sites can be grouped into just a few broad categories: Business sites: pure-com or created by an

established company Information/help sites: Usually organizations with a

.org domain name suffix that provide relevant information to interested readers

Vanity/hobby sites: For example, people who want to display pictures from their family vacation or post their resumes for potential employers

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General Types of Web Sites

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Business SitesBusiness-to-Business Web SitesWeb users spend significantly more time

online at work than they spend online at home Internet connectivity is significantly faster in the

work place than it is at home90 percent of e-commerce conducted in 1999

involved B2B sites In 2000, B2B sites generated revenues of

$433 billion, whereas B2C sites for the same period generated $38 million

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Business-to-Business Web Sites

Figure 2-4 shows the revenue generated by B2B sites and B2C sites for 2000, with predictions for 2005

Average sale price in a B2B transaction is much higher than the average sale price of a B2C purchase

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Business-to-Business Web Sites

Figure 2-5 e-STEEL.com caters to corporations buying large quantities of raw steel

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Business-to-Consumer Web sites

B2C sites sell directly to the end consumer – the masses who spend money on products

B2C sites spend more for overall marketing

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Brochure Sites

Typically static, meaning they do not change on a regular basis and do not allow visitors to make direct purchases

Exist primarily to generate interest in products

Expect to generate an e-mail or a phone call from the site visitor so that a sales representative can follow up the inquiry

Maintain the comfort level of existing customers through online offerings

Alleviate some of the time constraints on human employees by answering common questions online

Relies on human interaction to close the sale

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B2C Brochure Sites

Large retail-oriented companies like BMW, Post, Coke, Pepsi, Burger King and many others invest heavily in brochure sites

Many of these sites have nothing to sell, don’t support outside ads, and even go out of their way to develop games and interactivity to keep users on the site longer

For these companies, the Web is an additional branding vehicle

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Account Management Sites

Allow people to supervise their personal financial, utility, and other types of accounts

Online bankingThe ability to manage their private accounts

with a vendor is a win-win situation for businesses and consumers

Two challenges: privacy and computer error

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Account Management Sites

The online auction is a subcategory of the account management category

eBay shown in Figure 2-9, is really what the Web is all about: giving people the ability to conduct product or information transactions among themselves with relative ease and enjoyment

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Content Sites

Content sites try to offer unique information or content, with regular updates

Google, shown in Figure 2-10, is a Web search engine that give users information and links to other sites on the Web

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Direct GainsNonmonetary Gain Sites

Some companies like Flack + Kurtz, Figure 2-12, seek to make nonmonetary direct gains in the form of new employees from its Web site

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Monetary Gain Sites

Monetary gain sites offer products or services to purchase online

The number of companies capable of selling online is expected to grow from 19 percent in 1999 to 40 percent in 2003

Retail sites probably face the toughest challenges on the Web because they need to keep an up to date inventory and because of heavy competition

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How Web Business Differs From Traditional Business

Web/Computer technology changes rapidly

Web space is not cheap

Web businesses incur all of the costs associated with maintaining customer support services

High cost of marketing efforts to drive people to the site

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Merging Brick-and-Mortar Firms with Dot-Coms

The click-and-mortar models have great potential for retailers, allowing marketers to leverage both their existing brands and the power of the Web

Click-and-mortar companies have spent more money on banner ads and other Web-based ads

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Merging Brick-and-Mortar Firms with Dot-Coms

Figure 2-14 indicates that click-and-mortar retailers are willing to spend ad dollars to promote their efforts because of their strong potential for success

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Determining the Target Market

It is impossible to have universal appeal to every potential shopper, instead, each site, depending on its offerings, caters to a specific group of people that share common traits

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Standard Consumer Demographics

• Age

• Family size

• Education level

• Income (median income and income range)

• Gender

• Occupation

• Nationality

• Race

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Standard Business Demographics

Size of sales

Profitability

Publicly or privately held (percentage of each)

Number of employees

Type of company (products vs. service and percentage breakdown of product or service type)

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Audience Psychographics Variables

Types of hobbies

Vacations

Recreational sports played

Luxury items owned

Number of general-use items (cars, sneakers, etc.) purchased last year or over the last 3 years

Minutes per day spent on the Web

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Gathering Information

Researchers employ various methods to collect audience data and some of the more popular methods include

Personal Interviews

Mail, Web, or telephone surveys

Focus groups

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Setting up a Survey

The general steps taken for survey development include the following:

Determine the objective

Develop the question

Find survey respondents

Analyze the data

Another part of the survey is asking the right question in such a way that allows the respondent to give unbiased and relevant information

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How Audience Profile Affects a Web Site

Knowing your audience from both a demographic and psychographics standpoint gives you insight into the types of layouts, colors, images, and content to which your visitors would best respond

Understanding your audience will help shape the core message and personality of the brand for long-term market penetration

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Summary

Taking an idea from concept to live site requires specific planning

Despite original beliefs that Web businesses were relatively cheap to run, it turned out that the benefits to the consumer (convenience and selection) do not offset some of the negative aspects

The two main categories of business Web sites, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C), each have four subcategories: brochure, account management, content, and direct gains

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Summary

Traditional merchants endeavor to provide a best-of-both worlds experience to their customers by setting up click-and-mortar sites

Sites gather information about their audiences using interviews, surveys, and focus groups, and then shape the site to appeal to those audiences