There are common myths that are emerging about the internet. While most of these are concerned with the fact that a webpage will drive customers to your business regardless of whether it’s networked to other WebPages, properly linked to industry sites and properly optimised, the major myths are as follows:

1. Myth One: Customer acquisition

This myth is that you can always acquire customers online.

This is very naive. Customer acquisition can be made online, but only if you marry it with a proper marketing program that has a complete communication strategy behind it.

You need offline business and advertising to create awareness of yourself on the internet and to build brand loyalty. Only by giving access to your website, and exciting the customer through awareness and interest so that they will go to the site, will you be able to create customer acquisition.

A website that is not communicated about or to any of your customers sits in absolute space doing nothing. A website that is referenced on all copy, print-advertising, letter-head, invoices, etc. drives customers to inquire and to find out more about you online.

You need the push of online advertising to support your traditional marketing and advertising material, and you need the push of marketing material to take customers to your internet site. You also need to establish a reliable and responsive position with customers. If you have brand awareness and some loyalty, then it is good to get immediate action via the internet. To do this you must be able to respond quickly to any inquiries online so you need trained staff who can respond to e-mails quickly, and you need to be constantly checking your website and inbound e-mails to make certain that you respond quickly to anything the internet presents to you.

The internet can also be useful for competitive strategies, as people who are visiting the website are anonymous and unseen. You must research the competition online, shop online, enquire about particular products and services, and find out how responsive and competitive your competitors are.

You will then have a better idea of what your customer offer and value proposition is. You can then exceed the expectations of your competition, and position yourself to be a better proposition for customers who wish to use your products and services. However, your website should be communicated to them so that they can easily find these products and services online.

The internet can create a fighting brand, which gives you an opportunity to offer products and services at different prices, styles or qualities to different segments of the marketplace, including additional distribution channels. In this way, it can help you to acquire another range of clients and to diversify your business.

The same principles, however, apply to your existing internet site. It must be communicated to clients, existing and potential. It must be capable of being referenced by those who hear about you and want to know more about you, via search engines, etc. Therefore it must be optimised, advertised and it should be promoted through traditional, as well as other e-channels with a distinct brand, image and value proposition.

2. Myth Two: The internet is a great marketing and communication channel

The internet is a great real-time channel that allows customers to get access to information about products and services now. They can do this on a global, national or local basis in what is a crowded global market.

The trouble is that to compete on this basis, because the internet is so successful, you must be up to date with your website. It must be optimised and it should have the latest architecture and navigation design that is appealing to search engines such as Google. Merely having an internet does not create a good marketing and communication channel.

The channel has to be created to overcome the “noise” of all the other channels that attract people who are surfing and watching on the internet. In addition, your site must be so appealing that it will overcome the noise of people who are multi-tasking, listening to music and probably not giving full attention to the site they are looking at. Your site must grab them and it must communicate in shorthand. It must hit the spot with focussed communication, and detail exactly what they can get from your site in minimum time, otherwise they will click off and leave you.

There is a decided change in customer behaviour and how people are receiving and communicating in today’s modern society. Customer behaviour that belonged to the 80s and 90s has been left behind. The new internet generation wants to be able to make decisions quickly. They want to understand the way in which you work as an organisation and the way you serve customers quickly and efficiently, and they want to invest only in those sites that give them the information they need.

This creates security for the future transactions and gives them return on investment for the time they take to find you. If you do not do this, you frustrate them and not only do they click off, they don’t come back, and you lose the opportunity to be attractive to a large number of your consumers. Remember, most of them read the screen, not paper, so the information must be ready for online consumption.

You must develop your site in such a way that you control the information that you give them and give it to them in shorthand very quickly. Organise the navigation so that it meets their expectations and takes them to areas where they can take action and learn about your products and services. You must enable them to contact you and follow-up and do business with you that is explicit and easy online. You must provide evaluation tools that allow them to follow-up with you if they are not satisfied, if they are confused or if they want further information.

In all of this communication, search engines are the hidden manipulators, watching, matching interests to those desired by online consumers through their choice of sites, key words, etc. The trend towards good sites getting all the attention is gathering momentum as search engines become more sophisticated and commercial in gaining revenue from the internet. Those not prepared and ill-equipped will miss out.

3. Myth Three: Good websites Equal Good Marketing

There are many excellent websites around that appeal to the IT industry and to web-designers, and may even appeal to some customers and the owner’s ego. Having a great website with good visuals and great copy that you feel is state of the art is not important if it does not drive customers to your bottom-line.

You must design your website so that it appeals and is competitive with direct online competition, has the right key words, is attractive to the search engines and it optimised and meets the requirements to list in the top 10-20 sites in its field of activity. It may not be the type of site that you will “crow” about, but it has to have those aspects, otherwise you will not get to the customers. It’s about them, not you.

4. Myth Four: Marketers do not understand the internet, therefore web-designers should be used

Marketers understand how communication channels and platforms work. They may not always have the technology, but they can marry the e-Technology with what makes excellent marketing sense and, through research, what makes sense to their customers. Marketers are better qualified to write copy for the website and for customers than IT people, publication relations, arts students, editorial staff or others that engage in the pursuit of literature or word-smithing.

What is needed is focused, accurate and timely information presented in a logical way that leads to a call to action and a sale. Flowery or obtuse language only confuses and frustrates web-users and will leave them wondering why you have engaged in the pursuit of internet communication.

Marketers also understand the need to be compliant online, to be secure, to appeal to search engines and to protect the consumers that visit their site. They always place importance on customer relations, including email contacts, comment sections and customer complaint handling and evaluation.

5. Myth Five: The internet builds clients and loyalty over time

We can undo the loyalty and clients’ attractiveness very easily if the organisation has a website and is not customer responsive. A good website attracts customers, but can also expose poor systems and structures that protect and enhance the website.

If you attract customers and then cannot follow-through with your customer service, then they will rate you poorly where ratings are available, they will leave you for the competition or, with the click of a button, they will just leave.

There is now emerging a new consumer behaviour in which the consumers have control of the marketplace through the click of a mouse. Good marketers understand that. If we intend to service these online customers, we must continually get feedback from the market, we must get our site right, and we must utilise it to constantly improve and innovate online and through all of our marketing support systems. We need to listen and be empathetic to the consumers because they can click us off more so then they ever did with TV or through the flip of a magazine page.

Questions you need to constantly ask are:

• What do they want online? Generally they want a full portfolio of your products and services, or a quick indication of your business before linking to a shopping cart.

• How long will they stay online? They will browse it for 20-30 seconds and then, if they don’t get what they want, they will leave.

• What do they want to see? They want to see products and services presented to them in a manner that suits their particular needs, culture and in the contemporary style of that market segment. You need to talk their language, write their words, use appropriate visuals and navigation processes that appeal to them.

You can check this out and understand it by looking at competitive sites that have done well, and reviewing articles and market research. Whatever you do, you must make it simpatico to the market needs and not develop lots of pictures because you like them, or like lots of copy because you like to write. It must be tailor made for the human behaviour and sentiments that is explicit through those performing sites for specific target markets.

• How good does the site have to be? Provided it has been well constructed, optimised and kept up-to-date by someone who has an understanding of the fusion of marketing and e-commerce, the site will be great. A site that stays unattended and goes stale will cease to be attractive.

The internet is a world of continuous improvement. Because of the profitable returns from internet, you should invest to keep your site up-to-date otherwise it will start to publicise that you are a poor marketer, you company is not competitive and you should be avoided. More importantly, this will be transferred by “word of mouse” across related networks and social media, rating sites, etc., which means the website then becomes a liability.

When businesses engage in marketing in the traditional world, they had to “place” advertising, check to see if it was in the newspaper or magazine, pay the agency or media, review the advertising for future publications, and plan ahead to get key “spots” that attracted attention. Why then do we see “lack of time” to manage and plan websites today, and neglect of improvement and attention to website detail and copy?

The online world will become more expensive to participate in, so investment of both time and money now will create a great return on investment and marketing legacy for those who get it right and manage it now.