Epner at Western: Tips for a Great Fastener Company Web Site

John Wolz

�E-marketing does not have to be on the Net, but the Net is where it is at today,� Steve Epner told the Western Association of Fastener Distributors fall meeting in Portland, OR.\
�E-marketing should generate interest, but don�t give away services or expertise for free,� Epner of St. Louis-based BSW Consulting Inc. advised.
To give your company a strong Internet presentation, technology consultant Epner gave five points a great company web site must be:
� Clean. The business message should not get lost in all the toys.
� Fast. The opening page should load within five seconds.
� Printable. Though your site may be colorful, it needs to look good even on black & white printout.
� Changing. �Add something new� to give visitors a reason to keep coming back.
� Accurate. Bad information reflects poorly on your company.
Epner also offered company web site �Don�ts�:
� Don�t publish visitor counters, as they can only be negative. Either your numbers are too low or the numbers tell your competitors what is working. You are giving away competitive information.
� Don�t post the date of the last update if it is not frequently changed.
� Don�t use colors that are hard to read. Primary colors normally project true on visitors� computers, but odd colors may appear as different tones or hues on other computers. Epner also noted that many people are colorblind.
� Don�t use material without written permission. Even if you carry a product line, ask for permission to use the logo. Copyright laws apply to the Internet as well as to books and other printed materials.
� Don�t give away valuable information. But if competitors �are dumb enough to give you free information, then take it.�
The web site should generate interest in products, service and expertise and tell visitors where to find you. �It is amazing how many do not have mailing addresses,� he sighed.
It is important to publicize your web presence on stationery, business cards, brochures, mailings and during sales calls, Epner urged.
Web sites are for more than customers. Whether it is planned as one or not, a web site can be an employee recruitment tool. Students visiting the site may be potential employees, and potential vendors may find you too.
Competitors may visit your site, and �you should be visiting theirs.�
�Cookies� can collect and update information on visitors and be used to focus your online program and sales efforts.
Epner doesn�t encourage �vanity sites� which feature a picture of the owner. �The world isn�t going to come looking for your picture online,� he explained. Taking space and loading time for pictures �does very little.�
Epner suggested something to encourage visitors to ask questions or talk to you is better than a vanity picture.
Consider getting cooperative advertising dollars from your supplier for featuring their products on your web site.
Talk to Your Customers
Talk to your best customers on what you need in updating your business site to present the right image, information and make your electronic catalog easy to use.
Don�t rely solely on your web page. Today it costs very little to create a CD version of your electronic catalog to hand out for times when customers don�t want to log in.
Develop loyalty by giving key customers an access code. That also creates barriers to entry by competitors. Support and interfaces also create barriers to competitors.
Train the sales staff to sell in an online world. �Teach the sales force to sell the business site,� rather than be afraid of it taking their jobs.
The new online sales roles include consulting, selling the value of the site and handholding, because it doesn�t always work right for customers the first time.
Find out your customer�s real technology capability, Epner advised. �Determine if your non-tech customers are worth keeping.
Be Prepared to Deliver
Don�t promise in a web site more than you can deliver. Toys R Us learned that the hard way during the 1999 holiday season and is still in trouble because it was unprepared for the volume of online orders, They kept missing promised delivery dates, Epner said. �Prepare to respond to and support online sales,� he emphasized.
Use appropriate disclaimers to protect yourself. Epner cited Pepsiworld.com as an example to follow. Pepsi�s wording would have to have been edited and refined by numerous lawyers.
There is no longer a financial reason to not have a web site, Epner said.
Watching children will assure you that the World Wide Web is your future. �The Internet is pretty easy to use for kids. Watch a seven-year-old going all over the world on the Internet.�
The Internet is changing business with global pricing on many commodities. Manufacturers can sell direct, customers can shop easily, and margins will be squeezed, he predicted. But distributors can continue to succeed by adding value. �If you want to keep your position, add value,� Epner stressed.