Most people don’t use Internet technology well. Fewer than 2% of people who access the web, for instance, actually subscribe to RSS feeds. In spite of environmental concerns, millions of emails and web pages are actually printed out, rather than read on screen. As for using social networking tools, or “widgets”, well, they are so niche that almost no-one is using them.
The people buying products and services online still behave in rather traditional, offline, ways. They like to have things in their hands, to “feel” your service or products in some way. They want to “weigh by the pound” your company’s abilities.
That means you need to let them have marketing materials that they can feel, weigh and read offline. The best way of doing this is with an “Internet Marketing Kit”. This can be in the form of a PDF they download and print – or they can order one (free of charge) that you mail in the post.
The kit that you provide should contain a host of information (much of which will alerady be on your web site) that shows them you can do what you claim to do. For instance, try including the following items in your Internet Marketing Kit:
Annual Report
Latest Newsletter
FAQs
A presentation about your services/products
Articles you have written
White papers or reports you have produced
Copies of testimonial letters
Cuttings from media coverage of your business
Recent press releases you have issued
A list of your professional affiliations/memberships
Images of your products or your services in use
You can probably think of more. Your prospective customers will not read all this material; they will skim through it and literally weigh-up your potential. The more you have in this kit, the better since people believe that the more you have the better you are – strange but true.
Your web site may have all this, but people cannot see it all at once, as they can with a printed kit. As a result, your web site can be less impressive than you would like.
