March 28, 2024

Florida Business On-Line

Wayne Harris | 6/1/1996
Tom DeMartine, owner of two yacht charter businesses in Nokomis, decided to start advertising on the Internet last fall. Fully developed since last December, his World Wide Web site [http://www.visailing.com] now is responsible for a third of his inquiries and a quarter of his bookings. The cost: about $1,000 a year. "To put that in perspective," DeMartine say, "that's about the cost of a single, quarter-page black-and-white ad in Yachting magazine."

Indeed, DeMartine has been able to scale back on his print advertising because of the effectiveness of the Web site. "It's almost too good a deal," he says of his Web marketing costs. "I'm almost afraid they're going to figure it out and raise their prices."

Florida businesses large and small are leaping into cyberspace. Most have yet to come back with any profits, yet those that understand the new medium and use it shrewdly are helping themselves enormously. Who are the major players in Virtual Florida, and what can be learned from them? Herewith a few hyperlinks to the hotspots:

Sarasota Online
Rick DeWitt, information systems manager for the Heart Center in Sarasota, has an idea for attracting new patients. Every day, somewhere out there in the world, at least one silver-haired executive will have a heart attack and decide to retire in Sarasota, DeWitt figures. This executive will jump onto the World Wide Web to research real estate listings and who's who in town. Using Yahoo, one of the Web's free "search engines" - essentially an electronic catalogue of the Web - the executive will soon see a list of 80 Web sites dealing with Sarasota. And there on the first page of listings, under "Health:Medicine:Cardiology:Institutes," will be the Heart Center [http://www.heartcenter.com].

So far, DeWitt appears to have figured right. In operation since February, the Web site has already brought the center two patients. And the online venture is proving valuable in other ways. Physicians now routinely log into a secure area on the site to check the next day's surgery schedule and are increasingly using the Internet to exchange information with physicians at other clinics. The cost of this new marketing and communications firepower: between $100 and $150 a month.

"It's definitely a bargain for what you get," says DeWitt. "As a cardiac facility, our marketing options are pretty limited. We do public health awareness campaigns, and we advertise in the Yellow Pages, which is extremely expensive by comparison."

Global reach, bottom line results, minimal cost: This is the way the Internet is supposed to work. DeWitt is fortunate, though, to be in Sarasota, because it is home to Comcast Internet Services Southwest - one of the more adept Internet marketing companies in Florida.

Comcast sponsors Sarasota Online [http://www.sarasota-online.com], "The Global Village of Sarasota." More literally, Sarasota Online is a virtual community directory where advertisers like DeWitt can link or post their Web sites. Because of the Sarasota Online name, the site attracts eyeballs to DeWitt and other advertisers that otherwise would never find them.

"We knew from the beginning that our primary selling point was our location," says Rich Swier, Jr., a system administrator for Comcast. "If you type in 'real estate' in a search engine like Yahoo, you're going to get thousands of listings. Type in Sarasota, and you're going to get a much smaller list. And a lot of the sites listed will be ours."

Many fledgling Internet marketers like Comcast attempt to develop critical mass by creating a comprehensive business listing for free and then trying to entice the listed businesses to pay for "home pages" - the electronic equivalent of display ads. To beef up Sarasota Online, Swier took a different approach. His company created elaborate home pages for virtually all the major cultural and not-for-profit organizations in Sarasota, including the Ringling Museum and the area chambers of commerce, without charge.

"It was our way of establishing market share," Swier says. "And it generated enormous good will in the community. It was very much a Netscape model of doing business." By initially giving away its Web browser, Netscape Communications achieved instant dominance in the market for Internet hardware and software. Now, an estimated 85% of Internet surfers use Netscape software to view the World Wide Web.

Content Is King
Swier also struck a deal with Sarasota Magazine [http//www.sarasotamagazine.com/], swapping his company's Internet programming and design expertise for the right to include a monthly sampling from the magazine in Sarasota Online. For the use of its content, Sarasota Magazine gets a well-designed site and a huge pool of potential subscribers. For its Web expertise, Sarasota Online gets a display ad in the magazine and fresh content that encourages repeat visits to its site.

For other business advertisers, Sarasota Online charges $50 per home page per month, with a six-month minimum. The average cost to the 130 businesses who advertise is about $400 for six months, with the most elaborate advertisers paying up to $150 monthly. One-time setup costs range from $300 to $2,500. That's high by Web standards, but no one is complaining. The site draws an average of 22,000 hits a day. (In Web parlance, a "hit" is a page viewed, and each hit can be recorded as a measure of traffic flow.)

The entry-level package offered to businesses on Sarasota Online consists of one page with up to four photos and the equivalent of one 8.5-by-11-inch page of ad copy - often scanned in from company brochures - plus an electronic mail form. The mail form may be the single most important element for the advertising businesses, according to Swier. "We're very adamant about the need for responsive communications from our businesses," he says. "We make sure they get in the habit of frequently checking their mail. And we encourage all our restaurants and hotels to take reservations online." If the businesses don't have e-mail capabilities in-house - and about half don't - Sarasota Online staff gets the mail and immediately forwards it to the businesses by fax.

Some of Sarasota Online's client pages have taken on a life of their own. Last November, Michael's on East, a Florida Trend Golden Spoon winner, was picked by America Online as a "site of the month." Since then, the number of visitors the Michael's on East site [http://www.bestfood.com/welcom2.html] has grown to 2,000 a day, says owner Michael Klauber. Those who signed the site guest book or subscribed to Michael's on East e-mail newsletter in March hailed from 47 different countries.

Klauber estimates that he spent $2,500 developing his site, which promotes his catering and wine-selling business as well as the restaurant. Costs now run about $100 a month. Concerns about credit-card security - expected to be resolved by the end of the year - have held down online ordering of wines and gifts. But Michael's is averaging a dozen online reservations a week, easily covering the cost of all the Web advertising. Klauber's e-mail newsletter goes to about 700 subscribers, which pales beside the 7,000 copies of a print newsletter he mails quarterly, but, he notes: "The e-mail newsletter costs me nothing in printing or postage, I can send it as often as I like, and I can immediately target specific customers; for instance, those interested in cabernet, when I get in a good shipment of cabernet."

The Information Railway
Business-to-business advertisers in Florida are also making big Internet investments. CSX Corp. launched its Web site in November [http://www.csx.com]. So far the rail and shipping conglomerate posts its annual report and other financial data, press releases, executive bios, a corporate history and company overview. Within six months, says Suzanne Walston, manager of corporate communications, CSX will upgrade its Web site with a private-network shipment-tracking system. When this is installed, rail and sea-land service customers will be able to call up the Web site and find out exactly where their freight car or container is at any given time. CSX also will begin publishing its shipping schedules on the site. "We've gotten a lot of comments from our customers on the Internet wanting that," says Walston.

That's fine with CSX, Walston adds: Virtually all of its customers have Internet access, so CSX stands to save approximately $500,000 it now spends advertising the schedules in print.

(Incidentally, there is also a so-called "Unofficial CSX Transportation Rail Page," run by a glassy-eyed rail fan in Michigan. It lists CSX's current roster of locomotives, logos from predecessor railroads like the B&O and the L&N, train schedules and other minutia only a train nut could love [http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/%7eochs/csx.htm1].

Virtual Mail Houses
Another example of business-to-business marketing on the net in Florida is tech-savvy PC DOCS, which sells document management software to Fortune 1000 companies with complex computer networks. The company launched its Web site from a server in Tallahassee, home to its programming operation, in the spring of 1995. The DOCS site [http://www.pcdocs.com] offers product information, downloadable demonstration software and program updates, case studies, press releases, training schedules and the e-mail addresses of its international distributors. DOCS also advertises open programming positions and a link to several servers offering quotes of the company's stock price on a 15-minute delayed basis.

"It's definitely worth our while," says Beth Parker, marketing communications manager. "The site generates a lot of client interest and a lot of press interest. It's far less expensive than doing trade shows."

Product information of a different kind is available at the Cassandra & Bailey Model Management Web site, based in Orlando. With the click of a mouse button, clients anywhere from Florida to China can type in any physical attributes they require in a model, (e.g., blond, blue eyes, 5' 10") and have the computer sort through thousand of head shots and model resumes. (Don't try to use this site as a source of dating leads, however; only those in the business need apply for a password.)

What may be the most ambitious commercial undertaking to date on the Internet will debut in late May, when Tech Data of Clearwater, a wholesale distributor of computer equipment, launches a site that puts its entire inventory online. Tech Data's customers will be able to check availability and pricing of some 38,000 items, as well as order online. The site also will provide product descriptions, links to the support sites of its vendors, and to Federal Express and United Parcel Service so that customers can track the progress of their orders.

Tech Data already offers these services to its larger clients through private data networks and to others through a dial-up online service, so the transition is less daunting than it might seem, says James Pollard, Tech Data's senior vice president of logistics. Tech Data may reduce its phone bill if it can divert traffic to its Web site, that is not the motivation, Pollard says.

"We have tens of thousands of very computer-literate customers," he says. "Our surveys indicate most of them spend two hours a day on the Internet. It's absolutely essential we be there."

Besides providing better access for its existing customers, the Web site will expose the company to new prospects. So Tech Data is taking great care with its Web site development. It has hired two Tampa Bay firms, OpenNet [http://www.opennet.com] for its technical expertise and Image Technologies [http://www.imagetech.com/window.html] for its skills in Web design.

"It's like a cross between a television station and a supermarket," Pollard says of the Web site. "You have to have the right content, a rich flow of information. It has to be attractive. You have to stock the shelves with things people want. Above all, you want the people to come back. This is our grand opening. We want to get it right."

Internet Marketing 101

Advertising on the Internet is analogous to advertising in other media, but not the same. Here's a primer on who to call and what sort of relationships to expect.

First you will need an Internet Service Provider. Some ISPs will do nothing more than "host" your Web site by leasing you space on one of their computers and offering some maintenance services. Others not only will host your Web site but also provide some surrounding content that will help attract visitors. That content might be nothing more than a "Yellow Pages" type list of similar companies, or it might include lots of editorial content, such as newspaper articles.

The ISPs that give advertisers the most bang for their Web advertising are those that can offer a blend of print and Web advertising, says Clark Lambert, one of the architects of the online edition of the St. Petersburg Times [http:\\www.sptimes.com]. New users are by definition Internet novices, Lambert reasons, and "it's hard for them to find the information they want electronically. You need the advertising in other media to draw them in."

Who should you use to design and compose your Internet advertising? That can be a problem. Most ISPs do offer design services but many are staffed by computer programmers who know little about advertising, graphic design and business in general. Alternatively, if you go with an ad agency, you'll find that most lack technical understanding of the Net.

"The advertising/marketing world has been slow to grasp the significance of the new medium," says Jerry Kidd of Kidd & Driscoll in Tallahassee, which is one of the few full-service agencies in Florida marketing itself as a designer of Web sites on its own Web site [http://www.kidd.com/].

So for now, the best bet for most businesses considering a Web presence is to shop around. The Interactive Publishers Alert [http://www.netcreations.com/ipa/] site offers a comprehensive listing of Web advertisers, plus - for a charge -effectiveness rankings and advice on how to go about setting up your site and how to negotiate with advertisers.

For a primer on good Web design, pay a visit to David Siegel's High Five site [http://www.highfive.com/], where for absolutely no charge you'll find a thorough discussion of the graphic and organizational demands of the Web, plus links to sites that meet Siegel's high standards.

Once you have seen the good stuff recommended by Siegel and have a basis for comparison, jump over to Review.Net, the online edition of the Warfield's Florida Review, for a list of hot-linked Florida ISPs [http://www.review.net/technology/links/isp.html]. Most of the ISPs will offer Web design services. Most also will register your site with the major Web search engines as a part of the development charge.

Tags: Florida Small Business, Politics & Law, Business Florida

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