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Business New Haven
2/7/2000
By: Tammy Rachau
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The (e)Vision Thing
BNH talks to George Aspland, president of eVision, LLC of Branford, about the potential and pitfalls of Internet marketing.
What do you do at eVision?
I'm the president here at eVision. We design and develop Web sites. On the marketing side of things, a big part of what we do is also to market the Web sites, or at least to advise our clients on how to market them. A big fallacy that people have is that they think that you can just make a Web site and people will come to it. Actually, there are so many Web sites out there that you actually have to do some marketing for a new site. I am also the company's founder. I started the company about a year ago. We are located in Branford, which is also where I live. We are doing pretty well - we're growing now, with a growing base of customers.
Who are some of your past and present clients?
They are area organizations and businesses. For example, [one is] Algonquin Industries in Guilford, which manufactures electrical and electric-mechanical wire. I am working on a site for Keystone Antiques in Woodbridge right now. Our own Web site is linked to some of our clients' Web sites that we have created in the past, so people can visit them and see some of our past work. One of the sites that I think turned out the best is the site for Del Imaging Systems. It is a fairly good-sized site, I think it's well organized, has a lot of product information, and it's got video and audio. I'm pretty proud of that one.
What are some of the most important characteristics of a successful web site?
Organization and navigation are two of the important parts. It has to be easy for the visitor to move around the site and find what they are looking for. The key is making sure that the navigation is set up logically. The look and feel of the site should be consistent throughout the site. It's easier for the visitor to work his way through the site if it is consistent all of the way through. Being successful in getting people to the site can be an entirely different thing. We wrestle with how to get prospects to a Web site. One of the really great ways to do that is to provide an information base on your Web site that your target audience would be interested in and that would be useful - hopefully indispensable - for them. Also, you must publicize that you have that information base on your Web site. For example, there's a wholesale travel company - they sell travel packages to travel agents - so that's their target audience. On their Web site they have a database for all passport visa requirements for every country in the world. Travel agents use that site to get that information, and while they're at the site they're being exposed to the marketing messages of that company. So that is an excellent way to build traffic to your Web site and get your message out in front of more prospects.
How else do you help clients market their Web sites?
We make sure that it is set up so that it will get the best placement on all of the search engines. We get it registered with many search engines. A lot of people think that if you put a Web site out there, and you register it to a search engine, people will miraculously find you. That's obviously not so - the results of search engines can be pretty hit-or-miss. It is a first step, however. It does pay to at least be set up and get the best placement possible, and you'll get something from it. For most businesses and organizations, search engines only bring you marginal results. We also help with making sure our clients think about the real way to promote a Web site the most effective way, and that is using traditional methods. That includes making sure you've got your Web site publicized in all of your business communications, doing press releases to industry magazines and newspapers, advertising, in some cases, and e-mail marketing.
E-mail marketing how?
E-mail marketing can be very effective, although it can also be fairly expensive to do. The kind of e-mail marketing that is effective is called 'opt-in,' which is where people have said they would like to receive certain kinds of e-mail. They are not receiving junk e-mail, they're receiving material they have actually requested. Those kinds of e-mail lists are available, but they are relatively expensive. The results, if they are targeted correctly, can be fantastic. It depends on your market and whether there is going to be an opt-in e-mail list for you to purchase.
Other ways the word can spread about Web sites are newsgroups, word-of-mouth, industry publications, and links to your Web site information base from other sites - that kind of thing can really pay off.
How have you marketed your own Web site?
In designing the site, I made it very easy to use. I put links to my clients' sites to it, so a visitor can go directly to some of our past clients' sites that we have designed. I registered it with the search engines. I also registered it with the directories. Some of the yellow pages directories are something to make sure your Web site is registered on, also. People are using those directories more and more. My Web site is really not out there to try to attract a lot of additional business. I give the Web site address out to a lot of prospective clients for them to look at so that they can have access to that information. I think that is the main use of a Web site for most businesses: not so much to find new prospects - although you can, if you market it correctly - it's to support existing prospects. That's far and away what most Web sites are used for.
What do you see as the future of Web site marketing?
I think it will continue to explode the way it has over the past few years. The search engines also should see some improvement. As more and more Web sites are created, though, marketing and getting the word out on your Web site will become more and more important. That's probably already the biggest issue companies have with their Web sites: how to market them successfully. Most of the major ones are advertising on TV and in magazines. Traditional advertising is still the best way to get the word out. But it is expensive.
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