Everyone has heard about the Internet and the endless number of possibilities a business can benefit from using it. And most of you keep asking themselves how can I take advantage of opportunities everyone is talking about, what's the proper tools and where and how can I start. This month I will show you where and how to start with two of the most powerful tools in action.

These two powerful tools are: e-mail and the world wide web. Surprised? Saying you already knew about them, let me tell you if you are not already making at least 50% or more of your sales through the internet then you still don't know about them.

Having a web site on its own is one thing while having an effective web site, a web site that works in conjunction with your other tools in your marketing plan to form a strategy is completely another thing.

To demonstrate this concept I will give two examples, the first is about a company who has an excellent web site with a full online product catalogue, complete with pictures that entice the eye, words that inspire the imagination, and prices that don't make consumers think twice. The second is about another company who still don't have a web site or has a poor one.(by the way this example is real)

Our first example company manufactures high quality self care products and cosmetics, and they want to expand their market to new countries, they decided to build a web site to work like a product catalogue and price list (in addition to providing viewers with background information about their company and listing company's headquarters, branches and factories addresses and phone/fax numbers), After finishing their web site and making sure they've included everything they would include in a regular hard copy product catalogue, they started looking for contact information of companies who might be interested in such line of products in countries they are interested in.

This was easy and all what they had to do is to look in online business directories (such as the INTERNET BUSINESS MALL) or any other available resources, after collecting as much contact information as they can they started preparing a list of companies email addresses.

They also prepared an introduction message with some background information about the company and its line of products, also telling companies who will receive the message that they want to expand their market to their countries. Of course they included a link to their web site saying: for our complete product catalogue and price list, please visit our web site at www.examplecompany.com, then simply they sent the message out to companies in the list they've prepared all over the world by e-mail.

Our example company's staff didn't have to worry about postage or printing costs as they knew that with their web site (again, meaning their online catalogue and price list) available on the world wide web, they can e-mail virtually ALL companies all over the world without adding a single penny to their costs.

Now our example company's staff are busy replying to "Need further details about this business opportunity" e-mails, faxes and phone calls from companies interested in their products. Easy huh?

On the other hand our second example company has a very successful line of products and extremely competitive prices, but unfortunately they still don't have a web site (or has a poor one with only background and contact information), they decided to do the same especially after suffering some lack of liquidity in their country (hey I am not referring to anything;).

They started by printing more copies of their product catalogue and collecting companies contact information (also from online or offline business directories), our second example company staff were very glad when they found a lot of companies all over the world who might be interested in their products, unfortunately the accounting department started reminding them that contacting all these companies and sending them the product catalogue will cost the company a fortune and they should limit their choice to 50 companies or less (how could anyone tell if any given company will be interested or not!)

An employee suggested sending the message by e-mail, and everyone considered him a smart person and welcomed the idea, and in order to further lower expenses and reach more companies the same employee also suggested sending the product catalogue only to companies who reply to their e-mail. (This employee deserves a raise, thinks his/her boss)

Now they can send e-mails to everyone (thanks to the smart guy/lady), unfortunately they only received very few responses (compared to the number of companies they have contacted), and after paying thousands to the printing house and international courier service for printing and sending the product catalogue and price list, the overall rate was around 4% of the companies who have received the catalogue. "What's wrong with them", our example company staff wondered.

Let me tell what's wrong with YOU not THEM, although you were smart deciding to send the message by e-mail, you weren't smart at all with the second suggestion, instead of limiting your product catalogue to companies who reply to your e-mail, YOU SHOULD BUILD OR COMPLETE YOUR WEB SITE!

Why?, Because companies receiving your email have no way to figure out if your products meet the quality level and pricing that their markets expect, and they simply ignore it. Ask yourself "will I reply asking for more information about a product that is manufactured by some company in the other side of the globe and I don't know a thing about", will you?. do you know what's wrong with YOU now?!!

Now our second example company is waiting hopelessly for more companies to reply to their e-mails, annoying them by sending more emails, thinking in spending more money in participating in local or international tradeshows and fairs or even worse gave up and stopped their marketing efforts. Bad huh?

I am really sorry for this rather long article, but if your company is like our second example, then stop wasting your money and time and do yourself a favour and look for a good web consultant (not just a designer) and ask him/her for a price quote.