The best Internet business strategy is one that will accomplish growth for your business. This business growth strategy may mean expanding into global markets since the Internet is a worldwide medium. Or, through additional marketing efforts, you could increase sales in markets you already reach. When planning the best Internet business strategy, one of the most important steps you can take is to view your company and products from your customers' perspective in terms of needs and wants.
This is not to say that you should base any Internet business strategies on guessing what your customers think and expect of you. Testing your advertising methods as well as checking customer satisfaction levels through surveys are important in many companies today. They can take the guesswork out to give more accurate results. This will allow you to create a new Internet business strategy as needed in order to retain and hopefully expand your market share.
If your customer research shows, for example, that many website shoppers or visitors are complaining about difficult navigation on the site or the annoyance of too many pop-up sales windows, changing these as soon as possible is necessary. However, for the best Internet business strategy, combine making the changes with your marketing and public relations strategy. Post a letter about how your company values and listens to its customers' comments, and as a result, is implementing changes to make navigating the website easier as “our clients have suggested.”
If your business is losing some of its market share to competing websites, don't copy them, but rather do an analysis based on what you know about your customers to see why the competition could be more appealing. Then, you can develop a new Internet business strategy designed to address your problems. Remember to bring sales as well as customer service into your strategy by sending personalized emails or other communication to your clients. Address them by name and include compelling copy about the changes you made. End the brief, yet convincing communication with a call to action, such as to order from your website within a certain time period to save 20% on merchandise of their choice.
Keeping customers typically costs a business less than having to make up the loss by attracting new customers. This is the main reason Internet business strategy must cater to customers or those customers are likely to be tempted by competitors. Having account managers who build relationships with clients can make all the difference in retaining business.
