Beat the economy blues with an online presence

The first thing I would recommend for anyone who would like to fight the economic downturn is to have a web presence.

• If you sell something, use the web to do it.
• If it cannot be sold on the web, you could still generate leads on probable buyers.
• If you have a low cost mass market product use the web to connect to your customers, also to take feedbacks.
• If you are a service provider, explain the benefit that a customer will get by taking the service from you.
• If you are self employed create your profile and publish your client testimonials.
• If you are a big corporate, establish a web space where you communicate you group philosophy and communicate both with your employees as well as your customers.
• If you are a writer/journalist/or anyone else who wants to establish themselves as an authority among their peer group, start blogging.
• If you are an artist/painter/sculpter etc. put up your entire work on the net along with your profile previous showings and future plans.
• If you are an actor/theatre personality, create you profile on the web with links to clips from your various performances posted on youtube.
• If you are a singer/music composer, try to make as much of your work available online as possible.
• If you are a hairstylist/dress designer/makeup artist etc., you could have photographs of various styles created, well known clients, awards etc. mentioned.

To sum up anyone and everyone who is in the fight to survive, can do something on the web to help him in his/her endeavour.

If you think you have no use for the web, think again.....

Reasons for having a Site: The Hidesign Story

I have often wondered why do companies have websites. Is it to have a fancy online brochure for ready reference or for blocking a domain name to preempt mischief. Today i was going through the website of a very famous leather goods manufacturer of India - Hidesign. The website www.hidesign.com is very stylishly designed but again as i said earlier, I am unable to understand the purpose of the site. It seems they have made it because they have to make it. I introduces the company as a stylish proponent of its craft but falls short of providing a marketing platform for its products.

Hidesign as I understand is into direct retail of its products both in India and worldwide through their own boutiques. I am not sure if they are also taking bulk orders for their designs from other customers/retailers. The Products page has one photo each in all product category. Their is a link to Hidesign Couture which shows the products without any reference nos. This site is not geared to generate a business enquiry, which is a pity, given the rock solid brand name of the company and great designs.

I would like to suggest to the management that they should try creating two sites one corporate site and one site which could have more useful information for a probable client. May be called "Hidesign Commercial". I feel this can be instrimental in getting them a lot of positive business leads.

Thats all for now........

Using the Internet as a Business Development arm

Over the last several weeks, I have been going through the sites from various established corporate based in India. What I have realised, is that most of these sites are mere on-line brochures and are not used as active agents for business development which they can be. In these times of Global economic slowdown, harnessing the power of the Internet will not only save costs for the respective companies but it will also help them target a wider audience.
I would like to welcome questions (I am consciously avoiding enquiries) from all and sundry on how to do better business development throuth their websites.
In future posts, I would be writing about specific examples.

Sharing ....

I am starting this blog today to write about my analysis of the various businesses on the Internet and beyond.
I wish myself all the best in continuing the effort.
Anshuman