TRAFFIC TO YOUR WHOLESALE WEB
Best results are obtained by getting the prospect to click on an animated banner with hyperlink that takes them to a special gateway or portal page at your web site. No - not your home page - and never to a FLASH home page. Send them to a special page focused on your particular marketing endeavor.  Really focused.  Remember this rule:  "Six Seconds". That's the time it takes a browser to determine if you have a benefit that needs further examination.  Always have a FOCUSED gateway or portal page for the project. Several if necessary. NEVER link to a form or require logon or login to see your wholesale offerings.

Always offer prices. You've got-em to your web so offer prices. They came to buy so offer prices.

Use your web editor (such as MS FrontPage) to change your gateway pages often so they will reflect your latest marketing focus and offers. (All above assumes that you have a wholesale commerce web and the ability to edit it as you wish.)

Participate in network commerce. If you accessed this information through an industry web board then you are participating in Internet network commerce. Right click when at an important web page or web board to create an icon and shortcut on your desktop. Make networking part of your priority daily routine.  An animated logo or banner ad at the RIGHT place is 10 times more effective than classified ads in all the industry paper pubs. Avoid irritating animation in your banner. Fast, panic like flashing is a big turn-off. Animation can be quick, effective and tasteful with good design. Never link a prospective customer to a Flash home page on your wholesale web. Bringing wholesale browsers to your web and producing revenue with the process is the objective. It is a multi-step process and if any step is flawed - your web becomes another web-to-avoid.

EMAIL IN THE CIRCLE
Unlike the other methods, email goes to the person, their screen, it waits forever on the mail server until the prospect gets it, its in their face, in the privacy of their work space or office.  Better yet, if they click a hyperlink you can tell your story. Web networking, advertising or banner advertising at a focused industry clearing house is next. Get your company right in front of the buyers, all of the buyers or as many as you can.

From the sales courses you should remember the hard rule for making a sales presentation,  "Always have:  Qualified Prospect;  Reasonable Privacy;  Time To Tell Your Story."  Without these three things being present you don't present, you reschedule.   Make sure email is in your circle.  Forget all the other BS, capture email addresses. It is more important for soliciting business than the phone number.  Email and webs are the greatest business networking tool ever devised. If you are accessing this information via email and our URL you are looking at the tip of the networking iceberg. The "however" is this, email must be properly done according to a few really HARD rules. See below.

Do we have your email address?   If we do you will be in the loop for important Association E-commerce strategies.

Once you are transacting web commerce with your customer, email will still be the most used communications method. 

WEB BOARDS, WEB CLEARINGHOUSE
When using an industry networking clearinghouse some important things are:

Stimulate clicks with words, short sentences or animated ads. Hyperlink prospect to your focused, stand alone gateway page. Use shooters to capture just their email address and optionally, their phone number.

Make web board networking part of your daily desktop routine, use it, it's your commerce.

GATEWAYS
If you don't have good web facilities (meaning no gateway page focused on your marketing endeavor) you are forced to make your presentation right in the ad or message.  Point the prospect to you via direct email and direct phone answered by a human. Don't link them to a do nothing, static, chest-beating web home page.  Get your own departmental or local office web.  Use FrontPage software so you can have daily control of your own web.  If your company does not offer webs for departments, districts, or local market areas, get your own. Webs are a tool, a business tool and you can't conduct business without a web and someone to edit and operate it. A full time web cost less than a telephone.

If your current web requires a logon with password for wholesale customers to see your product offering and prices, you're doomed before you start. Password access for prospects to see your product availability and prices is a NO-NO. If already in place, remove the password access immediately. Don't get labeled right up front as the vendor to avoid. Don't link browsers to your home page, no matter how much you paid for it. Link to the product and prices directly. The wholesale browser clicked to see product and price - -  don't disappoint the wholesale browser as yours will become the do-nothing web to avoid.

HALF-ASS WEBSITE?
No, no, no. If your website is not complete be certain that it has under construction signs and message advising that it will be complete soon and have 20 gazillion items available. Make certain that product or services item or groups are presented by a page with stand alone capabilities. Stand alone capabilities provides a page with the ability to convey to the browser your marketing pitch for that product or service as if it was the only page at your web. Only then can a product or service page also be a gateway or portal page. Embarrassed that you haven't reached goals or objectives with your do nothing, chest beating website? Here are some facts: If listings are not complete at your commerce web the browser just assumes that you don't have stock and doesn't even add your URL to his favorites.  Ditto if you don't have prices. In too many cases the browser will erase your URL from favorites or bookmarks. Get that merchandise on your web even if the listings are not current. Show the browser the goods even if you don't have the latest shopping basket e-commerce facilities.  Don't put up messages saying "call for more listings" or "call for fax of latest." Get it on the web first. Get MS FrontPage or any web editor and use it daily.

ADVERTISING
Today the animated banner or logo ad can present a lot of message in a small space.  Ads at industry crossroads or clearinghouse webs are very powerful. A logo ad at a hot web can be many, many times more effective that display or classified ads in ALL of the industry publications at a fraction of the cost. However, forget all this if you don't have a gateway or portal pages with offers focused on your current marketing or solicitation endeavor.

EMAIL
Get the email address. Put them in a .TXT file or database. Archive them. Use them wisely. Never send a lengthy email solicitation message to a prospect. Sent a short and to the point message with a hyperlink to the "Rest Of The Story" at your web. Don't send email solicitations with unnecessary animated "cute" graphics and never, ever include a file attachment with email solicitations.

SO
Think of your web as your story telling marketing tool. Using information in this document you can develop your system to plug prospects into your story exactly where you think they need to be. Or, they can plug themselves into your story exactly where they think they need to be. It's your attention getters and hyperlinks at the right places, plugging prospects into your gateway or portal pages that will win for you - - or for your competitors. Remember, give immediate access to prices, no passwords or logon forms. Don't turn wholesale customers away with lengthy forms or passwords before they get to see your offerings. Let them point themselves to the lengthy form if they become a motivated buyer or, fill out the form for them while you have them on the phone.

Please call or email for more information about enhancing your web commerce - 800 624-6918  mailto:contact@wirelessindustry.com

Wireless Industry Association
Bob Hutchinson
President and Founder

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