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The Value of Portable Websites
An Interview with InternetVIZ Founding Partner Hank Stroll

Q: Why are Internet newsletters so effective?

Internet newsletters are powerfully effective sales and marketing tools for a number of reasons.  Most importantly, they bring the company's URL directly to the prospect or customer's inbox.  We call this the "Portable Website" philosophy.

Basically, it comes down to this - people are time-constrained and hard-pressed to remember URLs. When they do spend time online, they are hunting for something specific. Contrast that with e-mail. Most people check their e-mail routinely. And when they do, they often scan or read nearly every message they get. It would be hard to stop them, especially when they receive e-mails that they requested from companies they trust.  Internet newsletters enable companies to earn a place in their customers’ inboxes much more easily than they can stake their claims in cyberspace and at a lower cost.

From the customers’ standpoint, Internet newsletters make the company's home page obsolete. The only home pages these customers know are the ones that routinely appear in their personal inboxes. In effect, companies have used opt-in e-mail to change the venue in which they are competing. In doing so, they have gone from fighting for attention online to enjoying predictable mindshare through newsletters and e-mail campaigns.

Mindshare is increased because an Internet newsletter is a perfect bonding vehicle companies can use to build relationships with their customers.  Because newsletters can be delivered with great precision to a targeted market, companies can use them to spread very focused messages.  Some use them to sell expensive or complex products that require more explanation than broadcast advertising will permit. Other use them to improve customer loyalty and retention.

I firmly believe Internet newsletters are one of the most efficient marketing and communications tools companies can use today.  Large and small companies can benefit from their ability to reach customers and use them to achieve increased marketing and sales goals. 

Q: Why do you believe the xSP industry in particular will benefit from using Internet newsletters as a marketing and sales device?

According to the IDC, only about 50% of CEOs and CIOs reported knowing what the acronym ASP stood for. Given this, xSPs have to be especially customer friendly in order to win new customers.  Internet newsletters are a great way for xSPs to establish relationships with prospects and gently lead them to recognize the benefits and potentials of the business model.

The xSPs that ultimately win will concentrate on business fundamentals and create an environment that emphasizes giving potential customers room in which to become more comfortable with the xSP model. Successful xSPs will reach out to these potential customers and not only sell their own services but also the model itself. They will emphasize, with laser-like efficiency, three product themes – trust, stability and value – that help bring the message closer to the customer’s world.

Internet newsletters provide ASPs an effective and inexpensive way to push this message to prospects and customers.  They enable companies to keep in touch, to deliver a complicated message over time that informs and teaches prospects about the model and they serve to establish a relationship built around the three themes of trust, stability and value.

But xSPs must use Internet newsletters properly to take full advantage of their potential. The average business person now gets over 50 emails a day. When he opens his in-box he has three thoughts in mind – which do I read, which I save to read later, and which do I delete without opening. If xSPs bombard prospects with information they aren’t interested in, their newsletters will quickly be delete and their subscriber lists will shrink rather than grow.