Technology is present in every area of our lives; the reason for integrating technology into your small business should not be because you feel you must, but rather that it meets the needs of your business and gives you an advantage. Competitive advantage is gained from getting products to market, investigating marketing campaigns and responding to customers quicker than competitors; it is a race where the hare finishes ahead of the tortoise. Even if that advantage is minute, it still spells profit.

Being only slightly ahead of your competitor may be better than light years ahead. The fifteen-minute competitive advantage, as it has been termed, means staying a little ahead of the competition, but close enough that customers can still understand your product and incorporate it into their lives and businesses.

Getting to Market Quicker

Getting to market quicker can give you an advantage over your competition, a first-mover advantage. You can achieve market share merely because you were the first to offer your unique product or service.

To get your product or service diffused, or accepted by customers, you firstly need to be able to anticipate the future direction of your industry. A great way to investigate trends is to simply search the Internet to see what your domestic and international competitors are doing. The Internet also allows access to a wide variety of on-line trade and industrial publications that can highlight future direction.
Reaching your market and distributing your products fast is also worth consideration. A website cannot only market you and your business, but it can also be a means of demonstrating and selling your product or service to an international market.

The Internet based business; Jennifer Ann Lingerie was set up to make it easy for women to purchase quality lingerie, swimwear and accessories. The web-based business allows for a strong service focus and has opened up a global market with orders shipped to every corner of the world every day. A website allows you to update product quickly and collect orders equally fast.
E-business is the way business is the way of the future and is well worth investigation.

Investigating Marketing Campaigns

Marketing is vital if you want to beat the competition. As already pointed out, the World-Wide-Web provides a great place to start market research, that is investigating what you r competitors are doing, particularly to market themselves.

On a competitors web page you will find a wealth of information on their products or services, and how they position themselves (who they view their customers as). If your competitors have a Web site, you too should seriously think about constructing one, in addition start sending customers and clients a periodic e-newsletter.

Store the e-mail addresses and demographic details of those who subscribe on a database that can be used for target marketing latter; for example, if you sell light weight woollen garments for recreational use, it may emerge that a group of subscribers are interested in adventure racing, while another list one of their interests as tramping. Those that like adventure racing could be offered a privileged customer special when the company releases its short sleeve range which breathes when you perspire. Another benefit of e-newsletters is that they bring your organisation to the forefront of your customer's mind, a principle that Mike Beresford from The Boardroom has also identified as important.

Responding to Customers

If you are going to give customers what they want, you first need to work out what it is that they want. How about periodically sending out surveys via e-mail for you customers to respond to, or even contacting them by telephone to ask a set of pre-prepared questions. This kind of insight will mean that you can make changes to the product, price and way you promote. Hopefully you will save a lot of time and money!

Other Time Saving Internet Tips

• Conduct research on line before going to the library.
• Search the library catalogue to check if they have the books, you are looking for.
• Communicate with suppliers, manufacturers and customers via e-mail.
• Keep all customers, clients and suppliers up to date with an e-newsletter.
• Arrange meetings via e-mail and start making travel bookings (transport, accommodation and restaurants) on-line.
• Fill out any forms you can electronically, rather than by hand.
• Do any banking and bill paying on-line.
• Talk to your accountant to see what steps you need to take to submit your tax returns, GST, etc, electronically.

The trick is to make your business look unique. One way of doing this is to simply tell your story. Tell potential customers what you do, how you do it, and let them know what you put into your product or service for them. Otherwise they have no clues as to how much effort you go to for them.

For example, a paper towel company would explain the lengths they go to create the most absorbent paper towel. These are probably the same steps every other paper towel company takes, but the public doesn't know that. Our paper towel company gets in first and becomes the definitive word on paper towel manufacturing. If the other companies try to follow they will be perceived as 'copy cats' and will lose credibility.

How do you condense your story into a few sentences or short paragraphs? Write a list using one-word descriptions of each of the steps you take in working with a customer from first contact (be it over the phone or in a retail store) to end delivery of your product or service. Write a short sentence with each of these one-word descriptions in which you highlight a benefit to your customer. These form the basis of your 'article' about your business. You can then use this 'story' or parts of it in all your advertising and in your sales brochures.

Conclusion

Do you have a strategy? Examine the three types of strategy discussed in this chapter and see if you can identify one that you have been using or that you could adopt. The long-term survival of your business depends upon you using an effective marketing strategy.