Companies Cash In On Internet Marketing Computer Link Gives Firms Another Powerful Sales Tool

Internet surfers are crashing more and more often into waves of capitalism.

From Southwest Airlines and Federal Express to local dentists and theaters, businesses are turning to the global computer network to peddle their wares.

As many as 40 million people have the ability to exchange electronic mail on the Net and about 15 million have access to the World Wide Web, a subdivision of the Internet that has audio and video.

Such numbers are not lost on the world’s businesses.

“It’s a pretty recent phenomenon and growing absolutely like mad. The Web is just going crazy,” said Jill H. Ellsworth, a San Marcos, Texas, researcher and business consultant who recently authored a book entitled “Marketing on the Internet: Multimedia Strategies for the World Wide Web.”

In the last year, the Web has seen a boom in the number of business “home pages,” which serve as commercial and information centers for local, national and international businesses.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines unveiled its home page in March. Users who “visit” the page can point-and-click around a computer drawing of an airline check-in counter to access information including flight and fare schedules. Visitors to the Federal Express home page can track a package.

Local businesses around the country also use the Internet. A page called DentalNet, run by two Austin dentists, gives visitors dental care tips and allows them to make appointments. Ballet Austin and the Paramount Theatre have pages giving show schedules and prices.

And that is a minuscule sampling. The Web continues to grow.

“I think that it’s like television in the early ‘50s. It’s new, we don’t quite know what to do with it, but it’s going to be with us,” Ellsworth said.

Businesses agree. “By relying on newsprint and television and radio, we’re not nearly catching everyone. The Internet market is definitely growing, and we want to make sure we have a presence on that as it expands,” said Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, marketing director for the Paramount Theatre.

But with the new medium comes the need to understand the audience.

Strategies for capitalizing on the Web differ from traditional marketing and advertising practices. In-your-face, slogan driven ads like those on television or in magazines are frowned upon in cyberspace.

“Internet folk want information, they don’t want just slogans,” Ellsworth said.

In addition, the audience goes to the advertiser on the Net, not vice versa as with television ads. So home pages need to be kept fresh and offer a surfer a reason to return.

Low costs and equal access ensure that businesses of any size can tap into the Net surfer market.

“The Web levels the playing field,” Ellsworth said. “A small place can have a better Web site than AT&T.”

Some companies say well-made and well-maintained pages see results quickly. They may or may not increase business, but most pages now on the Web are used to give companies global exposure.

Many of those on the Internet are still experimenting.

“The feedback itself has all been very positive. It’s a little bit too early to tell if it’s had an impact on the business and, to be perfectly honest, that hasn’t been our highest priority at the moment,” said Charles Zug, director of marketing automation for Southwest Airlines.

Southwest, which has spent less than $20,000 on its page, expects to expand the Web site to allow customers to make reservations through the Internet by the end of the year. Then, Zug said, the company will be able to gauge how the page affects business.

Other companies that have been on the Net longer exemplify the power of the Net for business, Ellsworth said. Memphis, Tenn.-based Federal Express, for example, is setting a standard with its package tracking page, she said.

“They’re turning me from a part-time customer to a full-time customer,” she said.