Brick and Mortified.

• Author: Montrose, Mike
• Position: Brick and mortar businesses trying Internet presence - Brief Article

How traditional companies are leveraging the Internet to increase sales.

How are today's traditional companies dealing with the Internet?

For all of the talk about the opportunity presented by the Internet, many locally focused, brick and mortar businesses are still struggling to find a growth strategy that leverages the World Wide Web. In the late 1990s, horrified at the explosion of new Internet businesses encroaching on their consumers, many brick and mortar businesses invested heavily in the creation and maintenance of their own websites. But they often found their sites suffered from low traffic and did little to acquire new customers or increase the loyalty of existing ones. With the recent bankruptcy of some Internet businesses and the poor performance of others, some have begun to question whether a website ought to be the cornerstone of their Internet strategy after all. This uncertainty has driven many businesses to consider other methods of utilizing the Internet as a marketing and customer retention tool. Businesses are now turning to permission marketing to increase their return on an existing website or as their first step into In ternet advertising.

Foot in the Door

Permission marketing, popularized by Seth Godin in his 1999 book of the same name, claims to significantly improve advertising results by focusing communications on consumers who have explicitly asked to hear from a specific business or business category. Because the consumer has given permission to be contacted, the message is expected and welcomed -- driving response rates between 5 percent and 40 percent.

With traditional marketing, an advertising message competes with thousands of others for attention. And even if the message breaks through the clutter, there is no guarantee it is of interest to the consumer.

One of the best examples of the permission-based marketing concept is the Nordstrom Personal Shopper. For busy clients, the Nordstrom shopper builds a database of personal preferences for style, color and size. Not only can the store alert the customer in advance about appropriate specials, but the personal shopper can also select and send the customer pre-selected clothes on approval. The customer decides which goods to purchase, and the rest are returned. By knowing exactly what the customer wants, Nordstrom has fairly well assured itself a guaranteed sale.

Now, with Internet and e-mail capability, the customer relationship can move even further. It's...