communication

The Internet is a great tool for communicating with customers, clients, suppliers, distributors, staff, stakeholders and government agencies. Communication is a two-­way exercise and the Internet provides many opportunities not just for two-way dialogue but even dialogue between multiple parties, all at the same time. The various ways you might use the Internet to help communicate include:

• receiving orders and ordering supplies
• receiving requests for information and providing information via email or your website
• e-newsletters - sending out a newsletter by email, either in the body of the email or attached to it as a document the user can print out
• email alerts - get users' permission to send them emails reminding them of pending subscription or licence renewals or informing them of special deals
• inviting users of the website to contact you or join a discussion group on your website
• Internet conferencing - you can conduct online video-conferences with staff or clients using Internet technology
• Internet phone - use your Internet connection as your telephone line - there is an interesting article at http://www.crt.net.au/etopics/voip.htm which addresses this topic.

What to do

To determine the most effective and cost-efficient Internet communication tool undertake the following:

• identify your target audience - the most important people you want to communicate with
• research their preference for the means of communicating - eg ask your customers if they would like to receive email alerts and if they would like to be able to lodge orders via email
• identify the average technical capacity they have for using email, websites, Internet conferencing etc - eg the speed of their computer and connection to the Internet
• identify your target audience's average level of Internet experience
• do a simple cost/benefit analysis on the preferred means of communication to assess whether it is viable for your business - eg compare the costs of posting out promotional newsletters with the cost of using email, and assess the relative benefits.