How many of you ordinarily purchase your bananas over the Internet?  Your green beans?  Other fruits?  Odds are, none of you do.  It wouldn't make sense.  So why does Dole even have a Web site?  The same reason they have television and radio commercial, coupons, etc.  Impressions.  Positioning.  Promotion.  No good company just sits back and waits for things to happen.  But how can a fruit and vegetable company add value to their company.  Dole has done it well.  They have three target markets in mind.  The first one is very obvious--kids.  Do kids love games?  Of course.  Does Dole have games?  Yes.  Will kids return for more games?  Yes.  And do kids have an influence over which brand of fruit cocktail Mom gets from the grocery store?  You bet.  This is the exact same traditional marketing strategy that you are teaching in your classroom right now.  Win the kids over, and sales increase.  Games, videos, contests, and projects all lie on the kid's section of this site.  Content--a reason to come back.

The second market is mothers (or the person who does the cooking and shopping).  According to Search Engine Watch (Aug, 2000), the eighth most commonly searched word on the Internet is recipe.  What information has Dole provided its visitors?  First, they provide nutritional information on all of their products.  That's a hot topic nowadays, but you can get that in the store.  More importantly, the site provides those commonly searched recipes.  "Healthy food and recipes," and "Meals in 30 Minutes" are both prominently touted on Dole's home page.  Find a recipe you like, and the odds are that you'll bookmark the site and return for more.  Another reason to come back.  And oh, yeah, maybe Mom will mention a few of those games to little Johnny while she's at it.  Two target markets down, one to go.

What else did you see in the Kid's section?  Classroom fun.  Think about it.  Most elementary school teachers teach food groups, right?  Most teachers would love to have someone else plan creative lessons, right?   It's a match made in heaven!  Dole provides the lessons plans and the source, the teacher provides the students, teachers get a good and "plan-free" lesson, and Dole gets those ever important impressions.  Sounds like a win-win situation to me.  By the way, Dole doesn't wait for teachers to find their site online.  They pass out free CD's to elementary school teachers, and they're awesome!

Dole may never sell a can of green beans on the Internet, but due to valuable, viable content, their Web site successfully helps to promote and enhance their sales efforts from through good Web content.

Let's try one more.  Ask yourself the same questions about the Godiva chocolates Web site.  What have they done, in the way of content, to get you, keep you, and make you return?  Careful, this one's not quite as easy to find, but once you do, it's a good one!

Godiva, an upscale chocolate retailer, has a lot of stuff here that won't be real useful to a lot of people.  The history of chocolate?  Titillating.  How chocolate is made?  Another one.  Online catalogue?  Maybe.  Chocolate trivia and glossary?  Hmmmmmmm.......  But Godiva does have a few very interesting features.  I think one, in particular, should be more pronounced on their home page so that everyone who visits knows about it.  More in a minute on that one.  First, Godiva does have a downloadable address book.  Under the "Business Gift Giving" heading, there is a section that allows one to download an entire address book to a Palm Pilot or e-mail address book onto the Godiva site.  Kind of interesting.  Next would be candy recipes.  Godiva is giving out some of their secrets?  I don't know, but that might be something that would bring you back more than once.  However, the standout feature of this site is the gift reminder service.  I don't know about you, but if my wife ever left me, I might never remember a gift giving date again.  I'm terrible!  This feature is screaming out my name.  I can tell Godiva what the occasion is, when it is, register the event, and voila, I get reminders!  Never forget another gift giving occasion.  You've got to love that.

This is important for several different reasons.  First and foremost, you have just invited--even welcomed--Godiva to send you regular e-mail notices.  Impressions.  Lots of impressions.  And you are asking them for it.  (This concept is the premise behind Seth Godin's Permission Marketing - make time to read it!)  Now, when they send you this e-mail notice, do you suspect that they will suggest you buy your mother a crystal vase for Mother Day?  I don't think so.  I suspect chocolates--maybe even Godiva chocolates--will be the suggestion of the day.  It's a great marketing strategy, and it works.  This is not a radically new concept, just a new medium in which to market.  It's just plain good business.  This portion of Godiva's content is not actually on their site, but you see how it works.

Not that we've looked at a few sites that do things well, is there anything else we need to consider about content?  The list goes on, but here are a few other things to consider.***

• Set objectives.  More on that in lesson 3.
• Put yourself in your visitor's shoes.  This can be very difficult to do, but ask yourself--really ask yourself, "If I were visiting this type of site, would I really use, or even care about this page?"
• In addition to some of the previous content discussion, below are a few basic content items you might consider strategically placing on your site using:
• Product/Service details
• Pricing information
• Support information (providing alternatives)
• Affiliations (but think about how to keep them at your site, not your affiliate's)
• Accreditations
• Awards and accolades
• Staff information (if relevant)
• Related resources
• Site revision dates
• Keep your content current.
• Keep your content professional, watching for typos, etc. (use your spellcheck!)
• Keep your content accurate.  If it is not, you will instantly lose credibility.
• Respect copyrights, and cite your sources.

lesson 7 | lesson 7a | lesson 7b | lesson 7c | lesson 7d | lesson 7e

***Adapted from Putting Your Small Business on the Web, Langer, 2000.