The Commons of Sandusky was developed as a multi-tier retirement residence with independent living, assisted living and nursing care units. In such a facility, residents can age in place, moving from independent living to assisted living or nursing care as needed without leaving the complex. Because of this, the primary need is to fill independent living units, depending on them to feed the other levels as residents age. Located in Sandusky, a community oriented to water activities on Lake Erie, such as fishing and boating, The Commons looked to attract affluent seniors who were interested in continuing these activities while settling into a retirement residence.
      As more and more seniors gravitated to the internet, it was decided that a website was a necessary piece of their marketing mix. Since research shows that seniors are looking primarily for an active lifestyle in their retirement facility, photos and copy both focus heavily on the activities available at The Commons.
      Eventually, the site was incorporated into the site of the parent company, Providence Health Care Systems.

The Toledo Area Chamber of Commerce previously had a website oriented to outside visitors, but now wanted the site to serve primarily as an interactive communications vehicle for their members and the many Chamber committees at work.
     Several sets of password protection were necessary, since different working groups both communicated among themselves on the site and posted reports for the general membership.
     Since using Toledo area photos no longer made sence with the new orientation, a series of colorful and color-coded icons were developed, playing off the new circular Chamber logo, to add visual interest and easy identification for the various areas of the site. A positive cash flow from the site was also realized by sharing the home page with ChamberBiz, a syndicated site with paid advertising.

BikeToledo.net started out as alocal site to encourage residents to spend more time on their bikes and less time in their cars, featuring local and regional bike routes and bike shops in the Lake Erie West region. But strong sections on getting started in cycling, bicycle touring, utility riding and commuting, coupled with a highly effective search engine positioning program, attracted more than 9,000 visitors in its first year, many from countries in Europe, South America and Asia.
      With more than a hundred pages and 1,000+ links, the site is a major attraction for regional riders and has gotten recognition from several top-level national cycling journalists. Topical biking news keeps the site current and includes a bike touring blog by the publisher, a comprehensive calendar of cycling events in the region and many interviews with local cyclists. The site is liberally sprinkled with humorous biking photos and quotes to make reading a multi-dimensional pleasure. The site is thus far advertising-free and published as a public service.
      The site continues to grow with increased viewer feedback, and is on its way to becoming a national resource for cyclists. Check this site out at http://www.biketoledo.net.

 

Whether you want a thousand customers to buy an off-the-shelf product from your site or one big potential account to call you, your web site has the potential to multiply your business effectiveness. But using the internet as an effective marketing tool means a lot more than just designing a site and plugging it in. If you approach your web site as a design problem, rather than a marketing problem, youll fail to take advantage of the enormous potential of the internet. Here are seven key questions you should ask yourself before you begin building your site:
1) Do I Have Clear Objectives?
Why should you be on the web? Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to accomplish? How will you measure success?
2) Am I Integrating My Site With My Total Marketing Program?
Do your on-line and off-line marketing efforts have synergy? Are they supporting the same objectives? After all, in the big picture, the web is just one more element of the marketing mix; it can be most effective when it works dynamically and interactively with traditional print and broadcast media.
3) How Will I Develop My Content?
What will you put on your site? Do you know what to say, and does your final copy say it? What will you use for visual material such as photos and graphics?
4) How Will I Organize My Site?
How do you present your message and supporting information in a systematic manner to be most effective? How can you anticipate the ways visitors will want to navigate through your site? And how do you use information architecture to structure an interface designed for maximum usability and maximum results?
5) How Can I Use Interactivity Successfully?
How can you use interactivity, such as animation, visitor input mechanisms and data base integration, to keep your visitors engaged? Remember, the internet is a more dynamic medium than print, and print solutions just don't translate well to the web. Your visitors expect more.
6) What Should I Do to Show Up On Search Engines?
How will you direct visitors to your site? Lesson one: they can't buy if they can't find you. Today, a good positioning program is absolutely essential if you want internet traffic!
7) What Kinds of On-Line Marketing Can I Be Doing to Support My Site?
You may want to develop an active web presence by using e-mail in a permission marketing program or developing an extranet for your customers. And don't forget the power of the new social media, like Facebook and Twitter! Thousands of companies have found success posting movies of their products on YouTube and other movie sites.

The web offers functionality undreamed of in traditional media, but you need to know how to tap it. You'll need someone who can provide all the pieces of the internet marketing puzzle to help you through the process and maximize your chances of success on the internet.