Using IT in Sales & Marketing
INTRODUCTION Competitive advantage
The Internet is a powerful means for organisations
to communicate with customers. A well constructed
website enhances marketing and selling activities.
Marketing is concerned with identifying, anticipating
and meeting customer needs. Selling is the provision
of solutions to buyers’ needs and requirements.
A website is an extension to a company’s off-line
brand. Within the current online environment, many
firms across a wide range of industries are not taking
the time or investing the appropriate levels of energy in
truly researching, listening to and understanding their
online audience. Bryant wants to be different, create a
website that truly establishes itself as a market leader
within the industry, creating a benchmark for competitors
to strive for.
The creation of the web by ever-increasing numbers of
the population has had a major effect on brand-
consumer relationship. Bryant wishes to maximise
this relationship with the creation of an interactive
website, creating an experience that matches the user’s
expectations. Bryant needs to understand the mind set of
its potential and existing users in seeking success with
its online venture. Bryant needs to know:
Who are the users, how do they behave?
What works on the site, what does not?
study examines some of the lessons
through the Internet
In the late 1990s most major UK com-
panies were seeking to develop an
Internet presence, because those with-
out this means of communication
would rapidly fall behind competitors
with an Internet presence. Since 1997
there has been a dramatic increase in
the percentage of the population online
in the UK.
30
Population (%)
25
Online
20
15
10
5 a purchase.
1997 1998 1999 2000
0 in parallel to the website. The system
The successful organisation of the
future will communicate through tradi-
tional and modern electronic means.
Existing and potential customers will
be able to access both well laid out
High Street stores or showrooms and
exciting, easy to navigate websites.
As a leading edge blue chip company,
Bryant Homes has embraced the latest
developments in Information and
Communications Technology. One use
has been to create a new way of ener-
gising sales and marketing. The case
The information on Homefinder comes
that Bryant Homes has learnt from the
venture to date.
Bryant Homes website
Put yourself in the position of someone
wanting to purchase a new home, per-
haps due to relocating your job to
another part of the country. Imagine the
frustration involved in having to make
a lengthy journey to visit a house only
to find that it does not meet your
requirements.
With this in mind Bryant Homes has
developed a high quality website
which was launched at the Evening
Standard Homebuyers Show at
Olympia, London, in March 1999. It is
a useful information source and a good
starting point for people wishing to
purchase a house. It is also a selling
tool and an opportunity to increase
brand awareness.
The website’s main dedicated system
for customers is named “Homefinder”.
Potential buyers indicate their prefer-
ences and Homefinder performs a
search against consumer needs and
requirements to identify a house type
and location to suit their lifestyle. It
contains images and floor plans of the
entire Bryant Homes product portfolio.
of real photography. This gives cus-
directly from a central database and is
updated every 24 hours. Input arrives
from all levels within Bryant Homes eg
from:
on-site sales negotiators via the
on-site sales system
sales departments
production managers.
“Homefinder” enables the prospective
buyer to:
view and compare properties
note their locations and features
offered
request further information
take the first steps towards making
CD-ROM support for
the non Internet user
Not everyone has access to the
Internet. To meet this gap Bryant has
produced a Product Portfolio CD-
ROM. The CD-ROM uses the same
format and content as the website and
features an “electronic walkaround”
for the majority of house types. This
allows customers to turn through 360
degrees in order to view a room from
every angle, thus providing a true rep-
resentation of each home with the use
tomers. Bryant has many reasons as to
tomers the opportunity to view a
housetype for which there is not a
show-home on a particular develop-
ment. Using “virtual reality”, Bryant
Homes provides a way of both visual-
ising and experiencing something long
before any work on-site begins. It is the
next best thing to being there.
Monitoring the
Website
It is essential to critically evaluate the
success of the website. When Internet
surfers make a “hit” (visit to the site)
they are providing useful marketing
information for the host site. Therefore,
a monitoring and analysis system runs
provides information on the:
country of origin of the enquiry
most popular area of the website
least popular area of the website
individual “sessions”
duration of a typical “session”
number of hits
number of leads
number of sales.
This information helps Bryant Homes
to understand the profile of its cus-
why it is essential to understand the
user base:
create on-going relationships
with users
build traffic
build commerce
develop marketing, content and
communication strategy
achieve and enhance
tangible/intangible objectives.
Pursuing a sales opportunity is known
as following a “lead”. An important
benefit of a lead resulting from the
website is that customers pre-qualify
the lead themselves by indicating the:
number of bedrooms they require
price range of the property they are
looking for
type of property
area of their choice
when they are hoping to move.
It helps Bryant Homes to respond to
the lead by providing information care-
fully directed to the customer’s
requirements. This can help to reduce
costs as irrelevant information is not
sent out to the customer. This makes
sure that customer expectations are
exceeded.
BROWSE THE WEB FOR
information on the organisation
www.bryant.co.uk

Evaluation of Information
Communications
Technology (ICT) strategy
- was it a success?
So how effective is the website? The
industry belief is that if your potential
customer does not get to where he/she
wants to go to in three mouse clicks,
then you will lose that customer. It was
therefore necessary to critically evalu-
ate the navigation and functionality of
the site.
A way of measuring the success of the
website is to count how often the site
was accessed or “hit”. Another measur-
ing way shows how many sales are
generated from use of the site. By May
2000 the website was achieving just
under 1 million hits per month and took
its 100th reservation. With the average
selling price of those properties
reserved through the Internet being over
£150,000, it is clear that the internet
has to be taken seriously and has a key
part to play in any marketing strategy.
For Bryant to be deemed successful it
will require a user base that has an
ongoing relationship with the site - a
relationship that can be quantified in
terms of value.
QUESTIONS
How might the Homefinder
1 2
website help Bryant Homes
to find out more about its
customers?
©Business Case Studies LLP
Identifying manage-
ment problems arising
from e-commerce
The Internet needs to be included in
every marketing thought process. As a
marketing and sales tool the Internet
needs to be treated as importantly as
national press advertising.
What are the key lessons that Bryant
Homes has learnt so far from using the
Internet?
• Managing expectation
It is of little use achieving more hits
and leads through the Internet if there
are no resources to process them. As
people request information through the
website they will expect a speedy
response. If it is not fulfilled quickly this
gives a negative vibe to the customer.
The original website did not have a
section to enable customers to contact
Bryant Homes directly. This was a
clear omission, although the resource
implication was that additional staff
would be needed to handle enquiries.
Bryant Homes now recognises the
importance of providing this service.
A further weakness of the original site
was that while there was a section for
What are the advantages to
Bryant Homes of using the
Homefinder website as a
shop window?
customer feedback, it was not struc-
tured tightly enough. Customers were
using this opportunity for a multitude
of things, such as:
offering land for sale
requesting information
sales leads.
Bryant now recognises that resources
such as extra staff need to be provided to
service enhanced customer expectations.
• Leads
The website has achieved one of its
major objectives in generating a size-
able number of new leads. Bryant
Homes is now exploring ways in which
these leads can be followed up. Initially
this was done by sending a Bryant cor-
porate brochure or a site specific
brochure for more detailed enquiries.
In many cases this was purely a dupli-
cation of what was on the screen. The
company is therefore exploring new
ways of following-up leads in a way
that makes customers feel they are
receiving more than they had been able
to access through the website.
• Conventional advertising
While the website has been a major
innovation it now needs to be integrat-
ed more effectively into the overall
advertising mix. Conventional ways of
advertising such as press advertising
and direct mail are still very signifi-
cant. The website address has now
been incorporated into all advertising
materials.
• Online advertising
Placing on-line adverts in strategic
places on the Internet attracts traffic to
the website and potentially more
leads/reservations. Placing banner ads
How might Bryant Homes
3 4
develop better ways of
responding to leads generated
through the website?
and links on related websites such as
those of leading building societies and
banks increases customer awareness of
the site. Bryant Homes is currently
looking at ways of developing its
online advertising campaign in order to
achieve maximum customer interest
and obtaining revenue back for Bryant.
• Customer relationships
on-line (CRM)
The Internet lends itself well to CRM.
One of the most important things that
customers look for when choosing to
buy goods and services is the relation-
ship that they have with the provider. A
good website enables an organisation
to build a good relationship with cus-
tomers. This is done by gathering infor-
mation about individual customers and
storing this on a central database thus
starting to build one-to-one relation-
ships. Originally the site focused on the
“hard sell”. Today, the emphasis is
more on creating additional reasons for
customers to re-visit the site by making
it more interactive and individualistic.
It is essential for Bryant to develop a
close, long lasting relationship with its
customers and to understand:
What motivates them?
What do they want?
What do they need?
How do they see themselves?
How do they perceive the
Bryant Brand?
• Changing market
As more people become expert users of
the Internet, radical changes are taking
place in the way that people access
information and fact find. In addition,
Bryant Homes’ current standard prod-
uct range is changing. In order to pro-
Design a short questionnaire
5 www.bryant.co.uk
for users of the website to
enable Bryant Homes to
find out more about these
customers.
GLOSSARY OF KEYWORDS
vide customers with specifications,
Advertising mix: The mixture Lead: An opportunity to make a
details and up-to-the-minute views of
the range of homes on offer, Bryant
of approaches to advertising which
a company employs including
sale to a customer who has registered
interest in a product or service.
Homes is now increasingly using digi- channels used eg newspapers,
Links: Connections between one
tal imagery to market its product. This television, the Internet etc.
website and another.
gives the customer an excellent oppor- Blue chip company: Well established
tunity to see what the scheme will look Stock Exchange quoted company Marketing: Anticipating, identifying
like long before it starts. It also pro- with an established reputation for and satisfying customer needs
vides an opportunity to produce a CD- reliability. profitably.
ROM to use as a mailshot for potential Central database: A store of data Navigate: Literally to steer a course
customers. containing updated records for a through a website.
company. Typically today we
• Image library associate the term database with a Online: Being able to communicate
Bryant Homes will use the Internet to computer database. using the Internet.
create an image library, which will On-line adverts: Advertising on the
Expectation management: Being
eventually allow suppliers access to all able to fulfil the expectations that Internet Adverts placed on a website.
photographs on-line. The company will customers have of the company. Once
place all its photography on a dedicat- their interest has been generated, this
must be maintained by responding to
ed password protected website that
customer expectations.
suppliers can access and download
images from to use in adverts, Interactive website: A website
brochures etc. Images are to be saved enabling the browser/user to select,
input and navigate in their own
in different formats and file sizes
way - rather than simply scroll
depending upon the client’s need.
through a pre-determined and
• Customer service pre-sequenced set of pages.
The Internet provides customers with a
way of communicating with Bryant
Homes for information or purchasers
who need to contact the company.
Conclusion
Bryant Homes has moved with the
times to embrace the new technology
of the Internet in creating a website that
enables better ongoing communication
with customers. The site enables more
elaborate marketing - finding out what
customers want - and selling - provid-
ing customers with appropriate solu-
tions. Bryant Homes must now evalu-
ate the way in which it uses its website
to ensure continuous improvement and
maximum benefit from this resource.
BROWSE THE WEB FOR
information on the organisation
How can Bryant Homes
develop customer relation-
ship marketing online?