That's just what Roger Aldis decided to do. Last year he launched a Web site for his Dallas-based company, Starlite Houseboats Inc., which had been in business since 1994. A houseboat is a complicated purchase, and CEO Aldis wanted to give potential customers an easy way to do research on it -- much like shopping for a car on the Web. Today visitors can use an interactive tool to "design" their dreamboat by selecting from a menu of seven floor plans that have an average base price of $139,000. They can also select optional equipment (like home-theater systems and swim platforms), hit the Send button, and receive a quote in minutes.
Our judges thought Starlite was a standout, even though it didn't reach the exalted heights of its competitor, General Excellence winner Sumerset Custom Houseboats Inc., which judge Evan Schwartz called the "Dell Computer" of the houseboat industry. (See " Web Awards 2000: General Excellence.")
Before the advent of the Web, would-be houseboaters had little choice but to trudge to boat shows and far-flung dealers' showrooms in search of information. And they had to subject themselves to high-pressure sales tactics in order to get an actual quote. Aldis wanted to let people get a real-world price quote in a matter of minutes -- no salesperson needed. That feature got high marks from our judges. "[The online configurator] is a powerful marketing tool in that it instantly connects the user's preferences with the end product," said Don Peppers.
But Aldis doesn't cut out the dealers altogether; Starlite has one in Atlanta and one in North Carolina. In addition, the company still hauls its boats to the big shows. But Aldis believes that his site's online configurator puts his customers at ease and makes them more likely to buy from Starlite over the long run. "They decide when they're ready to buy or if they want to talk to someone," he says.
Proof that the approach is working: people have configured more than 600 boats online since the site's inception, in October 1999, and the company has received online orders for 29 boats since then.
Peppers suggested that Starlite should next add to its site "relevant content that addresses general concerns (FAQs) of the entry-level houseboat market." --L.G.P.
Third place (tie)
Plumbing the Depths
Company: Plumbing Express
Web address: www.plumbing911.com
Why it won: Its educational offerings help consumers, building trust in the company -- and sales -- in the process.
Company revenues: $15 million
Site-launch cost: $3,000
Judge's view: "Valuable online coupons entice customers to use the service. Self-service information areas help to build a sense of community and offer a comprehensive solution." --Don Peppers
Polybutylene piping announces its presence in a variety of unwelcome ways. First, there's an ominous bang. Then the water pressure drops down to nil and water begins pouring out of the pipes, ruining floors, ceilings, walls, and belongings. Home builders began installing the faulty piping in U.S. homes in the late 1970s. It was recognized as being fatally flawed in the late 1980s and was finally pulled from the market in 1995. Today an estimated 6 million to 10 million U.S. homeowners are affected by the dreaded stuff.
That's where Plumbing911.com comes in. Operated by Plumbing Express, an Alexandria, Va., company that specializes in polybutylene remediation, the site aims to tell visitors everything they need to know about the problem.
The education-oriented site has helped company CEO John Ellis, 35, expand his business exponentially. Plumbing Express began to focus on polybutylene remediation in the mid 1990s, but the business didn't take off until the site launched, in November 1998. Although Ellis and his partner, Peter Page, had advertised in all the usual channels, they found they were not getting their message across. Says Ellis, "It's not the kind of issue you can market in the conventional sense. You can't put 27 pages of information in a 30-second TV spot." That peculiarity of their product led them to create the Web site.
Ellis says his initial investment of $3,000 has paid for itself many times over in all the new business the site has brought in. Site traffic has grown at a rate of nearly 5% a month, and an increasing amount of the company's business is directly attributable to the Web. --L.G.P.
Conversation with Don Peppers
Judge: Marketing
Don Peppers, who coauthored The One to One Manager and other books with Martha Rogers, has spent most of his career honing the duo's now-famous message, which focuses on building long-term relationships with customers, suppliers, and employees. Peppers's choices for first and second place in the marketing category, real estate agent Elizabeth Gray-Carr and pasta company Flying Noodle, serve as fine examples of marketers that are winning their customers' loyalty. But there's always room for improvement. Here are his comments:
On what Elizabeth Gray-Carr should do next: "If there's one kind of business where relationship building and relationship selling make a lot of sense, it's realty," he says. Today, he notes, most real estate agents consider their relationships short-term. Peppers suggests that they can make those relationships more long-term by using their sites to provide customers with more and different services. "If I go to www.callelizabeth.com, eventually I should be able to get help on a moving company, on newspaper subscriptions, on turning on the utilities, on finding the nearest house sitters and baby-sitters, and so forth," he says.
On building long-term bonds: "Flying Noodle tries to entice you to take their newsletter. Why do they do that? So they will have an ongoing relationship with you. They're trying to create a degree of stickiness there so that when you come to the site, you stay there, and they have a 60% repeat-customer rate. That's pretty damn good." --Elaine Appleton Grant
Annual Web Awards 2000
General Excellence
Marketing
Customer Service
ROI
Innovation
Community
Judges
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