Handbook offers how-to advice for cyber sales

Businesses thinking about selling their wares on the Internet or on commercial on-line services should start by leaving their old ideas about advertising behind.

The mass-market flash and hype of television, billboard and magazine advertising won't work in cyberspace, where on-line shoppers are far better educated and more upscale than the average consumer. To reach on-line buyers, advertisers have to create an information-rich, interactive form of marketing for a personalized sales approach.

This advice, along with step-by-step information and case studies, is proffered by Daniel Janal in the Online Marketing Handbook, a hefty guide published by Van Nostrand Reinhold that has just hit book- stores.

Janal, a consultant who also teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, spent nearly a decade at CompuServe Information Services, Inc. and QuantumLink, now known as America Online, Inc. (AOL).

"Interactive advertising is a radical idea, but it will work if companies use it to give customers the information they're really looking for in pictures, technical and [other] information," Janal said. "People who use on-line services generally don't like advertising, and the mass-market hard-sell approach won't work."

CompuServe, AOL and Prodigy Service Co. - which allow advertising in on-line storefronts called the Electronic Mall, Marketplace and Everywhere, respectively - are the leading information services, collectively reaching seven million users.

With the World-Wide Web providing the basis for Internet advertising, a much wider networked audience of close to 25 million is opening up for cyberspace sales.

Far less is known about the demographics of users of the open Internet than the commercial on-line services, but some early surveys suggest the on-line browser is usually male, around 40 years old, well-educated and affluent.

Janal's book examines how Vermont Teddy Bear Co., Godiva Chocolatier, Inc., Lands' End, Inc., 800-Flowers, Hammacher Schlemmer & Co., Sharper Image Corp., Sony Music and Warner Bros. Records are accepting customer orders with credit cards or over the phone via a toll-free 800 number in response to on-line ads.

It costs only about $2,500 to set up a Web site and $30 per month for Internet access to it, Janal said. Unlike the commercial on-line services, users don't face time charges for accessing Web-based marketing information, so they're likely to spend more time reviewing it.

While ads are generally un-wanted on the Internet's Usenet newsgroups, San Francisco-based LavaMind Productions post-ed notices about its game software in appropriate Internet newsgroups, which was enough to spur interest and generate sales.

Janal urges firms involved in on-line advertising to dedicate staff to build rapport with people on-line and monitor what discussion groups may be saying about the company or its products.

Automated tracking of the Internet is also a good idea, Janal said, using tools such as the Stanford NetNews Filtering Service. The free service will scour 8,000 newsgroups to search for specified terms and send them to your electronic mailbox every day.

For more information on this service, check out the home pageat http://woodstock.stanford.edu:2000/.