Discussing Cazbah, an Internet marketing services company, to business owners in manufacturing and industrial distribution recently reminded of the “Peter Principle,” which states:

“Employees within a business will rise to their own level of incompetence. Beyond that point, they will not be particularly effective inside the organization, and will not contribute as they once did.”

Well, business Web sites need to be considered like an employee – they are an internal resource that needs to be utilized as effectively as possible for the ultimate growth of the company. Like any resource; it needs to be kept current, relevant and in synch with the business goals.

Unfortunately, many businesses neglect their sites so they remain a static listing of products – lethargically posting information to its point of incompetence, running rampant inside many vertical markets; such as healthcare, food production, bio sciences, and others.

If you are going to succeed on the web, be it as a manufacturer, retailer, dealer / distributor, consultant, coach or whatever, it is essential that you identify, as specifically as you possibly can, who your prospective customers are. This is the foundation upon which Target Marketing is based.

An easy way to tackle this problem is through the development of a Customer Composite Index (CCI). Your CCI is a detailed list of characteristics that very specifically and succinctly defines your customers. Ask yourself the following questions: who, what, where, when, how and why.

An example of some of these types of questions are; who are our customers, what do they do, where do they live, (in the case of consumer products)? Or, where are they located (in the case of businesses)? Does their location have any significance to the product or service I’m offering? Does how they live have any bearing? What business are they in – product, service, specialty, commodity? What’s their annual income or revenue? How many employees do they have?