Web vs. Kiosk vs. Disk?

You can reach and influence prospects and customers through three complementary computer-based interactive technologies: the World Wide Web, kiosk, and disk. The creative development process and expressive potential of each technology are similar, but dissemination is vastly different. Each technology offers unique capabilities and benefits; it addresses and solves a distinct range of problems.

The Web is a passive medium in the sense that your prospects and customers must know your URL (address on the Web) and specifically seek you out. They can find your site in one of four ways: Your own active promotion of your URL through publicity, advertising, and other marketing collateral media; word-of-mouth; links from other sites; or through search services such as Yahoo, Lycos, and Infomaster.

The key to the Web is to provide information or services with high intrinsic value to your prospects or customers -- content that makes it worth their while to seek you out. Efforts are underway to develop and promote "push" technologies that make the Web, as a medium, look more like television, but the applications and short-term value for marketers are still hazy.

Given this, the Web is an outstanding reference medium. It can convey text, graphics, video, and sound using dynamic hypertext "linking" from topic to topic. It can present, with limitations, graphic animation and real-time processing of user input, including access to corporate data bases. The on-line nature of the Web makes it easy to update information and, assuming you can attract browsers in the numbers and demographic composition you need, dissemination to the far corners of the globe is essentially free.

The Web does present some frustrations: The medium is rapidly evolving with fast-changing capabilities, user expectations, and "standards." These changes make the Web a more functional and expressive medium for the most part, but the mental and financial investment required to keep pace is daunting. Traffic on the Web is also growing at a staggering pace, which strains technical resources to the limit. Access, particularly for dial-up users with conventional modems, is sometimes painfully slow.

But every organization should have a Web presence today. As the Web matures it will become increasingly important. What you learn now can pay big dividends tomorrow. Plan your Web strategy step-by-step. An ambitious site can generate new prospects, customers, and revenue through automated on-line sales, but cost, effort, and creativity to do this effectively, though in many cases worth it, may be quite high. A sales or service support application, on the other hand, can be relatively simple and straight forward to implement and extraordinarily cost effective.

A web site is not a one-time investment. It's more like opening a new store than sending out a promotional mailing. You need to allocate resources for on-going support, constantly monitor traffic, and keep content up-to-date. You should also be prepared to support an on-going effort to draw traffic to your site.

A kiosk brings your interactive message directly to your prospects. Kiosks function in public spaces -- point-of-purchase, trade shows, lobbies, reception areas, show rooms, airports, train stations, and road-side rest stops.

Many kiosks function as directories and information centers. Others support some form of catalog sales, including credit card transactions. In a trade show booth, a kiosk can present product information and elicit and store follow-up and qualifying information. In a reception area or lobby, a kiosk can tell visitors interesting and important things about your company and product.

In a trade show booth or attended reception area a regular desk-top PC can function as a kiosk, but in unattended public areas the computer must be "hardened" against power outages, environmental extremes, and hard wear-and-tear. And it must be securely protected against vandalism. If the kiosk features a printer or touch screen, you must provide for frequent maintenance to replace the printer paper and clean the screen. Kiosks can be attractively designed to fit in, perhaps even into, the surrounding architecture.

Kiosks, of course, entail considerable capital expense. But if the traffic and impact side of the equation warrant, they can be quite effective.

Disk-based interactive -- CD ROM or 3.5-inch floppy -- is an aggressive and versatile medium. The physical presence of your disk in the prospect's hand is a vivid reminder of you and your message. The physical packaging combined with the expressive interactive content means that you can tell more and sell more than with nearly any other medium. You can mail it out, hand it out at trade shows, leave it behind on sales calls, use it as a response premium in your advertising and direct mail or as part of a direct mail solicitation package, or build a sales training or service support program around it.

In contrast with the Web, which bares your message to competitors, prospects, and anyone else who cares to look, you can carefully target your audience with disk-based interactive -- mail it out or give it away to just those people you want to see it, exactly when and as frequently as you want.

You have two popular disk formats to choose from -- CD ROM and 3.5-inch floppy. CD ROM holds far more data than a floppy, which makes it the format of choice when you need to convey video, quality sound, or many high-resolution images. But the 3.5-inch floppy is less expensive to replicate and playable on more computers. People also expect higher production values from CD ROM, perceptually categorize it with multi-million dollar "edutainment" packages. So expect higher development costs for CD ROM. The 3.5-inch floppy is quite effective for many marketing applications and is often more cost-effective.

In function, disks overlap promotional video and printed collateral media such as brochures, booklets, manuals, media kits, catalogs, and annual reports. But disks generally have higher perceived value than print. You can convey text, graphics, sound, and animation. You can process user input to generate personalized response. If you have a detailed or technical story to tell, disk-based interactive can make it more compelling, easier to absorb. If you need to personalize or adapt your story to the specific needs or interest of the prospect, disk-based interactive makes it possible. Cost justification is difficult with print, even difficult for a seasoned sales rep, but it's easy, interesting, and fun with disk-based interactive. Promotional games and product selection and configuration guides are outstanding applications for disk-based interactive.

Creative development costs of disk-based interactive are comparable to low-end video or high-quality four-color print, but replication and dissemination costs are generally more favorable. You should think carefully about labeling and packaging as an integral part of the development process. The disk mailer and label carry heavy load in motivating your prospect to pop the disk into the computer. Designed carefully, they can assume much of the functionality of a more expensive four-color brochure. Disks can also be tipped into magazines, brochures, catalogs, and annual reports. Depending upon volume and packaging, it can cost less than $1 to drop a disk in the mail. The low cost and expressive versatility of disk-based interactive makes it one of the most powerful and versatile marketing communication tools at your command.

PAI specializes in helping you develop the most cost effective interactive strategy given your resources and goals. We believe that interactive should add value to elements that are already working successfully in your marketing mix. Consider your trade show program: PAI can help you promote booth traffic through your web site, get more value out of your booth with an effective kiosk program and disk give-away, and promote your web site with the disk give-away. Looking for synergies, we can reduce costs by amortizing creative elements across several programs. We can develop and reuse thematic graphic elements, for example, in your web site, the kiosk program, and the disk give-away. An animation sequence developed for the disk give-away can become the primary attract element of the kiosk program.

Similarly, we look hard at how you can effectively integrate interactive media into your sales cycle to improve and accelerate close rates and to cut sales costs. We've developed many techniques that can take the burden of lead generation, qualification, and education off your sales professionals, giving them more time to trouble shoot and close.

In our view the question isn't Web vs. kiosk vs. disk. It's what can we do, within the framework of your resources and goals, to deliver more cost-effective results.

created by:

Prentice Associates Incorporated
pai@tiac.net

Copyright © 1997