One walks into a department store and has experience of “five senses” contact. You get smell of store , leather and lace, you can see in 3d products as they are arranged on racks. The sounds of cash registers, clerk intercom announcements, “clean up in aisle 5”, smooth touch and feel of garments and their particular fragrances. You can even get a taste of environment or some special cuisine that might be on promotion that day.

None of these things are present online via a website. Of course you can have sounds, music, flash intros and maybe even 3d renditions of products. But these things seem to distract prospects online and tend to drive them off to more simple sceneries. Do you know how long it takes for a site with these special effects to load?

So how do you market to prospects online? Million dollar question. First you have to figure out who is online, what are they doing online, what are they looking for, what do they want and how do you place yourself in front of them? Unlike main street you have to put yourself in way of your potential customers instead of throwing open your doors and waiting for them to walk through.

On a personal basis, there are likely almost as many definitions of success as there are people in world.

In marketing, though, there are just four measurable elements of success:

Profitability, Market Share, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention.

Profitability requires little explanation. The very reason businesses exist is to make a profit, or generate more revenue than they pay out. Profitability may be increased by reducing overhead and cost of goods sold—or by increasing price to buyer.

But prices can only be raised so much. Per laws of price elasticity, as prices rise, unit sales tend to decline, as does Market Share; which brings us to our next measure of marketing success.

Market Share, as a measure of success, is important to marketers since greater share, more stable brand’s performance is in marketplace. A product with 65% market share is a force with which to be reckoned. A product with 3% share is vulnerable to a variety of market factors such as competitive pricing, promotions, loyalty to better-known brands and more.

Financial managers understand impact of Profitability and Market Share. But concepts such as Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention are softer items and tend to be treated as lesser by those managers. Yet, long term success and growth of a brand is highly dependent on them.