The story

To give new impetus to his own business, Jacques Sully - founder and owner of a French chain of retail outlets specializing in outdoor trekking - decided to aim at a new target. This new target was the "tribe" of urban roller-bladers, and his intention was to use the web as the main channel through which to establish long-term, profitable relationships with them. By means of this fictional but utterly true-to-life story, readers will find themselves living through all of the phases that are usually part-and-parcel of the birth, development and evolution of an internet project. Readers learn first-hand about how, through rigorous strategic and operational planning, an online business idea can be successfully implemented in the real world.

The narrative style used in the book takes the form of a dialog in which ideas and opinions are freely exchanged. The rationale of this approach is to illustrate, in the clearest, simplest and most original way, the concepts and principles of internet marketing and online management that are essential to setting up and guiding a profitable web-based business.

Why this book

1. Do you know how to implement an effective internet strategy for your business?
2. Do you know how to estimate the investments required and how to predict your return?
3. Do you know how to design a customer-centered site?
4. Do you know how to select the best tools with which to promote your site?
5. Do you know how to promote your project and how to get picked up by the search engines?
6. Do you know how to make your visitors' online experience as unique and memorable as possible?
7. Do you know how to attract visitors and how to persuade them to become customers of yours?
8. Do you know how to measure the performance of your site over time?

The book answers all of these questions and more, while, in the process, offering a whole host of useful information, bright ideas and food for thought.  

The overarching objective of the book is, then, to provide a sort of compass with which you can navigate your way to success on the world wide web. Leaving to one side the more technical, specialized aspects of the internet, the book describes all of the typical phases of a web-oriented initiative, focusing on the crucial elements and decisions that readers will be required to take and offering a methodology for dealing with web-related issues when the time comes to face them for real.