When we are surrounded by news of the Internet, it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees.  Example: much more business is done on the telephone than on the Web.  Interesting article in one of my favorite magazines: Target Marketing – quotes a telemarketing tools producer:

"CEO Irv Shapiro  of Skokie, Ill.-based telemarketing software provider Ifbyphone. "Generally what we find is over the last 15 years the people who are experts on target marketing are spending the majority of their time working on the visual and tech side," he says. "These same people have forgotten that in the United States today, in terms of dollar volumes, 70 percent of all commerce involves phone calls."

Shapiro says "the telephone is the Rodney Dangerfield of technology – it gets no respect."  We sometimes see that issue with the telephone music\message on hold services that our sister company offers.  Business owners will spend thousands of dollars on a website, then ignore the opportunity to provide information to callers on hold (when a music\message on hold system and recording might cost a few hundred dollars). The website gets a few dozen or a few hundred hits per week, while the number of callers on hold might be into the thousands each week.  Plus – the on hold information can be used to drive traffic to the website.

Read the full Target Marketing article here.