Databases and Internet programming can meet the needs of businesses and organizations. Costs are quickly recovered through increased sales/memberships and through savings in staff time.

• Set up guest books, chatrooms, broadcast emails, polls - let your visitors develop into a community by being able to communicate with each other as well as you.
  
  
• Collect email addresses that visitors voluntarily leave in order to get newsletters, updates, or even prizes in draws. This is a key component of Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM).
  
  
• Maintain regular contact with customers or members by emailing newsletters, bulletins, promotional notices, etc.
  
• Let your clients or members manage their own accounts - joining, renewing and editing on-line. This greatly reduces the strain on your staff.
  
  
• Create a secure administrative menu that internal staff can access anywhere, any time to perform necessary functions on-line.
  
  
• For member organizations, add functionality that will be viewed as valuable, e.g. an events calendar, job board, resume service or speaker's list that members can add and edit themselves.
  
  
• Provide large amounts of information easily and inexpensively. Include a search capability to produce dynamic lists from your databases. Show inventory levels, shipping costs/time, etc. all in "real time."
  
  
• If your organization is project-centred, let clients view the progress of their projects and even participate by sharing documents on-line.
  
  
• For professional development or staff training, provide courses on-line with quizzes and instantly print Certificates.
  
  
• Sell your products or services on-line. You can also take contributions and membership payments.
  
  
• Empower your staff - often the best time/cost-saving ideas come from the people actually doing the work.