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(Or The Story Of Too Little Thought & Too Much Spend)
(Article first published in May '10. It has been modified slightly to suit its publication on our site)
Too often when talking to potential clients I hear the sad story of a company that has spent a sum of money on a website that they were expecting would help to revitalise their business, only to find out that it achieved nothing more than create one more invoice to pay. It doesn't matter whether they spent only a little or a lot (although on many occasions it was a lot), the real issue is the paralysing effect that it had on their business while they were waiting for something that wasn't going to happen.
The problem was that what they thought they were buying was a web strategy, when what they were actually buying was nothing more than a website design. Don't get me wrong, a simple brochure website has its place as long as you know what you're buying into and you plan a web strategy around it. However, a web strategy has the website as a mere component of an overall plan.
Thinking that your website is your web strategy is like thinking that a business card is all you need to promote your business.
A real web strategy encompasses so much more: (the below is loosely in order of importance)
- What are your goals and expected outcome from your web strategy?
- How will visitors find the site? (SEO, PPC, Social Media)
- What functionality do you need to achieve your goals?
- What will the key message be when they arrive on the site?
- How will you convert visits to enquiries/sales?
- How will you interact with potential and existing clients online?
- How will you increase the "stickiness" of your site to attract repeat visits?
- How will you track the success of your web strategy?
- How are you going to link your offline and online activities together?
- How will you maintain the website to keep the content fresh?
- What is your budget for your web strategy? (Monetary & time-wise)
- Which activities fit within the available budget?
Without a doubt considering all these elements will slow down the implementation of your company website and will in most cases end up increasing the cost of the site (although sometimes it can decrease it). But most importantly it will allow you to enter into the project with your eyes wide open and avoid spending a big chunk of hard-earned marketing funds on a web design and implementation that will need replacing in a year or so.
A recent client said to me "I have already built three websites and spent more than €10,000 on them and now you're telling me that I need to spend another X thousand?" I said "No, I'm telling you that you're going to lose €50K, €100K, €200K or more in lost revenue if you don't!" So the moral of this story is that spending a little time in thought now will save you a lot of wasted time and money in the future.
Franco De Bonis has worked in the field of sales and marketing promotion since 1990 and was most recently the global marketing manager for a major international technology company before setting up DG Group in January 2007.
DG Group is dedicated to delivering all the marketing solutions any company may require. Whether it's a website or leaflets and brochures, or even some product packaging; DG Group will manage the whole project and even provide guidance along the way.
The content in this section is the original creation of DG Group and is protected by copyright. You may use this content on your site or in other materials providing you acknowledge DG Group as the author and include a link our site.
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