...read more about our Services.
| Web
winners
If you are thinking about having a website designed for you read on to find out how to make it profitable...
Ingredients for a Profitable website are:
- Look at Organisational structure and design
- High Rankings on the Search Engines,
- Build an effective website
- Build a web site that offers easy access to your services
- Build a web sites that segment markets and provide
individual communication.
|
EPNET WEB DESIGN : A day in the life:
What do I think about the web?
The web is where it is all happening, business is sought after from around the
world, deals
are done and the whole world is thriving on the web! It truly is the place to be, if you are not on the web
in 2009 you are missing out as there are tremendous opportunities, and
there is much money to be made.
Web design with strategic marketing of products and services is the answer. The businesses who don't understand this
and how to do it are the losers.
I get up every morning with one thing in mind, how can I improve our service to customers and how can I attract more business
to their websites. A typical day for me is as follows:
- Up at four in the morning and behind the computer by five.
- Go to my email and analyse all the hits to the clients' websites we host.
- Send a report to the clients on interesting keywords search terms people have entered from the search engines to find their website.
- Analyse what has been searched for and optimise a client's web site to expand and broaden his depth on the search engines.
- Get dressed and off to the office then back behind the computer paying attention to client requests for changes to their website.
- Attend any client meetings and get involved with the development of new websites or database systems.
- This action is repeated seven days a week - the only difference between a Wednesday and Sunday is that the food gets better on Sunday because I work from home!
|
Why do I do it? It is because I can't wait to get
back to it! I go to bed every night excited about the morning,
during the night I wake up to check the time anticipating when I
can get out of bed. I have an emotional bond with each of the websites that we design.
Our clients' trusted us with their money and I therefore have to
prove to them that it was well spent!
Every day is exciting and nowhere nearly as
boring as it sounds. I am where it's at and I know it. I meet so
many different people who are or may become clients of ours. I
have had dealings with people like Bill Wyman (ex Rolling
Stones), meeting Bob Geldof and people like deep sea oil rig divers, and
ordinary business folk but who have exciting products or
services to sell, new innovations and new products come my way
everyday. Life never
stands still! I meet wonderful people and some nasty ones too.
 |
Building an effective business website. In order to make a website profitable you have to use the tools
learned from classic marketing in a different way.
Having worked over a long period in advertising agencies I know that the advertising people
simply do not understand the web.
The advertising agencies are tasked with their clients communication strategies yet they completely turn a blind eye to the business
on the web. If they are forced to develop a website by a client they look for something visually gimmicky
or "creative" but pay no attention to what the web can do for the clients business and what they should be doing. They
are in actual fact doing their clients a disservice, they treat the web as
a toy not a serious marketing channel. They give it clichés like "new media".
This term suggests that it is a new advertising mass medium
which it is NOT!
It is an individual communication channel, like a telephone is. I don't know
any web professional who calls it "new media"?
What the advertising agencies don't understand about the web
What they don't understand is that a website has the ability to display a precise match of specific information to each and every recipient's individual needs and interests, however different those
recipients may be.
What consumers expect from websites on the web
Consumers are migrating towards whatever mix of content most
precisely matches his or her own uniquely individual needs and
interests. This is why more than one billion consumers have
migrated onto the web; it allows them more precise
satisfaction of their needs and interests. They didn't migrate
to the web to read, see, or hear a Mass Medium package of
information online — information they were receiving from
traditional Mass Medium vehicles in more readily usable forms.
The client on the other hand (the company marketing guru) has a similar
view to the advertising agency because (he trusts the agency) he does not have the tools or knowledge to think differently, so nothing develops. The client sits back and wonders why no one visits his website
and more times than not does not even have Visitor information handed to him.
On the other hand a client may use his website address as part
of his advertising and he may actually be getting visitors but
not seeing any good coming from it.
The big "Buzz Words" in
advertising in the 80s' was "The Global Village", this was
before the web but the web has allowed the Global
Village to exist and the agencies no longer bother about this
phrase as it is not currently in fashion.
There is a new bread of global communication specialists and I like to
believe that we are one of them.
The massive business today on the web is one to one communication, unlike direct response
and direct response marketing where people are being sold
something; the difference on the web is that people are doing business with each other and that business is thriving!
If you have a website you automatically become part of this
global community.
The Corporate Giants of Tomorrow
With email and voice over IP the cost of communication to anyone anywhere in the world is
negligible.
The small business sectors are the winners in all of this activity. They are
carving their future
as tomorrows corporate giants
of the world and nobody can stop them. They have more or less
been forced into using the web because it is a
communication channel that they can afford but once they use it
they discover the tremendous benefits and become hooked on the
possibilities. They are not sitting behind
their desks in giant concrete buildings with huge budgets
under their control but working the system and thriving!
We ourselves get at least one telephone call per week and
many emails each day from people in
Russia, India, South America, Australia, UK, Ireland and the United States, who want
to talk business or offer joint ventures or services!
Examples of Successful Websites
As an example of this successful website communication, one of our clients who is an Architect has been noticed by the international architectural community.
He has been asked to attend international events, appear in international magazines and is spending
a great part of his life consulting overseas! Wow! As he
explained to us this would not have happened if he had not had a website?
A website that was high up on the search engines. Another client who has just completed building a Guesthouse in Clarens Freestate (who has heard of Clarens?) and asked us to
develop their website, all of a sudden has received bookings
from honeymooners all around South Africa, more examples about a hairdresser in Sandton,
a Computer Jobs Recruitment Agency, an Executive Recruitment
Company, a Diamond Dealer, a Steakhouse Restaurant, a Credit Management Company, an Executive Coaching Company,
a Motor Dealer, a Scientific Lab Equipment Supplier, a DTP Training Center, a Printing Industries Association, and a Fraud Investigator, I could go on and on about their success stories.
Search engine ranking : Building an effective business website
Many people think that just because they have built a website
visitors will come flocking to it. Not so, someone has to make it happen. It is a fact that it does not matter what size business you
have. If you use the web and get high up on the search
engines you will be noticed. Credibility gets assigned to those
websites that have achieved this and that is why I do what I do
to ensure our clients' get noticed by spending my time getting them strategically placed
on the search engines.
The opportunities are here today for any business! You can beat the classical marketing gurus and beat the giant corporations while they are still asleep.
YOU CAN DO IT NOW ON THE web!
On the other hand the big corporate giants see the web as a place to promote their
results to shareholders, and publicise their "mission statement",
ho-hum.
It is a fact that in South Africa over 80% of corporate websites
are never seen by the general public. The reason is that their
IT Departments who are assigned to develop a website know
nothing about website optimisation and how to get a website
ranked highly on search engines. Anyway what do they know about
marketing a product or service, strategic target marketing, brand positioning and targeted keyword research
they are computer specialists and it's not their job. The bosses think it is their job (because it is "something" to do with computers). This alone is an opportunity for smaller businesses to get the upper hand and that is why we exist!
Here is the real
business secret for corporations on the web: Individual
Customer Service...
Imagine this...
You are a public company that has been around for thirty years and to your customers
you are a faceless giant, imagine if you could reach out to every person in your market/s and say
don't think of us as a faceless giant, talk to us, here is what we can do for you.
Banks on the web in South Africa
Take the banks for example they are the forerunners of the web, from a corporate point of view,
but they still have not got it right! Their big ambition is to stop as many people as possible from visiting them
physically at the branch level. Why? Obviously to save costs and they not only introduced web Banking but have
now added Call Centre services so you no longer speak to your bank manager on the phone you speak to some
customer service "handler". All of this has been
devised by the Banks to save them money - NOT to help
their customers!
Would it not be really cool to be able to, instead send your bank manager an email? To be able to say something like, "Bill my bank
deposit will not happen today as I have been called out of town and will only be able to deposit a cheque in the morning".
The result is that your bank knows what you are doing all the time
because you were able to send them correspondence
from your home, after hours. The bank benefits by saving costs
on call centres (they won't need so many staff members), not having to keep their doors open, or telephones busy the whole time and the BIG ONE, the bank gets
to read customer correspondence whenever is suits them, not when it suits the customer!
This maybe sounds simple but who is doing it? Just go to your bank's website and look for the place where it says contact your bank manager?
You will not find it! Why not have your bank manager's email
address available when you have logged into your account so he
can keep his privacy and you can talk to him? In comparison you can go to almost any small business website and get email contact details
immediately.
Why do the corporate giants prefer to remain
anonymous even on the web, this thinking is just so old fashioned.
If you are in the business of providing a service, the easiest
and cheapest way is by using the web. There is a host of contact details on a bank's website
but all of them lead you to their call centre and any email leads you to the one corporate address that no one at the bank will ever read!
Or when they do read it the matter you wish to discuss has long passed into history.
Nine months ago I asked my bank for copies of my home transfer
documents, I am still waiting for a reply to my email? Why the hankering for anonymity? What are they trying to hide?
Why not come out into the open? Why not join the world of
customer service, care and responsibility which is what all us
"lesser mortals" have to do?
You do not have to even email your bank manager, just email someone at the bank who
will respond and be able to take action. Not in four days time or four weeks time but
as soon as possible.
Market Credibility
Today the only people being fooled by mass medium advertising are the advertisers themselves.
Credibility is such an important word. Over the years we have been bombarded with advertising
slogans and promises which are exaggerated such as, "How can we help you?", "Today,
tomorrow, together", and "Inspired, motivated, involved".
Consumers understand that these are soothing words coming our of
a corporate marketing department and consumers understand to
take all these platitudes for granted, consumers know that they
are absolutely meaningless! A promise by a company via
advertising is just regarded as meaningless "spam" unless you follow it through and live up to it.
Consumers are much more sophisticated today
People are much more sophisticated today, they are very skeptical and promises made would have
to be kept to make an impression. If you say something about your company then the
whole organisation has to live and breath your promise, the
staff have to believe in it first, only then would your promise
be properly transferred to and believed by the consumer, it must not
start and end with your marketing division. Otherwise it is a hopeful dream that only a few top people in an
organisation may live by, certainly not the consumer.
The web, being an individual
communication medium, can assist organisations making their
promises really live up to their claims as it can provide personal
communication to varying target markets in the cheapest most
convenient way.
Banks are not the only people missing out on the cost saving and communication concepts of the web.
What about fast moving consumer goods?
Let us look at other corporate companies such as a fast moving consumer goods, why not have a website where you can email a food
nutritionist at a company
to ask relevant questions about their products and get a response. I am not saying that some companies do not
provide this as a service but how many of them ever bother to follow-up on an email? I know of ONE corporate company in South Africa who understands the web and customer service and that is DaimlerChrysler.
Can you imagine the missed opportunities to build brand loyalty?
Can you imagine the power a corporate giant would wield if they
have conversations with their customer and the ripple effect
this will have on customers over time, if each customer tells ten friends
what a wonderful company so and so is, and so on?
Summary Building a Profitable effective business website.
We are not talking about "cutting edge technology" we are just talking about simple communication and good old
fashioned plain
customer service!
Everyone seems to be looking for the latest technology, as soon as you
mention the web, but really they need to look at SERVICE.
That is what the web can do! It is not only about email communication either it is about
FOCUS. Focus on customer service, focus on how you can deliver
customer service using the web if you are a corporate giant there is no simpler way of
communicating your services and messages without
you having to spend much money or take your bum off your seat!
Let your customers
come to you by making it easy for them, which is what they want to do, but they can do it
from their homes after-hours - so can you! It gives you opportunities to
up sell as well. If you buy this then you should also have a look at that. Learn from your customers when they talk to you, focus on how you can make money from the questions they send you - damn easy!
Gordon Barker
EPNET web SERVICES
E-mail: studio@epnet-web-design.co.za
Ad agencies |
