After my weird experience the other day, I have continued with my existance and have not seen any results of the “vision” but it’s only been two days. But last night I had another dream focusing on intent and goals. I am not much into biblical prophesying and such but here once again I woke up with a biblical verse in my head and an urge to write about it.
The following factors are important when planning, creating or renovating your website. Do you have a purpose, Have you considered
1)Revenue Generation.
How is your website going to generate the revenue needed to sustain it, something I find interesting is that people talk about exposure when they should be talking about results.
2)Data Collection
What data do you want to collect, How are you analysing the results, the benefit to your bottom line.
3)Information Source
What Information are you supplying, How pertinent is it to your market and how valuable a resource is the site for your customers.
4) Distribution
Is the site distributing the information that you are making available? How succesful are you at targeting your prospective client base. In thois regard how many repeat visitors is your site getting, How many new ones that never return?
5)Reconstruction
How easy is it to give your site a makeover? How much information will be lost in a major upgrade?
6)Feed Back and Complaints.
Can your customer use your site as a communication point to tell you that they are disatisfied? Are you able and willing to solve your clients problems transparently?
7)Fan Club
Are your fans visible, can they tell your other customers how great you are, How well you did the job for them?
8)Communication
Can your customer find you, communicate with you and get the help he wants.
If your site does not do these things, you have to question, why not? The watchword is show me the money. Which company, Organisation or person would spend a R 1000.00 for no return? Questions would be asked and pinkslips issued. Yet most companies from the smallest to the largest will spend from R 5000 to a R 100 000 on a website that will not generate any return.
I am not talking about e commerce, or web site sales. I am talking about websites that do not meet a purpose. I am talking about websites that will never be seen except by a select few.
Even Schools, charities and hospitals can use there website for making money. There is no reason for a website not to generate revenue. If there is a way to do that, why are you not? Its not what you say, its how you say it. A Website is not about the design, Lets face it a wel crafted site that gets no feet is a failure.
Getting your message across is not about telling people what you want them to hear, Its about finding out what they want to know. Two way communication is always superior to one way communication. Remember your customers needs keep changing. Imagine you have a hardware store. This week you have a special on bolts and nuts, I don’t need them so an opportunity may be lost when you send me your special offers. There is no benefit to me from your communication, If I receive three communications like that in a row you have lost me.
One of my clients runs a tyre shop. His average customer sees him every 18 months. No more no less, Should his customers receive a special offer on tyres every month, they would start ignoring the emails. Gary needs to find out what his customers would like to see in a regular newsletter? What would you as a car owner like to get from Gary, How about safety tips? What about motoring news? you tell me, I have a comments section below, Give me your opinions.
Heres the thing, there are a million order takers out there selling goods and service, not giving any help to the customers, I know you have dealt with a company that doesn’t care. Lets just think. Your bank? Your telcoms supplier, your local bottle store?
Sometimes you know you are the second choice, Your company is not the biggest, doesn’t have the advertising budget. I say you don’t have to be number one. Keep plugging at your second position and eventually the number one is going to stumble. When that happens you are right in position to move in.
Remember not every opportunity is a sale opportunity, Frequently the other bloke got there just before you, has a better price, a better sales patter. Maybe they have been dealing with him for a while. People don’t like change. Imparting good information make you credible, trustworthy and their desire to work with you will increase as you become relied on for useful information.
Your website is the ideal tool for supplying this information. It is the ideal situaution to become a credible expert in your field.
Guy has been building websites and helping customers with internet marketing since 1996. If you want any more information, Just call Guy now.
I am going to upload a video for you later today that I took in the Kruger National Park. While observing the animals at a dam in the Kruger I realised that they were continuously analysing the data and strategising. It is as important for us to have a strategy, a plan if you will. The thing is that we need to continually analyse the data and modify the strategy to suit the conditions.
In order to analyse we need to have data. Without data we are helpless, a ship without a rudder, a yacht without a sail, drifting yet achieving very little. One of my favourite stories is Alice in Wonderland. If you as an adult have forgotten the tale, it is time to revisit it. Seriously there is much wisdom in that book.
For instance at one point in the story, Alice arrives at a split in the road. I think its the March hare she turns to and says: “Which way should I go?” The Hares response: “Where do you want to be?” Alice replies: “It doesn’t really matter” The Hare then replies: “Well then it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Poor Alice is rudderless, not having a target, not having any data and is thus not equipped to make the decision. Are you “Alice”? If you want to learn more about analysing the data subscribe to my RSS feed. Thats the orange button on the top of the site and keep following this conversation.
I promise that the next few articles are going to be really exciting and fun.