WOW! Marketing Thought to Begin 2010
| Please Note: If you are an experienced web developer and/or a WordPress Expert, you will undoubtedly consider this post to be a bit simplistic. On the other hand, if you are a small businessperson struggling to get more value out of your web presence — within your small budget — this blog is definitely for you! |
Clark Haley, CEO
I begin this blog with an admission: In 1990 my good friend and client, Don Turner, asked if he should have a web site built for his business. My reply? “You can spend the money if you want to Don, but the Internet is just a way for computer geeks to waste your time and money!” Now that we’ve established my ability to tell the difference between a fad and innovation, the reader will have to decide for himself if he should bother to read further.
If you are still with me, thanks for the confidence (Or is it just morbid curiosity?). Below is my WOW! idea to kick off 2010.
Early web sites like my friend Don’s (yep, he saw what I couldn’t and made the investment) were really nothing more than electronic Yellow Page ads, but as the medium has matured, those that could afford it added significant functionality to their websites. Advances in technology have allowed us to interact via the Internet with our clients and prospects in a way that encourages stronger relationships, enhances our value to customers through information sharing, and conveys significant subject expertise. Without any doubt, the Internet has become the primary method of researching and finding companies and products.
Though many of us have invested significantly in our internet presence throughout the years, we have struggled to keep our sites fresh. Since the development of a site requires marketing, graphics, and programming expertise, finding the right person (or people) to do the work has been a significant challenge and the time and money it takes to get a concept ready to launch has been incredibly frustrating. The result is that most small businesses have horrible sites that are outdated as soon as the programmers bring it on line.
So what’s the big deal? Your site is just one piece of your marketing strategy, right? Have you gone to a site recently and been disappointed that you couldn’t get the information that you were looking for? If you’re like me, you didn’t bother to pick up the phone and call the company for the information you needed. Most likely you just moved on to another site that was easier to navigate and had the information you needed. Who do you think got the order? Believe me, having a good site today is THE most important marketing investment you can make for your company this year!
But how do you deal with the cost/time issue associated with improving your site? A product called WordPress has certainly changed the game for me. Originally developed for the blogging community, WordPress has evolved to enable the rapid deployment of high quality, feature rich, and interactive web sites. WordPress is unique in that they offer a hosted version at WordPress.com or you can choose the self-installed and self-hosted version which can be downloaded for FREE from WordPress.org. In our case, we chose the self-hosted version because this version allowed us to download several critical Plug-Ins that enhanced the software to meet our specific needs.
WordPress is an Open Source product which means that developers have the ability to contribute to future releases of the software. In addition, thousands of Plug-Ins can be downloaded for free to add additional functionality to the software to meet numerous needs (look for a future blog with my favorite WP Plug-Ins).
The most important thing about WordPress is that a non-programmer, non-technical person can add and change pages as easily as one can create and change Microsoft Word documents. Consider this: You’re in the shower and a great idea for your web site pops into your head. You jump out of the shower, log on to the internet from your home computer, navigate to the WP Administration program for your site, create the page, insert a couple of graphics and hit the “Publish” button. Before you’ve had your first cup of coffee (but hopefully after you’ve gotten dressed) you’ve enhanced your website! On your old, traditional website, how long would it take to get a page added to your current site? How much would it cost to have the work done?
I can attest that WordPress is easy to deploy. In June of 2009 I hired my son to convert our site during his summer break from Texas A&M. Patrick is a smart kid, but to be clear, he is not a programmer and had never heard of HTML prior to beginning the project. He downloaded the software ($0) and spent the better part of June playing around with the WordPress interface and becoming familiar with our old site. From a WordPress developer, we purchased a stock theme ($30) to give us a look that we were happy with and then contracted the developer to customize the theme ($250) to meet our specific needs. The rest of the summer was spent copying and pasting the pages from the old site to the new site. By the end of the summer we were ready to take the new site live. My total cost for the site was less than $3,000, including labor costs!
Now, here’s the best part! Since going live with our new site, it has continued to evolve. In fact, changes are made almost every day. We have added more depth to our content pages, included embedded video, and begun blogging regularly. We even have a Twitter feed that updates our site in real time. We are constantly working to add relevant content that will give our clients, partners, and vendors a reason to visit our site often.
How we communicate with our customers is changing, folks, and it’s time for us dinosaurs to evolve or we’ll soon be extinct. Whether you choose to embrace WordPress or some other similar technology, you need to review how your are interacting with your customers and prospects. Customers expect that your site will include rich, current content and be easy to navigate. If you don’t have the budget to hire a full time web developer, WordPress is a great way to accomplish these goals. If you have thoughts or ideas about this article, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below, or send me a private email. Good luck with your marketing in 2010 and CHEERS!
« BCS Opens Classroom Training Centers in Denver and Houston | Home | Fo Shizzel and Other Phrases I’m Not Allowed to Use »
Comments
I don’t know if I totally agree… However, you do make a good point.
[Reply]
Great article! I have got through the same transformation this past year.
[Reply]
Leave a Comment