When the website generated a lead
Nowadays everyone has their own websites, and that’s the way it should be. Phonebooks as fat as, well, phonebooks have been replaced by a web browser, and contact information can be dug up over a taxi ride using your cellphone. Making your mark on the internet is a noteworthy achievement in and of itself, but sometimes it might be better to stop and ponder a bit about the underlying reason for building a website for yourself.
I’ll save you the effort: The website is there to put the ”busy” in your business, so that you and your army of sales people can save a bit on the leg work.
When you ask your future clients why they are undertaking the project and what sort of expectations they have for their web service, the answers can vary wildly. Some answer without missing a beat: “To sell something... in a big way”. Others, on the other hand, are more hesitant.
I’m going to make a bold assumption here and say that this hesitancy stems from the usual fact: the marketing department lies all the way on the other side of the house from the sales people, and the two usually keep in contact only at the office Christmas party. It shouldn’t have to be this way, because with a little co-operation between these two departments and a Business Analyst from a web design company, you could be turning your website into a money making machine. This way the cost of revamping an old website turns into an investment that pushes sales.
Our current, slightly shabby, website, worn as is might be, generates a healthy amount of leads annually. It’s almost solely because of the “Buy something” “Contact us” button on the side. Our own repeating offence is that we’ve built our reputation outside of the web by speaking at conferences and providing customers with kick-ass solutions, but then not writing about our achievements or expert know-how on the website. So we’ve got a “Buy” button, but the readers visit our website wanting content.
We have, however, taken up the challenge. In the coming months, Druid will renew its website. At the same time we’ll update our content strategy, which means that anecdotes and war stories will be told on a regular basis – both over the web and in our newsletter.
Source for the money pic: http://goo.gl/KguqYd
