bizz web 2.0- social media & web 2.0 experts

Websites Not at Campaign Core

Though online investments are the focus of many campaigns, one-fifth of respondents claimed that their website was only ‘basic’ and not at the core of its marketing activity. With increased investment predicted in online marketing channels, companies need to better understand the importance of the website in effectively underpinning its online presence, Alterian said, adding that this statistic demonstrates a need for companies to better understand the channels available to them before investing their marketing funds.

“Marketers must not forget that their own website is the destination that many of their activities drive customers and prospects to, and they need to be extracting the maximum value this cornerstone of any forward-thinking company’s marketing activity,” Eldridge added.

About the survey: The Alterian 2008 Survey polled a total of 1,545 marketing professionals. The annual survey, now in its sixth year, was conducted in North America and the UK October 1 - December 4, 2008 through a dedicated website landing page, and hardcopy, in-person interviews at the 2008 Direct Marketing Association Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas, the 2008 Ad:tech Exhibition in New York and the 2008 Interactive Marketing Show in Manchester.

Our understanding of the 20% who have basic websites is that they need to get that in order to deliver effective Social Media Marketing initiatives, their web platforms need to be moved to Web 2.0. Hoarding the masses to a useless website is not a strategy, it's a disaster in terms of moving people from awareness to interest when the destination website essetially kicks them in the intellectual shins.

Becoming aroused in a program, service or product offering and then finding there is no way to sign up, comment, take a poll, download a coupon, create a profile, participate in a forum, share a link or download a webinar or source a retailer/ on line agency to place and order is suicidal. In terms of abandonment, it is a too common scenario which leaves the visitor permanently turned off.

Many companies are still spending time and effort on the look and feel of their web properties in terms of graphic design, interesting flash vignettes or outlinked Blogs. Getting to a web 2.0 enabled platform should be a priority one objective.

For the other 80% of companies using websites for marketing purposes, they also need to gear up for the use of Social Media Marketing tools and best practices-beyond basic Blogs. There are many best practices which can be drawn from. Bizz Web 2.0 can assist in getting your marketing strategies to the next level.

Should I redesign my Website for 2009?

Many companies are under the "New Years resolution" mode and wish to "update" their websites.

Without doubt, there are good intentions here as many a graphic designer / web guy has told us:

1. You need to redesign the website for "freshness" at least every 12 months. 
2. You need to add more features such as flash and video animations.
3. You should add a newsletter sign up and use "constant contact".
4. Get some new photos and images of you holding trophies/ big fish.
5. You have to pay someone to "set up your SEO"

Let's weigh in on these suggestions:

1. If your web site works in terms of meeting your ROI / Sales expectations, leave it alone. You will be simply rewarding the designer's need for project based income.Think about "is this redesign going to meet my clients' and prospects' needs to become educated or enlightened about my company, product or service?" It's not about your emotional response to your website or your designer's need to design, it's your clients' usability and propensity to make a "call to action" based on their response to engaging with your website that is important.
2.  More features, especially flash and animations do NOTHING to raise your marketing effectiveness in terms of Web 2.0. In fact, due to their format, they actually embed text and any links from getting recognized in SEO and robots. If you are a creative agency, then people expect to see examples of your work. They can be placed in proper Widgets / sections within your Web 2.0 site for such purposes, and your creative designers can go to town doing what they do best. Keep them off landing pages.
3. Newsletters per se are dying in effectiveness as I type this. In fact, the outbound Newsletter by e mail or e Marketing phenomenon has reduced effectiveness down from 80% range to less than 20% in less than a year. This is due to the fact that people are using filtering, Inbox lifestyle strategies (opt OUT of everything to reduce Inbox time per day down from 4 hours to less than 1) and the fact that most Newsletters fail to deliver anything more than a sales pitch or redundant news item that acts as a sales update. Blogs and RSS feeds are taking over as subscription vehicles, and RSS feeds can be set to your inbox without the risk of getting SPAMMED. So get your bizz Blog running and replace the outbound message with an RSS feed tha offers tags, links, back links etc. to drive awareness and participation-get people engaged!
4. Updating images is always a good idea! Better yet, add some presentations to be posted on Slide Share, You Tube, FaceBook et al. Using basic tools, you can create presentations with video, images, music and voice overs that can be saved in flash format (with embedded tags) that will do more for your business than adding any static image to your website, regardless of how big the trophy or fish is in the image!
5. SEO strategists are aplenty. SEO is one factor, that when combined with analytics, Social Media strategy, Brand Monitoring or Social Media / Blogosphere "listening" becomes valid. Buying keywords and ads based on Keywords is a short lived hype game at best. Developing a longer term view of your methods includes using "organic" growth of SEO rankings using content, phrases, page ranks, linkbacks, tags and followers of your Blog, Twitter etc. As part of a Web 2.0 platform, you get a well balanced SEO site optimized solution for no extra fees.

So let's conclude that going to the same well for new results is a futile effort at best. The graphic designer and web guy combo did a nice job on web 1.0 when the goal was a nicely designed static web site or e Commerce solution. If you need to develop your company business identity (Logo, color scheme, design etc. ) then the graphic designer helps you to make a professional finished product.

However with Web 2.0, you can sidestep their involvement in the layout and overall strategy of the business functionality and get to the Social Media Marketing aspects of your web strategy for a lot less capital than you likely paid for your existing Web 1.0 site. 

Please contact us for more information and some example pricing on getting you to Web 2.0 for 2009.

Oh yes - and a Happy New Year for 2009!

Best regards,

Craig Stark

President

Change Impetus Group Inc.

Socal Media Wave

bizz Web 2.0