Your company's web site should be a profit center, a communications area, or at a minimum, a major promotional vehicle. The need to strengthen this aspect of your business grows stronger every day. As the web continues to mature, what used to be separate factors of development should now be merged into one cohesive process, like pieces of a puzzle coming together--except that the puzzle needs to be designed correctly first.
Whereas in the past, a "brochure site" was adequate, now the pressure exists to make the most efficient use of new technology for promotion, marketing, and sales. Whereas in the past, flashy animation and graphics were a novelty, now the pressure exists to motivate sites with function and content. Whereas in the past, advanced technological "ingredients" were impressive in their own right, now the pressure exists to ensure smooth-flowing navigation within a visually appealing space.
As web requirements change and mount, so does the need to guarantee that each piece of the puzzle fits well with the others. The "look and feel" of a website should enhance the goals of the site's function, and also help the user accomplish his or her intentions. The visual interface should in turn augment the structural architecture and the logical flow of applications such as shopping carts, secure communication areas, calendars, etc. Finally, these applications follow a set of requirements that must be met and maintained on the hosting end.
Moreover, these intertwined elements are just the actual website itself, which is of absolutely no use if nobody ever sees the site. For a business to "take the web seriously," it must have serious promotional plans in place. These cover a wide range of activities, such as banner ads, pop up ads, newsletters, and related offline promotions. At present, the single best way to receive targeted traffic is through the major search engines. The requirements necessary to develop the correct search engine positioning for your company include items that need regular access to the hosting environment. The second part of optimizing your site is a never-ending process of learning what works, and then adjusting accordingly. This requires the ability to track your site visitors' paths and activities once they reach your site. Doing this effectively is directly connected to how the site's structure is designed and fine-tuned.
With so many forces at play, a team of experts in each area is needed, everyone working to do his or her part in an overall plan. The plan should extend from initial customer contact, to a "follow-up" system and workflow processes, through to up-selling and demographics collection for monitoring success. There should be a constant "tuning" of each element within the larger system.
For most companies that are looking to create an online presence, an In-house "Point Man" is designated to handle everything from choosing a domain name, to hiring a graphic designer and finding a hosting service. Regrettably, most companies delegate the responsibility of coordinating the diverse elements of web development to a relatively low level employee who attempts to act as both a strategist and a decision-maker. There are three major problems with this scenario. One is that the Point Man probably has little, if any, real experience in web development areas that require concrete knowledge and a constant balancing act of measuring priorities against budgets, all tugging in opposing directions.
Second, the Point Man will need to hire various contractors who provide certain services under their own companies' standards. All decisions are then made by the Point Man, but within separate areas and with no real communication between these areas. This can be a waste of time, money, and brainpower. Also, the contractors will see it as their first priorities to get as much of the total budget dedicated to their own areas of development for any particular project, regardless of the effect on the overall project. This obviously creates a situation of imbalance, but also one of "non-responsibility." Whenever a problem arises, which it inevitably will, each contractor can easily point a finger at the next. And because the Point Man is not well versed in most of the involved complexities, it becomes virtually impossible to nail down the source of the problem, much less fix it. This is not a good scenario.
Last, due to his/her junior level position, the Point Man probably has little knowledge about his/her company's larger promotional strategies, or the ability to directly make decisions as to how to implement them. Yet, integrating the web into 'the big picture' requires this type of knowledge. The Point Man in this common scenario is not only unqualified for the external task, but also internally uninformed and powerless.
The situation improves slightly if the Point Man is willing and able to invest the time and energy required to learn as he goes, trusting in the guidance of the contracted teams of experts. This, of course, assumes he is lucky enough to have chosen the right contractors in the first place. If this does not happen, and the Point Man is a junior level employee, you have the absolute worse case scenario for the future of the project. Lessons will be learned the hard way, but more importantly--the expensive way.
The real solution to this problem is two-fold. First, the Point Man must be someone with authority to make those decisions that require immediate attention, and also have the ability to convey strategic issues directly to other senior management personnel. His primary role will be to interface with a trusted external Team Captain.
The external Team Captain, who must have prior experience on similar project types, is to be chosen wisely. The Team Captain can either be an independent consultant or part of an established full service multimedia house. The Team Captain must then either build a great team of experts in each area (hosting, visual interfacing, structure and navigation, applications, content, maintenance, and a series of promotional subcategories), or he/she will already have them in place as part of a single firm. Although this may seem to present a conflict between hiring the best expert in each area of expertise and hiring a "jack of all trades," it does not. It is simply a matter of allowing someone who has relevant experience to be the person who selects and manages the individual team members.
The production team members, in turn, must not only have experience in their special fields, but also in communicating with the various partners of the other related fields. Even for a fully staffed multimedia/web development firm, there will always be certain projects with the need of services from sub-contractors who may not be necessary on a full time or regular basis. The Team Captain should always choose the "best for the job," as long as the "best" comes with the understanding that his/her priorities must fit the overall strategy developed by the Team captain to meet the goals established by the Point Man. From these relationships develops an understanding that the strategic priorities may not always be the tactical ones important to a particular area of work.
Therefore, in order for business web development to occur efficiently, there must be two key players: 1) a knowledgeable In-house Point Man who has the authority and ability to communicate his/her company's strategic goals, without taking on the specifics of the project, and 2) the Team Captain who deals directly with the Point Man, makes all critical decisions, and guides all team members. Both players then become the bridge between their respective areas of responsibility, communicating the goals, capabilities, and strategies for a given project. Choosing the right internal Point Man is just as important as choosing the external Team Captain. The relationship between the two must be based on trust, and will be pivotal in the success of the overall project.
Each step in web development is connected to the next, and all have to be coordinated in order to maximize results. When the puzzle is designed correctly and all of the pieces are in place, the result can be like the satisfying hum of a well-oiled machine, turning out profits for you twenty-four hours a day.
*This is the first part in a series of articles that will discuss the individual elements that are involved in the process of creating a well-planned, holistic marketing and promotional strategy on the web.