But I just need a web site…

Jun 03 2008

Or a logo or a business card or brochure. So why is it so hard? Because you probably don’t “just” need a web site… What you need is a web site that plays a specific role in your overall marketing plan. Many business owners count on their web sites as lead generation tools, as an ordering mechanism, as a virtual component of their customer service process or sometimes all of the above.

A lot of times it seems that we as small business owners look at our marketing to-do list from a tactical rather than strategic perspective. It’s a common pitfall that a lot of us fall into where we get so focused on getting things done that we forget why we’re doing them and what we expected to get out of them in the first place.

There’s no doubt that being tactical is easier; it’s certainly less work for us as business owners and we are likely to get things crossed off our list quicker than we would if we meticulously planned and strategized around everything we do… But we’re also more likely to come out the other end of that project with a “band-aid” type of solution that is not likely to get us the results we wanted long term… And soon we’ll end up with another item on that growing to do list: “re-do web site.”

It also goes without saying that most of us aren’t marketing, branding or web geniuses and can’t sit down and come up with a brilliant winning strategy in an afternoon. That’s why — and especially if anything I’ve written here scares you — the best recommendation I can make to someone who needs to start a new branding, web or marketing project (but doesn’t know where to start) is to contact an expert and ask for help.

Getting good help may cost you cash out of pocket in the short term, but it is certainly more efficient in both time and money than your eventual alternative of “redo web site” or logo or brochure… And that’s before we factor in the additional business that we won and opportunities we generated by doing the right thing up front.