Contact Us:

Federation Media Ltd
P223
Private Bag 92175
Auckland 1142

Ph: +64 09 55 00 880
Fx: +64 09 36 00 373
Em: info@federationmedia.co.nz

Maximising the value of your Interactive Project

When time are tough its about spending wiser and smarter - making sure that every dollar spent is generating maximum possible gain.

If any silver lining can be eked out of the current economic climate then surely it is a long overdue lesson in efficiency and productivity. Now that there are not so many dollars around it's about choosing carefully where you spend, and when you do, making sure you get the best possible results.

This is not necessarily a bad thing - as Seth Godin points out:

  • Great product development and marketing almost always comes from organisations that don't have enough money. Having less money keeps you from trying to buy your way out of trouble.
  • Learning to live with less money means you will develop skills and resources instead of buying them.

Perhaps coincidence, or just a logical Tipping Point, the economic downturn has seen more and more budget moved away from traditional media and into websites or online campaigns. While this may sound great for those of us in the industry, we still hate to see businesses pour money down the "online drain" through poor decision making and poor planning.

I'm not saying don't do it, just apply a bit more creative thought and strategic decision making to ensure your online campaign is the best it possibly could be.

Getting The Biggest Bang For Your Buck

Work with professionals that you can trust.
You need specialists in web marketing and communication that have your best interest in mind. They need to understand your business and your goals, and be able to demonstrate measurability and performance targets. Don't put your image at risk because the kid in his basement can build a cheaper website than the established agency.

Talk to your audience.
Don't just assume that you or your developers know best. Ask your customers what they want and how they want it. Identify their needs and how best to convert them.

Leverage Web 2.0 trends.
Currently the marketing space is turning inside out. Customers are demanding more control over their buying experience. Use social networks and blogs to learn more about your audience. It's cheap, easy and very effective. Take advantage of new technologies to tap into and start a conversation with your audience.

Tracking tools rule.
This is where the web really wins. All the tracking tools are readily available (Google Analytics, TwitterCounter.com etc), so make sure you use them to get the best value from your campaign.

Developing a Website Strategy

The following is a basic process that we work through with our clients to help them (and us) understand what value their website is to their business, and how best to ensure that they (and their customers) are getting the best possible value.

Website Planning

  1. Define your Mission: what is the single minded proposition that your website is designed to achieve?
  2. Identify your Users: typically every website will have more than one type of user, and each different type of user will have a different set of needs. Who are you trying to target with your site, and what is it these people are looking for?
  3. Set your Goals and Measures of Success: once you know what you are trying to achieve, and who you are targeting, the next step is to define your Goals, and detail how these will be measured.

The Brief

  1. Reference Sites: a list of sites that you like/dislike and why. Anyone involved in a website project has no doubt spent a great deal of time looking at different sites and every site has different things to offer to different audiences.
  2. Brand Guidelines, Mood and Tone: even if you don't have strict brand guidelines, just taking a moment to understand who your audience is and what they want, it is not hard to come up with mood and tone guidelines for the new site.
  3. Functional Brief: it is important from the outset to consider how a site will function and what the core components of a site will be. While the functional priorities for a owner-operator brochure website will be very different to the requirements for a large scale e-commerce site, each of these sites should have a set of well defined user groups and corresponding functional priorities.
  4. Site Structure: every site needs to be able to be navigated by the users, and the more intuitive your navigation, the more likely it is that you will get the right results from your users. Just remember the site is not about you, it is about your users - so what seems logical to you may not always make sense to your users.

Site Promotion
Some of the big wins for site promotion are:

  1. Search Engine Marketing: get the basics right and make sure that you are being indexed for your target keywords
  2. Social Network Marketing: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, ShareThis - figure out which ones are right for you and how best to make them work
  3. Cost Per Click Advertising: a great tool when used wisely
  4. Affiliate Sites: the web is a community - so start to make use of it
  5. Offline Promotion: if you only focus on online promotion then you may be missing a huge portion of potential users

Whatever the combination you choose, one thing is certain - identify who you want and how to get them, and then once they arrive make sure you reward them with a good experience.