Between Marketing and the Webmaster
By: Dele Ogundahunsi Web designing is certainly not just about creating the most fanciful, colourful and animated pages and then slapping them somewhere on the web. Your business as a Webmaster is a marketing responsibility and should be managed as one. Like any other marketing-oriented business therefore, a lot depends on satisfying the client and keeping him coming back.
A lot of webmasters often lay much emphasis on sharpening their skills constantly, in order to keep up with new developments in the field (trends, new tools, etc.). This is good enough. However, for many webmasters, an understanding of Marketing is largely lacking, or at best, based on assumptions. So, what is the relationship between Marketing and Web designing? In other words, how can a better understanding of Marketing help you as a Webmaster to manage your business more profitably?
*Marketing defined*
The American Marketing Association defines Marketing as the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals. On the other hand, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK defines Marketing as the Management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customers requirements profitably. Note the occurrence of Customer Satisfaction in both definitions and the underlining concern for Profitability in the second definition. In other words, as a businessperson, you need to identify the needs of your customer and explore ways of satisfying these needs, in order to make a profit.
It is therefore wrong for any businessperson to come up with a product or service and think hey, this is innovative, Im sure people will climb over themselves to buy it. First, does the consumer or customer really need that product or service? If not, then all resources expended in producing the product have been wasted and the businessperson only has to lick his wounds and count his losses.
This brings us to the issue of Research. Marketing Research (lets narrow down the concept a bit, huh?), according to Philip Kotler in his Marketing Management, is the systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data or findings relevant to a specific marketing situation facing the company. However big or small your web design business is, the fact remains that you need to find out what your client wants and what your clients customers want, because, eventually, websites are created to promote products and services to these customers. The client wants to attract and retain customers, efficiently. Herein lies the marketing challenge.
As a Webmaster, you must understand your clients customers. Does your client sell to various segments of customers (e.g students, retirees, young upwardly mobile professionals, etc?) or only one homogenous market such as any one of these segments? Even within the student category, for instance, there are sub segments such as university undergrads, students from the A, B, or C socio-economic class, etc. What are the lifestyles of such customers? What do they like to do in their pastime? How do they relax? Where do they live? Do they live in a socio-cultural environment where the colour black, for instance, connotes death or mourning, in which case they may be averse to the black colour background of an otherwise attractive product? What are their aspirations? If, for instance, your clients customers are undergrads, are they interested in sports? Would it be right to create a page on the clients website for snippets of information on the lifestyles of sports personalities around the world (even though the website specifically sells an interactive software to help students write term papers and long essays?) Or take upwardly mobile professionals, as another example. How about including a page (on the website of an insurance company selling policies targeted at this segment), which contains links to write-ups explaining several possibilities of personal finance and wealth creation opportunities? Will such side attractions not ensure repeat visits to that website?
Once you know your clients customer, you can anticipate that customers wants, appeal to the right emotions and show the customer how your clients product or service will benefit the customer.
The discerning Webmaster also needs to understand the industry within which his client operates, his clients competitors and what these competitors offer in comparison to what the client offers. If any of the competitors has a website, how customer friendly is the website? Does navigation within the site make it easy for the competitors customers to make orders? Can the customer have his most cogent questions answered right there on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page without having to go through the pains of writing a mail? Can the Webmaster then create a website for his client, that will outsell the competitors site in these areas?
Finding the right answers to these questions boils down to Research. However, this does not mean you must always undertake the kind of research that is the hallmark of academics. You may carry out a simple, yet illuminating desk research, relying on specialized columns of newspapers, industry journals, magazines and websites.
While your client may sometimes provide a brief which explains the kind of website he thinks he wants, to be truly innovative, you may go beyond his brief -by adding value. A word of caution, however: you should discuss this with your client.
*Websites are Marketing tools*
The fundamental reality of how people use the web can be seen in the following comparative descriptive sketches of offline and online buyer behaviours. Offline, bustling crowds of would-be shoppers (or prospects) pass by your place of business (take a busy mall, for instance) and some of them may walk in, if your shop occupies a vantage location, your wares are attractively displayed and they can notice both. Online, however, people search for information. There are millions of people, but no crowds and each person searches alone. So, while the offline businessperson thinks of a vantage location, the online businessperson must think of relevant information or content, information that meets the needs and interests of the target market.
Many Webmasters do not recognize that first and foremost, websites are marketing tools. Yet, even a good number of experienced ones do not know this. They design sites that are beautiful looking. Unfortunately, their clients sites do not rank well with search engines and as a result, traffic is not generated to these sites because the content of such sites is not focused on the needs of customers or prospects so that when they stop by as visitors, they click out, instead of clicking on the clients money-making links (that is those links that lead to sales / service contracts / leads / referrals / contact). Though such sites may be beautiful, they do not get results. They are failures.
*The Power of Search Engines*
People who visit the web are looking for information and solutions. Most often, they rely on Search Engines to suggest or recommend the most likely websites, which may satisfy their needs. Therefore, as a Webmaster, you need to reach such visitors through Search Engines, by making your clients website rank well with the Search Engines. It is painful, how many budding webmasters do not consider this.
Search Engines use computer programmes called spiders to go out to bring a site back to the Search Engines database. Another programme known as algorithm decides whether your site or some other site is more relevant to a search request for a certain keyword.
If a web visitor searches for home electronics on Google or Yahoo! for instance, either of these search engines wants to deliver the most relevant sites on the Net. It is the responsibility of the Webmaster, therefore, to convince each search engine that his clients website, or a web page is one of the most relevant for this keyword and thus deserves a high ranking, so that a visitor can at least find it among the first 1-10 or 1-20 results thrown up by that search engine. Most surfers, according to observations, do not go beyond the first twenty results suggested by a search engine.
For you to create a website which brings lots of targeted traffic to your client therefore, you must perform some tasks such as keyword brainstorming. In other words, you must research your sites main theme on the web, such as weight watching, to find related words that are often searched by web visitors, but rarely targeted by websites. Such words can then form the topics for each page of your website and eventually provide the website with a theme or focus for optimum search engine ranking.
This is only one in a series of tasks which a Webmaster needs to perform for his clients website to rank well with the search engines and attract warm, willing-to-buy traffic on an ongoing basis. Such tasks can be very tedious, especially when the process is done manually. It is no surprise therefore, that some webmasters shy away from this aspect of the job. However, such tasks can be automated with Site Build It! , an all-in one site-building, site-hosting and site marketing solution which automatically performs the following operations for webmasters: Keyword Brainstorming, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Submission, Search Engine Reporting, File Upload, Sequential Autoresponding, E-mail Marketing, etc. This system of tools works without compromising design or site functionality. Which means you can create your site, using your favorite HTML and graphic (or other) software, simply upload the files and let Site Build It! do the rest. More on this software, including purchase and download instructions, can be found at http://webmaster.sitesell.com/net_hunting.html .Or else, you may ask how this package of tools can suit your specific needs, at http://question.sitesell.com/net_hunting.html .
*Sales Copy is important*
Creating a website is not all about search engine ranking and attractive designs alone. Text is also of immense importance. Everything written on a website must gradually pull the prospect or customer to take action, either by completing an order form, making purchase enquiries or referring friends and relatives to sign up.
In some cases, webmasters concentrate on designing the web pages and entrust the writing of sales copy to professional copywriters. This is not to say that you cannot successfully combine the two, however. Whatever the tendency, great copy grabs a readers attention and holds it by intensifying the readers interest in what is being presented. As long as the information is realistic, relevant and answers the question Whats in it for me? the reader can be persuaded to become a customer. A good website copy does not stop at enumerating the formidable features of the product or service, but translates these features to benefits for the reader. Only benefits can tap into a consumers consciousness and make him ask the critical question whats in it for me? If, for instance, a certain feature in a product enables the customer to save time, especially if that persons time is presently wasted on the job, that is a benefit. So, while features are elements of a product (or service), benefits are the results of what these features do to, or for the customer. All benefits add to the perceived value of a product or service.
What is the key to using the web to multiply sales? It is in providing high-value, benefit-oriented copy and not a straight sales pitch. A benefit list will also help to create a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A USP tells the prospect or customer what differentiates you and your product from your competitor. It is the single best benefit that every visitor to your clients website will perceive as being unique to that client. It tells a visitor to that website why they should buy from him and not from his competitor. It is the most powerful benefit, which is woven into the sales copy.
*In Conclusion*
Web designing is all about Marketing. For the most part, a client will want to promote his products or services online and pays you, the Webmaster, from his Marketing Communications budget. Very few clients will pay hundreds of dollars for a website, just for the sake of having a website. They expect a return on their investment. Possessing a marketing orientation means promoting your own business and your clients business, as a Webmaster. Therefore, anything you do to attract potential customers and encourage potential sales is important. Clients need sites that rank well with the search engines, attract interested targeted visitors, keep visitors on site (and encourage repeat visits!) and get the desired response.
Since designing a site is just the same as building a house, you must start with the foundation and work upward. The intended function of a website will drive its final form. This is why you need to define the requirements of a website as completely as possible, before you start the site layout. If you dont, you may have to throw away what you have done and start all over.
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Dele Ogundahunsi, an associate member of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria and an e-marketer, specializes in Online Advertising and Web Design Directing. He can be reached on (+234) 803 85 10 10 2 or at agroport@outgun.com.
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