The mindset you have when you write, produce, design and develop your web site will play a very large role in its success.

Some businesses write a web site which is a mirror – it reflects them and who they are.  They want to see themselves on the web, so they talk about how good they are.  In a way, that’s a good thing, because the only people really interested in looking at it are people that work in the business anyway.  They want to see themselves, so mission accomplished.

Businesses that want their web site to generate sales leads, business outcomes, bookings or action taken by their reader need to create a web site that is more like a door.  A good web site will help your customer or prospective customer find what they are looking for quickly.  It will introduce them to the customer service people quickly.  It will enable them to speak to someone should they wish to.  It will show them how the product or service will help them … immediately.

It’s a simple thought process: when people turn up at a retail shop with the purpose of doing business, do they walk through a door to find information or people or are they impeded by a mirror which only faces towards the inside?

While we appreciate the intent and sentiment that is meant, that can often lead an organisation to view their web site as somehow separate to the organisation itself, rather than as most of their web site visitors feel – an extension of their business.

Your web site – to most people – is your organsation.  When they come to your web site, either directly or indirectly, and they read about what you are doing and why you are doing it, they don’t feel like they are on your web site.  They feel like they are engaging with your company.  They feel like they are looking at what you do.  They feel like they are conversing with you.

Customers don’t make the differentiation between an organisation and its web site.  When they go onto the web site of the National Australia Bank, they feel like they are talking to the bank.

We coach many web writers to remove the words ‘Welcome to our web site’ from their vocabulary.  In the same way that you would never write a front cover for a sales brochure with the words ‘Welcome to our sales brochure’.

People know it’s a web site.  They’re on the web.

What should you write instead?  Where a company wants to welcome people to their spac eon the web, we often write ‘welcome to our company or organisation’ or, better still, make a statement that makes them feel welcome.  That reaches out to them.  That embraces them.  That works far, far better.

The answer to this question often lies in the objective that was set in the first place.  The only real way to evaluate social media is by measuring it against the business objectives that underpin it.

Many businesses measure the value of their social media program against the number of ‘friends’, ‘followers’ or ‘views’ they have.  But, as of May 2012, banks don’t accept these over the counter as deposits.

Social media is a great chance to build an online community.  Awareness is good – and a key step in building your business – but you need actual results to see if it’s working.

So what were your objectives?  If you stated them before you embarked on a Facebook presence, measurement will be easy.

But what if you didn’t?  Well, now’s the time to set some and, in the meantime, you can use some of these metrics to obtain an ROI:

• Increases in repeat business – take your customers from two purchases a year to four.  How much extra revenue does that result in?
• Word-of-mouth recommendations in the online space that result in new customers – gold if you can get your customers to sell your product or service.
• New suppliers that bring real discounts in $ or % terms.
• New agreements to bulk order your product or service.

The common theme here is outcomes in the real world.  These are the things you can take to the bank and effectively measure.

On the weekend I read a story in the media about how our Foreign Minister has launched a new web app for travelers going overseas.  A great initiative.  As a regular traveler it would be a great tool.  The story went on to mention that Minister Rudd even demonstrated how the web app works with some minor celebrity – presumably a young person from reality TV.  I even saw the app being mentioned on ABC News 24.  It was legitimate news.

And if I wanted it, it would be available at their newly redeveloped web site which now has links to social media!

Excited by the prospect of an app that I think I would get some serious use out of (as a regular traveler) I went to the Smartraveller web site to download it.  I bought the sales pitch and wanted to buy the product.

So I went to the site to find the app.  Nothing.  I used their search function – nothing.  Nice redesign (the site is essentially the same) but the thing I was promised isn’t there.

So I headed to iTunes to see if it was listed there.  Nothing.  Same search results.

So now I have no app, and a reinforced view that this government is more interested in making announcements than delivering products or services.

So what are the issues here?

• Integration: the announcement is one thing, but surely it’s only as good as the product being announced.  If you are going to tell us you’re offering a new service, at least offer the service.  Or at least – and I realize this is going to give some government people a heart attack – hold off the press release until the product is ready.
• Using social media as a sales pitch: social media is a baseline expectation for customers.  It isn’t news.  If you are going to talk about your links with social media, tell us what we can do with it.  The fact that you are on Facebook is no big deal – there are already 500 million other people using it.
• Redeveloping a web site isn’t the same as redesigning it.  That’s like saying you’ve renovated your home after painting it.

But the main point here is … don’t let your audiences down.  My perception of Minister Rudd and his Department is that they’re only interested in the kudos of doing things and not really interested in actually doing them.  Am I wrong?

The answer is the former, with a bit of the latter.  And never the other way around.

I’ve been writing a web site for a client who is obsessed with Google.  All they want is for Google to find their web site and wants every 3rd word on the page to be their business name.  Which, as a marketing strategy, is okay but my question is always, ‘what happens when someone finds your page?  Do they then want to do business with you or do they click the back button because your web site doesn’t make sense?’

Writing your web site should be like a conversation.  You are pitching your business or service to a new customer and you could be replicating the same sales processes you use in the real world.

This was illustrated beautifully by a column I read on the Flying Solo web site, where the author was describing SEO-driven websites in terms of the way they’d talk if they were people you met at a networking function:

“Ever met a website that introduced itself like this? ‘Hi, I’m a plumber in Sydney. As a plumber in Sydney I like to do plumbing…in Sydney. Plumbing in Sydney is fun, so who wouldn’t want to be a plumber in Sydney?”

What would you do if someone pitched themselves to you that way in a networking function?  I know what I’d do.  I’d fake a coughing fit and head for the door.  Or claim I no longer spoke English.  Or shout ‘fire!’

That’s how your web site comes across if you concentrate on SEO at the expense of actually communicating  with people. Only the coughing fit is the back button and once people have clicked that, they never come back.

And this also shows why you need a writer and not someone who is essentially skilled at data organisation.

But do customers care if you like windsurfing?  Or white wine and long walks on the beach?

In short, no.

Think about the businesses you frequent as a customer.  Are all of them chosen on the basis of price or uniqueness of product?  Or do you have relationships in business that you stick with because they look after you, are good people or give you something beyond just a product?

You can replicate that on your own web site.  Personalising your web site is a great idea but how you go about it is critical.

Personalising your web site gives people an insight into WHY you do business, not necessarily WHAT you do.  And don’t underestimate the fact that people do business with you because you’re easy to get along with or professional in your service.

So as you are developing your web site, consider how you could personalise it.  What is it about you and your team that is attractive to your customers and how can you articulate it?

We are working with a client right now where we are applying this.  They are regularly recommended as being ‘great people’ to work with who provide a great service.  Their old site mentions that the staff like wine, cheese, squash and trains.  Their new site is being written to include quotes from them about how they really enjoy fixing complex problems for their clients and includes quotes on how they enjoy the chats with their clients that aren’t work-related.

Which one do you think is more attractive in business?

This time we look at the third tactic at your disposal to get management more involved in your website. Don’t forget to check back on the first two.

Guerilla tactic #3: Get EVERYONE involved.

A website doesn’t belong to the web team. It doesn’t belong to the editor. It doesn’t belong to the person who is responsible for making changes. The website belongs to the whole organisation. So how can you address the issue of your own staff thinking that it’s your problem when it comes to creating good quality content?

We were talking to someone last week about this very problem.  She works for a Government department – we won’t say which one – but the website is seen as ‘her’ problem. She needs to educate the staff that the web site belongs to the whole Department – that if they want a great web site, they can help by contributing.  This is what we told her … and we’re now telling you.

1. Get your organisation involved. Your staff (and management) don’t need to be running the show themselves but they do need to understand that they have input they can provide to the website and they need to know the negative impact if they are not involved.
2. Talk about your wins. In a previous blog post we talked about making sure management understood what was happening when your website worked well. This needs to be continued with your staff so they know what the website does the business and how it works. And unfortunately a number of conversations we have in business surrounding the web are when things go wrong.  People in our workshops rarely tell us that their web site is great.  99% of them tell us what’s wrong with it.  We, as an industry, need to address that. (If you are embracing social media within your business this is something you also need to do. We have talked to countless clients where staff are somewhat cynical of social media efforts because they don’t understand what it is doing for the business. What they end up doing is overlaying their own issues, concerns or perceptions of social media on top of a business tool when in reality they may know very little about it).   If you have a customer who has joined your business as a customer as a direct result of your website, that needs to be filtered through to staff. It needs to go in the staff newsletter, it needs to be included in meeting agendas as a way of reporting back to staff of when things go well. Talk about how you have managed to save an organisation dollars in real terms based on an internal process you have streamlined on the web. If you have reworked your intranet so that is an effective business tool and not a graveyard where PDFs go to die,  measure it and then communicate it.
3. Ask for their ideas. How could staff be contributing to the overall website experience for your customers and community? How could they be providing information for you? What information could they be  providing for you? Throw the strategy back to them – what ideas could they come up with to maintain and run an effective corporate blog for sample? Get three or four of them to become admins of your Facebook group.   And then, make sure you follow through with the important last step.
4. If they are contributing they need to be recognised. Getting them involved excites them about the web and what can be achieved but it also relieves the pressure on the person who is responsible for maintaining all of it.  So recognise that fact.  Give them kudos for the great idea or the shortcut they devised or the social media tool they have helped develop.

So these are just some of the ideas of getting your organisation involved and engaged in your website. There are significant benefits and in our experience, a website or online strategy (including social media) that is embraced by whole organisation rather than just one person one team is significantly more successful.

In this blog post we look at the second tactic you have at your disposal – educating them.

Guerilla tactic #2: Educating your management

One of the things about the web that is different to normal corporate business is that sometimes the knowledge of the web and its benefits is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent at the business.

We have often found that it’s the people at the top of the food chain – particularly in government, universities and large corporates – who do not understand the web, its implications or even its potential.

So in your role, you may need to be educating people above you exactly what you’re doing and how benefits the business. You may need to show them that it is more than just the design, telling them that ‘yes, there are privacy concerns but they are as manageable as any other risks in business’. You may need to educate them that your job is more than just uploading a PDF at 4:45 on Friday afternoon. You may need to teach them that social media is more than just marketing – that it can be a community where you can generate deep loyalty with your customer base.

You may also need to educate them on the wins of your website. We often suggest to clients that they regularly update management on the positives of their website, as sometimes the only information that management gets about the website is when it is broken or not working.

Next time: the third and final guerilla tactic to getting management involved in your website.

In fact, the interest of their management is only piqued when:

• Something is out of date and someone has drawn attention to it
• The manager’s name is misspelt or one of their achievements doesn’t appear
• A competitor re-brands and launches a new website

At other times, when intrepid web editors and maintainers ask for extra time to properly maintain their website or to better integrate a campaign into the web (eg for something positive to happen to the website) the answer is, more often than not, no.

So how do you get management involved in your website? How do you engage with them? There are three guerrilla tactics you can use to do this … and over the next few blog posts we will look at those three ways.

The first of these is quite simple.

Guerilla tactic #1: Corporate jealousy

If you are working within an organisation that really doesn’t seem to care about the web, one tool that is available to you in business is to use the age-old chestnut of corporate jealousy.

Nothing motivates management more than seeing what your competitors are doing and discovering that they are behind.  In fact, we have colleagues in graphic design who have made a career and generated significant business from approaching competitors of an organisation that has just rebranded and relaunched its logo. There is something innate about us that we want to keep up … and in business that is certainly the case.

So if you’re finding it difficult to get management interested in your website and in what you are doing, why not show them what other people are doing in your industry? But then importantly, follow that up with how much they are investing in it and the results they are getting.

For example, we are working with an industry-based commission, which is competing with the other states in Australia to do business. They seemed quite proud that they were spending 10% of the other state’s online budgets. Their bean-counter mentality was almost overjoyed that they had saved significant money. It wasn’t until we revealed how much the other states were generating from their website that they started to seriously consider whether or not they were massively underspending to their own detriment.

If you are like this and are thinking about going down this path, it is also worthwhile mentioning how much time other organisations are spending on their website but again tying it back to results.  That may help.

Next time: guerrilla tactic #2: how to educate your management about what the web can do for you.

So how do you know if social media is actually working?

It can be difficult sometimes to get your results in a clear bottom-line format (ie measuring the value of social media community in terms of sales alone). If you’re building a community, how do you measure its value?

The idea of effectively evaluating websites has always been a difficult task. As an industry, we have for years struggled with the metrics we need to effectively measure our work on the web. Some businesses we talk to us are still mired in the thinking that as long as their website gets hits then their website is effective. They say this as if the measurement tool of hits actually means something. (Which is something we address in our workshops as being a fairly pointless metric.  I don’t know about you, but my bank manager doesn’t accept hits on deposit or as a way to pay my bills. For me, the number of people who visit my website or even the number of times my website appears on their computer screen is the start of the process, it’s not the end.)

So in that environment of limited understanding of how we evaluate websites effectively, we parachute social media in. One of the things about social media in a private context is the more popular you are, the more effective it appears to be.  But even in that context things are changing. There is a genuine trend in social media community such as Facebook, for people to cull their friends list.   It seems  popularity is no longer the only way to measure if things are worthwhile.

Unfortunately, some businesses still use the popularity model as a way of determining whether their social media is working. But there needs to be more.

Measurement should always be measurable. It should always be tangible. If you have a social media community on Facebook or LinkedIn (or now Google + and BranchOut) and you have 3000 people who are part of that community, how do you measure its effectiveness? This is an ongoing challenge when it comes to developing social media.

So what will a successful social media strategy look like your business? Is popularity enough? If it is a very simple, straightforward campaign which is strictly about awareness and nothing else then it may be enough. Oe will it generate ideas to the business? Will it generate customer feedback and free market research? If it is based around an offer, are there ways that we can measure the sales generated and develop an ROI based on that?

Not sure?  We can help.