What’s the trade-off?

Have you ever stopped to wonder how one company can offer a product at a much lower price than another?  As an internet marketing company, we are exposed to many businesses in many industries that operate under many different business models.

As we delve into the discovery process with each of our clients we uncover their core business strategies and how they position themselves against their competitors.  The conversation almost always arrives at a point where our client talks about a competitor whose primary strategy is to undercut everyone on price.  The natural question is, how do they undercut everyone on price?  This is when our clients begin listing all the shortcuts their competitor takes and laments “if only their customers knew….”

Everyone understands that just because you spend more money on something, it doesn’t mean it is a better product or that you get more value out of it.  But if something costs less than normal, what does that imply?

Over the years I have acquired exposure to more industries and niches than you can imagine.  The stories I’ve been told by credible business people about their competitors and the types of shortcuts they take to position themselves as ‘the cheapest’ has made the hair stand up on the back of my neck more than a few times.  It has also made me a much better consumer, because in many cases I know the right questions to ask before hiring a service company or buying a product. 

There are plenty of shortcuts in our industry too.  We are a technical field, after all.  Automation is something that techie people can accomplish with ease.  So if you are shopping around for web development, social media or SEO services and some of the companies you talk to are much lower-priced than the others, you need to investigate why that is the case.

For example, you’ve probably seen all the “build your own website” commercials where you choose a pre-built template and have your website up in a night.  From a marketing standpoint that means your website will not have a unique identity because there are likely thousands of other people out there with the same design you have.  What consumers also don’t understand is that your website is going to be on the same IP address (the unique identifier the search engines use to differentiate your website) with hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of other websites.  That means you are starting at a major disadvantage with the search engines from the start.  If one of those other websites are using untoward tactics to get their website to rank high on the search engines, it can impact all the other websites on your IP address.

For social media, it may mean they are setting up automatic feeds to populate your social media channels.  That means they are just regurgitating the same information in your social media channels that exists everywhere else on the web.  Why would people want to get that information from you when they can get it from their normal media channels?  It also positions other people as experts instead of your company.  Why are you spending money on this if it isn’t going to show a maximum return?

Search Engine Optimization is especially notorious for shortcuts and automation.  Everything from software that takes real articles found online and “spins” them into a new article, to programs that crawl the internet looking for unsecured websites, automatically hacks them and installs links to your website.  The problem is that Google is very aware of these tactics and can detect them.  If they see your website participating in these tactics it may get you banned from Google altogether.

So it may not be sexy to talk about the work required to make online marketing truly work for your company.  If you are making short-term decisions based on budget, make sure you are adjusting your expectations and planning to allocate appropriate budget toward your online marketing in the future.  But don’t wait too long, because you can’t afford to short-change your company by not paying attention to your online marketing.

How many people does it take to build an effective website?

I frequently find myself having a conversation with potential customers about how many people it takes to develop an effective online marketing solution.  Many seem to have the impression if you know how to repair or network computers, then you must know how to design a website and promote it online.  The training required to be an IT professional is very different from the training for web design.  There are dozens of certifications one can obtain in the IT field and none of them are related to web design or internet marketing.

Since I worked in the healthcare industry and I think more people can relate to that industry, let’s think about it in these terms:  When you go to a hospital to receive care, how many people does it take to care for you during your stay?  Is there one person assigned to you who draws your blood, performs surgery, and takes a CAT scan?  No, individuals from various disciplines perform those separate tasks.  Why?  Partly because they were each trained in their specific areas to insure the best outcomes for each aspect of your care.

The same is true in most industries.  For example a company may offer plumbing, electrical and HVAC repair services, but they don’t send the same technician to work in each of those areas.  Instead they hire technicians who were trained and received certifications in each of those areas.  In our field there are three primary areas of expertise involved with creating an effective website:

• art/design
• technical
• marketing

Sadly many schools offering web design programs don’t offer a comprehensive curriculum which adequately addresses all these areas.  Most schools focus primarily on the design aspect (layouts, colors, etc.)  By necessity they do delve into the technical side, but tend not to spend significant time teaching students about search engine optimization and the more technical aspects of developing a website.  And many schools tend to spend even less time teaching basic marketing principals.

But think about it: your website is a primary marketing vehicle for your business — so if your website does not effectively communicate your marketing message and is not technically developed to current search engine standards, you are likely wasting a lot of time, money and potential.

That is why an interdisciplinary team can produce a much more effective online marketing campaign for your business.  You have the individuals working on your project who specialize in web design; those who specialize in the technical side of search engine optimization, and those who specialize in the marketing.  It is very rare to have all those necessities contained in one individual.

What’s that you say?  You need custom programming for your project?  Well that adds another discipline into the mix!  Programmers are trained completely differently from designers, SEO specialists, and marketers.

Understanding the people who make up our industry, their training and capabilities can make you a much more informed consumer when seeking an online marketing partner.