If you’re in the process of considering a big, expensive website re-design (and isn’t everyone?), stop what you’re doing and read this NY Times article, Strategies to Succeed Online. Then take the money you save from the re-design and put it into content.
These days, a Web site may not even be the best place to start
promoting your products or services. Instead, you can consider setting
up a blog, participating in social-networking communities like Facebook and creating a storefront in virtual worlds like Second Life to get the buzz going. . .
What a company should not be doing is spending lots of money on dot-com
speculators, buying specialized software or even paying for the
services of Web developers.
I know what some of you are thinking. You don’t have time to keep a blog or a Facebook profile fresh — so you think it’s a better use of your resources to spend money on a traditional website. I think that’s a mistake, for most of you. Why? Because the thousands of dollars you spend on traditional website development could be spent on new content. You could bring on a freelance/part-time blogger or podcaster to work as an extension of your staff, generating engaging, interesting material. You can open up new conversations with people to establish yourself as an authority in your field. You can tell stories. I’ve seen this work with some of the small organizations I’ve worked with, and for most of you, it’s a far better investment than a static website that’s essentially just a slick brochure.
Technorati Tags: nptech, marketing, social_networking, NYTimes
Becky Carroll has a lot of good stuff to say about how we treat customers, and she shares it all in 10 minues on this week’s Age of Conversation Podcast. Okay, she didn’t share all of it. For the rest, you’ll have to go check out her blog. But this 10 minutes with Becky is well worth a listen.
Takeaway quote: "This (customer experience) is going to become the competitive differentiator for organizations."
As always, I welcome your feedback — good and bad — in the comments or via email. Enjoy the podcast!
Download Episode 3 (MP3, approx. 10 min., 9.1 MB)
Show notes for Episode 3:
Guest: Becky Carroll
Chapter: Conversations and the Customer Experience p. 14
:30 Customers Rock!
2:00 What (and when) is customer experience?
3:00 Customer experience is important beyond the point of sale
4:15 Experience helps customers differentiate between businesses
5:30 Concrete steps for improving customer experience
Thanks to Saurab Bhargava for our theme song, called Conversations. You can subscribe to the podcast here.
Technorati Tags: Age_of_Conversation, AoC_Podcast, Becky_Carroll
I just finished an interesting interview with Becky Carroll, the woman with one of the coolest marketing blog titles ever: Customers Rock!. She’s got great things to say about how to treat people, even after we’ve engaged them in a transaction. I’ll post the audio tomorrow.
Technorati Tags: Age_of_Conversation, Customers_Rock!
Beth Kanter was interviewed for the podcast IT Conversations. I haven’t even listened to the whole thing yet and I’m recommending it. If you communicate on behalf of a nonprofit, you’re sure to learn something you can use.
I decided to get some other things done this weekend, so I didn’t blog. Then, on Monday, I was on the road, so I didn’t blog. Then, on Tuesday — well, what’s one more day? So now it’s Wednesday, and I haven’t written anything for this site yet this week. It goes to show how easy it is to let communications slip. You don’t have to write every day, but every day you don’t write, it becomes easier not to write the next day, too.
