I have just finished writing the fourth website requirements document for as many clients in just a few weeks and am amazed by how important these documents are to the success of the overall web development process for both the client and the developer. While some websites are quite straightforward and require little more than the ability to change the content, other sites can be quite complex. Whether you are a large company or SME, if the website you want falls into the complex category (i.e., e-commerce, customer back end access, multiple levels of content management), then you want to be sure that the web developer you hire creates a requirements document that you can review together before they start to build the site. 

A requirements document is intended to ‘protect’ both you and the developer. The last thing you want is an invoice for work that you didn’t approve or a website that has features you didn’t request. A requirements document will help to avoid these ‘surprises’ by clearly articulating all of the elements you and the developer have agreed to for the website.

From the developer’s perspective, the document is intended to avoid what we call ‘mission creep’. Mission creep refers to additional requests made by clients after they have signed off on a project. The problem with mission creep is that it affects both the timeline to develop the site as well as the total development costs. At the end of the day, we want our clients to be satisfied on multiple levels: timeframe for a site to go live, cost and end result. 

What should you look for in a requirements document? 

Click on the link to read the complete marketing article.  

I was just listening to the radio and came across a business discussion in which a branding expert was talking about marketing. I know the guy and he is a very knowledgeable and eloquent speaker. He was talking about how important perfection is in marketing. The importance of focusing on fonts and not using lots of them or choosing and sticking to a specific colour or colours for your branding, etc. Everything he said was correct but as he spoke, something struck me like never before.

Marketing is like a million-piece jigsaw and most people think that to be successful in business you need to finish the whole jigsaw.

The fact is that “finishing the jigsaw” is only possible for large corporate companies with hundreds of staff and huge budgets and even then they rarely get beyond the 900 thousandth piece! The reality for the rest of us is that we have to make do with completing a fraction of the jigsaw. So how can SMEs be successful without completing the jigsaw? Quite easily actually - stop worrying about the whole picture!

Just like a jigsaw, marketing is about the pieces. But each form of marketing is not a single piece, but a cluster of pieces that make up a small part of the picture. Therefore, don’t worry about the million pieces and simply focus on the 50 pieces that make up one recognisable part of the whole picture…

This is just a small portion of the Marketing Article on our main website.

There are literally hundreds of ways to market and promote a business these days. Print marketing, online marketing, viral marketing, guerrilla marketing, blog marketing…and the list goes on. For every marketing discipline there are about a million ways you can get it wrong. So in reducing this long list down to seven I looked at the things that cut across as many marketing disciplines and cause the biggest issues when you get the wrong.

So here goes (and feel free to comment or add your own major marketing sins to the list)

1) Treating Marketing Spend As A Cost
Marketing is an investment like any other investment. Treat it like a cost and you won’t plan properly or be consistent and you’ll always be looking for ways to ‘save’ money. You’ll let the newspaper ‘design’ your ads, you’ll choose your website designer based on price alone rather than what your business needs, etc.

2) No Marketing Budget
Not having a marketing budget is a sure-fire way to waste money. You’ll spend money on unplanned activities that may or may not provide a return and you may even spend more than you ever thought you would. A budget creates a framework to work in and gives you a yard stick to track your success or otherwise.

3) No Specific Target Audience
We all want to do business with everyone and it’s a great goal, but that can’t be achieved unless you have truly enormous budgets. For anyone whose business name doesn’t start with “A” and end in “PPLE” you need to pick a target customer and go after them. This allows you to properly target your message and the type of media etc.

4) No Understanding Of Your Customer Needs
Every customer has a need - you just need to find out what that is. Not knowing and assuming is a sure-fire way to waste money. If you’re a corporate then you’ll run research programs and focus groups. If you’re a small business owner, talk to your customers and identify why they chose you.

5) No Marketing Plan
If you don’t have a plan you’ll just meander through your year and be swayed by this or that. Ultimately you’ll waste whatever budget you did put together. It doesn’t have to be an epic novel, even a one-pager will do. Think about the activities you can afford then spread your budget across each quarter and remember seasonality. Now drill-down to each month and then finally match the activities to each month.

6) No Tracking Mechanism
If you don’t track the results of your activities you may be doomed to waste your spend. Even the best campaigns get stale, how will you know when that happens without tracking?

7) Be Consistent
When things don’t go to plan it’s so easy to put the brakes on and in some cases get into reverse gear. But do this at your peril; you could harm your bottom line and your brand awareness efforts. It also delivers inconsistent results that lead to uncertainty and that leads to more bad decisions. You don’t have to carry on regardless, but rather than jst stopping, take time to review and adjust accordingly.

OK, that’s it - my 7 deadly sins of marketing. Want to see the presentation about all this? Visit www.thedggroup.ie/marketing-articles.asp.