Now this is a large NZ company so I would have expected to see someone with a digital background involved in the decision process and not just the accountant as they do have a tendency to look at the dollars instead of the opportunity.

They built a website in Flash (that only has one page), used Google Analytics to measure success or otherwise (which you can’t do with only one page) and emailed their existing customers telling them about the site. Everyone who subsequently (re)signed was sent a weekly text reminder that there was a new recipe to download. To be honest it was average on all counts and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why they had not used Google Adwords to drive traffic.

A quick search on the keyword tool tells me that there are hundreds of thousands of local recipe searches made every month with Google alone. If you are still not convinced then how about measuring the effectiveness of Google Adwords by using a coupon or voucher redeemable in store? Google Adwords is instant traffic, and in most cases highly qualified. Don’t be so short sighted that you do not allow some sort of PPC budget to kick start your campaign, you can throttle the daily spend giving you even greater piece of mind.

One more thing, why would you text existing customers at great cost to come back to your site and download a new recipe? Why wouldn’t you just email it to them directly? It was a classic example of technology envy where the decision maker had seen (most likely) a competitor use text and decided they too had to have it without actually knowing why.

Fail….and so did the campaign.

• who is my target audience?
• what do you want them to do?
• what are the companies goals?

If in doubt. Ask more questions and your site will have a much better chance of success. Many people want to avoid these planning costs and get straight into development, this is not advised as you will pay for this in the short term through unnecessary programming, in the medium term through bugs/fixes and in the long term your site is less likely to succeed.

At an absolute minimum, do a sitemap. Put some thought into what it is you want, the more effort you put in up front the greater your chances of success. Good luck

So do they really work? I personally don’t think they do and here is the reason why. Customers do not find your company through a business directory, they find you through a search directory such as Google. There are definite SEO benefit’s from listing your business in some relevant local directories, but you do not need to pay for their services. You will still receive the same SEO benefits from your free business directory listing that you do from the paid. It makes no difference if you have a fancy font or bright lights around your name because customers are not searching there.

You may or may not have noticed lately that search directories are paying to be top of Google paid search. I hear alarm bells ringing. Why if they are so good at directing traffic to your site do they need to pay for Google leads? I will let you figure that one out.

A good place to start for your business directory listing is www.finda.co.nz. Personally I wouldn’t pay for any additional services as I do not think there is any benefit, your money would be much better spent on developing your own web presence with a cheap or free web solution from a company like www.openbox.co.nz and a Google Adwords campaign.

I have been doing some homework on entry level web solutions that are currently available in the NZ market, to be honest I didn’t find much. There was however one solution that appeared superior in its offering, that was a company called OpenBox. The one thing that stood out for me with OpenBox was the quality of their content management solution, it was very intuitive and comes well supported with “how-to” videos and tutorials. You can implement your own website which will cost you nothing, or you can have them set it up for you for an unbelievably small fee of $599. In both cases you get unlimited pages, photo galleries, blogs and so much more. There is a small monthly hosting fee of $49.95 with no contract, enabling you to cancel at anytime. You get 24 hour live chat support as well which was a nice touch.

But that’s not all these guys offer. They will design a logo for $399 and this includes unlimited changes!! They also offer a package where they will design your logo, business cards and stationery all for $699. There is a range of other services so if you are a small/medium enterprise these guys could be exactly what you are looking for.

I think the best approach is to select one social medium and do it well. But which platform should your business choose? Ask yourself these questions to help get you started:

1. What is it you want to achieve with social media? Set some goals
2. What social mediums will best help me achieve my goals?
3. How will we encourage discussion? But also remember, with social media you have very little control over the conversation
4. Who will manage this? And this applies across the digital spectrum, like a child your digital presence requires love and attention. Did you really think by just building your website you would get rich?
5. How will we pay for this? The green stuff doesn’t grow on trees, it has to come from someones budget
6. How will we measure success?

Get all your ducks in a row before you register with any social site. Good luck.

Sitefinity is a certified partner so please feel free to submit any questions you may have re Sitefinity through our contact us page.

www.lumley.co.nz

eCommerce is eCommerce, and when I searched on Google this morning there were over 50 million results. So how can you have partial eCommerce? The simple answer is you can’t, because eCommerce sees a transaction completed online, not offline, that’s why its call Electronic Commerce.

This is a classic example of a supplier taking advantage of an unsuspecting customer. What this highlights is that you should always shop around and if you have a friend or family member in the know by all means consult them. It could save you thousands of $$$.

1. Will you go with a PHP or .Net solution? Both have their pro’s and con’s
2. Once you have a preferred language you now need to do some research on preferred solutions. The more work you do at this point, the less likely you are to experience issues during the project. Problems occur when the customer doesn’t “understand” what the developer is saying and interpretation of project specifics is different.
3. Bespoke or Out-of-the-box? In 99.9% of case you would be mad to build your own eCommerce application. Out-of-the-box solutions (in most cases) are well tested, stable solutions, they have been there and made the mistakes so you don’t have to. To build a bespoke solution will (generally) cost you considerably more (depending on the levels of complexity) than an out-of-the-box solution. Why re-invent the wheel?
4. What payment gateway will you use? – all out-of-the-box eCommere solutions  come with out-of-the-box payment gateways, but does your preferred eCommerce solution come with your preferred payment gateway. This is important because if it does not then this will add $$ to your project
5. Who will be your merchant provider? Check with your bank and their competitors to compare these prices.  Remember, merchant suppliers take a few percent of each transaction.
6. What will the site look like? – at least have some wire-frames to share with your developer.
7. Where will the site be hosted? Most companies host their web solution on an external web server, remember you need to consider this cost.
8. Who will be the internal champion? We still see the the marketing junior getting lumped with the web project. The web is serious business so make sure the correct internal resource is allocated.

None of what is listed is rocket science. But by doing a little bit of preparation up front, you can (potentially) save yourself headaches later.

Netfinity is proud to launch it’s AbleCommerce specialist sites for Australia and New Zealand found at www.ablecommerce.com.au and www.ablecommerce.co.nz.

Spreadit is a tool for creating and managing competitions and promoting it virally using social media networks and email. The competition is designed to give away free products over a short time e.g. “1 free iPhone every hour for 24 hours”. The entrants register and get into the draw by telling their friends about it. Spreadit handles the participant registration, social network monitoring, announcement of winners and activity reporting.

For more details go to Spreadit