117 pencils useful web site making company
cba 117 pencils | Fri, 2008-08-15 17:14
sketch descriptions for clarification:
1. large, seriously over grown lawn.
2. horrific, garish decor; wallpaper and part of framed painting.
3. an outside door bell next to the front door of a house. image on label below label left of writing: bouquet of flowsers.
4. a cooker
5. car key whose remote button says "get groceries"
"company.com" (in the bottom right) is a place holder for the client's actual name/webaddress.
client: a company which makes websites for their clients. to their clients websites are marketing tools - so that's what they want to offer - marketing tools not websites or web design. and this web site making company's thing is: in order to make a successful website it should be a useful one. useful for their client's clients/customers. that's their usp: genuinely useful sites (to the pont of being services) for their client's clients/customers, not static useless brochure sites.
target audience for ads: small to medium companies. ones which offer products and/or services.
goal of the ads: increase the web making company's prospective clients' expectations of what a website can do and should be. and get web making company's prospective clients to visit their website.
any thoughts/suggestions/improvements/guidance/input much appreciated.
thanks.
8 Comments
are you not able to offer me any thoughts/suggestions/improvements/guidance/input ?
that often happens so don't really take it too much.
I find it really hard to get what you want to tell me. I don't understand any of these.
You're a managing director of a small company. An accountants say. And you want your business to be successful or at least continue to survive in business; keep its head above water. That's the situation you're in and who you are (and who the ads are aimed at). You're under some pressure and interested in anything that can genuinely help your business.
I think it's OK for me to have to explain that. If still after me having described that, and assuming you have managed to put yourself in that position, put yourself in those shoes when you see the ads, and they still don't make any sense then there's definitely a problem.
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There's three parties involved; there just are, it's a fact of the situation:
1. the web site/service making company (who the ads are advertising)
2. company who wants to market their company better (who the ads are aimed at)
3. people who are #2s potential or current clients/cusomters. (who will be using #2's web service made by #1)
To be successful #1, when they're commissiioned by a #2 to do a web site/service, need to tailor their work for #3s (within the context of #2). Tailoring websites for #3s is #1's selling point.
General observation: Often #3s completely get forgotten in the web site making process. They're not usually physically present while the website/service is being made, unlike #1 and #2. But #3 in a lot of ways are the most important party in the website making process but they're often left out and forgotten. Hence why there's so many broshureware, shiny-but-useless websites out there, which amount to a waste of time for who commissioned them and are unsuccessful for all involved. As marketing, they're failures ---- because they're useless (to the people who use, or don't as the case may be, use them).
There's a wide variety of different #2s (#2s being who #1 wants to talk to with these ads). Different types of companies (architects, accountants, shops, garden designers, florists, taxi firms etc. etc. -- almost endless list) who all do different things for their customers/clients. Each of those companies do something useful for their customers. Allow them to do something. If a #2 were to get a web site/service from #1 their web site/service would make it even easier for their #3s to do what #2 already allows them to do. What #1 is offering is a form of marketing for #2s. Useful marketing. Useful to #2's #3s.
Another general obvservation: Marketing isn't usually seen as something that's useful by customers (who marketing is aimed at). Although saying that, in fact useful marketing is plentiful. Useful marketing rises above marketing in people's minds; It isn't seen as marketing. For example, the product milk. Part of its marketing has been milk floats, milkmen etc. -- the whole having milk delivered service. That's milk marketing, but isn't really seen as marketing by milk customers because it's so darn useful to them (marketing is generally useless to them they feel). It's seen as a *service*. Useful marketing = service, not marketing (in people's minds). A website run by a company for it's customers which further their service, what they offer, can migrate into a service in people's minds if it's useful to them. And that's the kind of websites my client makes for their clients.
So, companies enable/empower their customers to do something. With a webservice their customers would be even more enabled/empowered to do that something; which is good marketing for the company. And the making of a web service is what #1 is offering companies.
Does any of that make the problem or/and the ad suggestions clearer?
maybe I'm dim, but it doesnt help
what is it you don't understand?; the background (what the ads are advertising and who they're aimed at), the ads themselves, both, other...?
"company.com" is the company being advertised by the ads and is just a placeholder name.
Company.com make websites for people who commission them to. Useful functional ones.
A website which stands for any company (like an architects company) is a marketing tool for that company. A lot of already existing websites for companies are useless; Useless to the company's customers, so in turn, useless to the company (to market successfully using a website it must be useful to the company's customers - that is company.com's mantra).
So say you, to make this relevant to you, are the owner of a small/medium sized company. You would like to keep your head above water, be successful even. Company.com are offering you a way to market your company. A website which allows people to use your company.
Given that your company does something useful for some people, a website which makes it even easier for people to make use of your company will make your company more useful to those people. Useful (to your customers) marketing is what company.com is offering you/your company.
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That's the background, now the ads themselves. (the numbers in the following refer to the three ads)
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Depicted or inferred are things which need doing, things which someone wants to do (1. lawn which needs cutting, 2. room which needs redecorating, 3. girl who guy wants to give flowers to). These are things which particular specific companies do for people; services which are offered (1. by a garden maintenance company, 2. by a decorator, 3. by a florist). With a webservice from company.com, those company's customers would be able to do/get done the thing which needs doing a whole lot easier, almost effortlessly. They'd be able to trigger and use the company via the company's webservice, so they'd be able to get the job done with a button press essentially, hence the buttons in the ads.
I think the, or at least a, problem with the ad suggestions is: the variety of companies who company.com wants to talk to is large and wide. Each ad is only able to be particular to one type of company. Whoever happens to see one of these ads are highly unlikely to happen to be the type of company who provides the service which'll get the depicted-in-the-ad-job done.
Imagine you are actually a florist; you deliver flowers within your local area. And you receive in the post a piece of direct mail (a postcard say) which is ad number 3 above. Does the whole thing at least make sense to you now?
So maybe these ads should be placed in trade magazines for example, and the ad tailored appropriately for whichever trade.