How to Translate Your Marketing Objectives Into Technology Choices

Marketing Objective: "Be there" for your customers when they want you - whenever they want you. Who's your Target Audience? Geographically, where is your Target Audience? How & when will they access your site? Marketing Concern: Are your customers Web-savvy? Or are they reluctant computer novices, forced by down-sizing and "not enough hours in the day" to do product research on the Internet? Do they have the latest equipment or are they "making do" with elderly computers? Regardless of whether you sell Internationally or your customer base is located within the United States, your customers can be using any type of browsers and computer equipment to access your site. They can be using high-speed access lines or slow-speed modems, from work, from home or on the road. Overseas internet access can be very costly, as well as unreliable. Oftentimes, your International customers are being charged a "per minute" connect fee. And what about the costs of connecting to the Internet from your hotel room, anywhere in the World? Yike$! The scenario of an expensive wait for irrelevant / design only information is not only unacceptable to your customers, it also means that your Marketing message won't get seen...because your customers simply won't wait for it. Therefore, download speed needs to be your top priority. Your target audience can be knowledgeable users -- or novices to whom the specter of downloading a Web plug-in spells a major disaster...so they'll click off your site and go visit your more user-friendly competitor.... And, lastly, your customers could be accessing you 7x24x365 from around the World. Your challenge as a Marketeer is to ensure that your site can be seen -- and used -- by your customers, anytime, anywhere! Technology Translation: Your web site design needs to be non-browser or hardware specific. Use straightforward, basic code that any browser can handle. No fancy plug-ins. No proprietary languages (i.e., Active X controls). Use text, not gif images, for navigation. (Because of the cost of connecting to the Internet, people turn off the image-loading option on their browsers.) Using text also, by the way, puts you in compliance with the Disabilities Act for text-reading voice translation programs. Image size: optimum image size should be under 24k, larger images should be divided to load separately to decrease download time. No unnecessary code (i.e., Front Page, Adobe Dreamweaver). Focus on server side processing, not client side. For example, database applications need to return the answer in 3 clicks (3 passes back and forth from the server) or less. Reliability: 100% uptime.

Marketing Objective: Enhance your image of a practical, straight-forward, reliable company that knows your customer's needs. Technology Translation: Use the best tool for the job. This may mean animated gifs to convey movements, etc. vs. Flash. Although animated gifs can be considered "old technology", they convey the message - and work in all browsers! These can be done as effectively as Flash - in most cases. When you need to use plug-ins (such as for Video), use the most practical plug-in: i.e., it's free, it works with the widest variety of browsers in all versions, etc. Provide video in two formats: network and modem. Provide a text summary of what the video's about - for those who don't want to take the time to download the video. Reliability: 100% uptime.

Marketing Objective: Deepen your relationships with your preferred customers and vendors through the creation of Extranet Sites. Technology Translation: Password protection. Ability to create sites quickly. Domain name purchasing and management.

Marketing Objective: Control your Marketing image: Build Web sites for your Distributors and Direct Operations. Technology Translation: You need to be able to clone & produce sites quickly. Domain Name registration. Site hosting.

Marketing Objective: Contain Web Site Development and Maintenance Costs. Development and Budget Costs are important concerns for Marketing Services. You need to produce dynamic, information- packed Web sites quickly, efficiently and effectively - or the cost to the company will quickly outweigh the benefits of having a marketing-driven Web site. Technology Translation: License costs / Program fees. Equipment Costs Top tier positioning for Search Engines: you don't have the time or resources to do extensive Search Engine registrations.

Marketing Objective: Enable electronic commerce with your Vendors and Preferred Partners and positioning the Company for eventual "ordering on the Web" with direct end user customers. Technology Translation: We have no idea as to what e-commerce platform our vendors, preferred partners, etc., will be using. Therefore, our strategy is this: if we stick to the basics (HTML, no proprietary languages, etc.), than we can integrate into anything.

Conclusion:

To meet your Marketing Objectives, your Web site should meet a Technical Web Site Objective of getting to solid information in 3 Clicks & 6 Seconds - or less!

Note: There are many ways of creating compelling/attractive design that do not adversely affect download time- those listed above are good examples of how this may be achieved. Your site needs to also appeal to those with high end equipment without sacrificing usability for the other segment of our customers. We really can be cool and slick without causing frustration to your target audience!