work smarter
Define project goals
Define the holistic goals of the organisation and/or project.
We look at what we are trying to achieve, rather than how a website can achieve this. A website may not be the best way to achieve your goals, depending on what they are and on your target audience. If, after this process a website is a good use of resources, we define what role the website will have in the bigger picture strategy.
Define website goals.
What it is that we are trying to achieve with the website. Are we looking to:
- create brand awareness
- promote a product or idea
- increase sales
- educate our audience
- increase community interaction
- create behavior change
- become famous
- etc etc
Define Budget
How much skills/time/money is availabe for implementation and more importantly, how much skills/time/money is availabe for ongoing management.
Different budgets mean that we approach some aspects in different ways. By understanding the budget (no matter on the size), we can present a business case to maximise the return on this investment.
Create management strategy
Managing and promoting websites generally generates more return than the initial installation and setup. We define the ongoing tasks and roles that are required to achieve your goals through the ongoing running of the site. This generally means promotion, content production, customer/community interaction and managing your social media.
These roles are generally filled by people within the organisation and tasks may be added to existing staff (or management’s) general job description. For the larger budget jobs, we will define a new job position and assist you in finding the right candidate for the job.
Analogy: Say you are starting a Courier business. The type of vehicle you buy (and the fiance model) affects the potential capabilities and professionalism of your business. However, even the most fancy truck does not make you money while sitting in your warehouse. To run a successful courier business, you need to promote it, build customers and customer loyalty. The profit is made from working the truck and making sure it is always being utilised in the most efficient way which requires roles such as sales, customer support and truck driving. In a start-up, one person may do all roles.
Marketing Strategy
Our online marketing strategies extend beyond your website to include channels such as search engines, user generated content, social media sites, direct marketing and traditional marketing. Please see our get found page for more information on our marketing strategy.
Identify best implementation
Now that we understand what we are trying to do and understand how much resources we have, we then plan the best way to implement this.
Branding and design
We look much deeper than pretty graphics when designing our digital media. Inspiring websites and other digital media are a perfect blend of aesthetics and functionality. Please see our design page for more information on our design strategy.
Technology
There are many technologies and approaches and all have their pro’s and con’s. Some are expensive, some are free. Some are expensive to setup but cheap to run and vise versa. We develop a technology plan that will achieve your goals in the best and most efficient way.
We also investigate appropriate partnerships and utilisation of existing services as this can substantially increase capabilities and reduce costs (especially for smaller budgets) to create a mashup. For example, why spend the costs of implementing and hosting video when YouTube will do it for your better, allow you to leverage their massive audience and do this for free.
During this process we define what skills the client has that can be used and identify any specialist skills that we will need a partner to implement.
Technology plans may include phases, so that we can achieve objectives within a limited budget initially and when cash flow increases or business models are proven, we can adopt an upgraded phase 2 approach.
Deployment
Technology implementation
Train managers and users
We train and support the people who will be using the technology on how to use it efficiently. More information can be found on our training page
Manage and support
Once we have the technology implemented and the people trained, we offer ongoing technology management, training, content production and support services.
Tweak and Improve
Your website and marketing strategy should be reviewed regularly with a thorough analysis of statistics and trends to ensure you are achieving the maximum return on your time and investment. Marketing and promotion strategy should be continually refined, based on statistical feedback and results.
Websites continually evolve and require ongoing adjustment of strategy, management and technology implementation. There are many reasons for this and may include:
- you are learning from your successes and mistakes
- you are listening to your audience feedback and requests
- your site outgrows its original specification
- your goals and objectives shift or expand
- technology and approaches improve
- you need to keep up with your competitors innovation or changes in your industry
- to keep up with technology evolution including upgrades and security patches etc
As you and your people learn and become more savvy, your need for external services and suppliers (such as Dvize) is reduced, allowing you tweek your management business model to invest your budget in other areas.