Mark O'Brien's web development business management blog
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Thoughts on the 2009 HOW Design Conference
July 2, 2009 at 10:45 AM by Mark O'BrienLast week I was in Austin, TX. to present a few sessions at the annual HOW Design Conference. There were a few things that really knocked my socks off that are worth mentioning. First of all, the conference itself was perfectly run. I've been to plenty of conferences and the HOW people made running a conference look fun and effortless. Everything seemed to happen as and when it was intended to happen. I had heard this much about the HOW crew, so I wasn't necessarily surprised but was still impressed nonetheless. What did surprise me was the group of people attending the conference. In the middle of this economically difficult time about 2,000 designers of all ages, career stages, and locals came together in Austin. Now, I am not a designer, and I was a bit intimidated by having to present to a group of very hip designers that know their craft very well. I expected a crowd that was too cool for school, and I was dead wrong. The group at this conference was clearly there to learn, learn and learn as much as they possibly could. Both of my sessions ("Print to Web Breakthrough" and "Web Strategy that Works") were attended by hundreds of smart, eager and focused people who took constant notes, asked insightful questions and seemed to preface everything with a smile. I couldn't imagine a more engaged and good natured audience. Lastly, Austin - dear lovely Austin. Perhaps the greatest success of the conference coordinators was their choice of city, hotels and facilities. I had never been to Austin, was a bit weary of the hype, and was pretty surprised to find a city that lived up to every word of it. Austin, I miss you! |
Tags: HOW, conference, Austin
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DELICIOUSWin Without Pitching Webinars
June 2, 2009 at 3:43 PM by Mark O'BrienBlair Enns, one of Newfangled's mentors, has an excellent two part webinar series coming up that I'd recommend to any agency that is interested in sharpening their positioning in order to increase their sales close rate. "Positioning Your Firm, Part 1: Strategy" and "Part 2: Language" are sure to be content-packed webinars with some valuable and immediately implementable takeaways. All of Blair's webinars are free for members, and $99 for non-members. Blair hosts one webinar a month, and an annual membership to his site costs $395/year. Blair is directly responsible for the sales success of quite a few firms I've worked with, in addition to our own. You can sign up for the webinars on his website: WinWithoutPitching.com. I am also very pleased to announce that Blair will be guest hosting Newfangled's July webinar, which will be a 30,000 ft. overview of his Win Without Pitching sales process. You can register for this free webinar here. |
Tags: sales, Blair_Enns, Win_Without_Pitching, consulting, webinar
Download PDF EmailComments (0) Why are our web site costs what they are?
May 26, 2009 at 3:07 PM by Mark O'Brien| I understand that pricing is positioning. I also understand that marketing is what you do in order to ensure that you have the ability to choose only the best prospects to work for. That being said, it still pains me when I come across a client who has a real need for our services and respects our expertise but just can't afford us. What is interesting, though, is what I've learned about the public's perception of our pricing. Yesterday, a potential client who fit the mold described above told me that he knew we were going to charge a premium based solely on the excellent content on our site. He visited our site, did quite a bit of reading up on our newsletters and blogs, watched a video or two, and was convinced that we were the people with whom he should speak about his web project. He was also convinced that our web site cost would be comparatively high simply because we knew a lot. This was quite surprising to me, but I realize that I make that same assumption about brands all the time. The reality of the situation is actually quite different from what this man thought. It is true that our prices have gone up quite a bit over the years. From the outsider's perspective, it would seem that we just jacked up our prices as we became more well known as a web development firm. While those two things are true independently, they aren't directly related. What happened was this: as our experience grew, we realized that to consistently build and support great websites required quite a bit more time and more people than we had originally guessed. As recently as five years ago, we were a six person firm and would charge about 10k for a web development project. Today we are 18 people and charge 35k for a similar sort of project (One major caveat I have on this point is that what people consider a "standard" website has changed dramatically over the past five years). We didn't choose to triple our size because we had twelve friends who needed jobs. We needed to be this size in order to execute new projects perfectly, while simultaneously supporting all the sites we have already built. These additions increased our web site cost, but it also greatly increased our service, punctuality, quality and consistency. It used to be that we had one or two people handling the entire project from the sale to the prototyping, project management, programming, possible design, training, testing, and support. Today, we have seven different people who have various roles within any given project. We have more people uniquely involved in every single project today than we had in the entire company five years ago. Again, this isn't because we were eager to bloat our staff and our web site cost. This is a direct reaction to our increased understanding of what it takes to build a website perfectly time and time again. Getting a job done right once is easy. Getting almost every job done right the first time takes a whole lot more. I won't go into what all that entails here since we already have plenty pf articles on these topics, which I have linked to below. So, yes, our prices are high (although they are still a lot lower than a lot of other firms out there), but they are high because that is what it takes us to get the job done right the first time. Fortunately, companies recognize the value in that, and, even in this economy, are keeping us very busy building great sites every day. Related articles on Newfangled.com: The Cost of Good Service Website Development Pricing How Much (work) is a Website? A lot! Announcing Newfangled's Project Anatomy |
Tags: website, cost, perception, explanation
Download PDF EmailComments (2) Get a Little Uncomfortable
May 15, 2009 at 1:14 PM by Mark O'Brien| I've been listening to business books on tape during my commute since January. It has been wonderful. I've listened to more business books so far this year than I had read in the previous two years combined. One of the books I've had the pleasure of hearing is "The Knack" by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham. I loved Burlingham's book, "Small Giants," so I thought I'd give this a try. "The Knack" is more Brodsky than Burlingham, I suspect, but I loved it just the same. The theme was basically Business 101 from the entrepreneur's perspective, and the book was chock full of great bits of wisdom. There was one point, though, that really hit me. I don't recall the exact wording, but Brodsky's point was basically that you aren't doing everything you should be as a leader unless you are constantly putting yourself in situations that make you a little uncomfortable. Brilliant! At the time I was preparing for a speaking engagement which I knew was going to be our most important marketing event of the year, and which was only my second speaking gig ever. Was I a little uncomfortable? Yes, yes I was. Brodsky's point validated my discomfort, though, and actually instantly transformed it into fuel I could burn for motivation. My discomfort became encouragement because I new I was doing the right thing. Newfangled needed me to put myself out there; I knew I had a lot to say, and I knew that the attendees would want to hear it. I was nervous, but that was a great sign, just as not being nervous would be a warning sign. So here's my point--and my bridge: When you put yourself in situations that you know are for the good of your firm but that maybe scare you a little bit, you are opening your mind to a massive stream of self-education. Blair Enns, one of Newfangled's clients, friends, and mentors (sounds dangerous!), often encourages the agencies he consults to write and speak on their area of expertise regularly. He gives many great reasons for this, but one particular point he makes is that writing about your area of expertise makes you smarter. As usual, Blair is so very right. I started hosting monthly webinars for Newfangled back in January, and I really think I've learned more from hosting these webinars, on topics I already thought I knew quite well, than I have through any other source over the past year. I am amazed each month at how much I learn simply by preparing to educate a group of people about a specific topic in a formal setting. Prior to preparing for the webinar, all the thoughts are already flying around in my mind, but once I have to tell the story, my knowledge just somehow fuses together. It is my theory that the fear of not performing well in the webinar, blog post, or speaking engagement forces my brain to get it together and bring my best thoughts together and to the forefront. So, my advice is to get positioned and then hurl yourself into a wonderfully enriching arena of professional discomfort. You'll be glad you did. |
Tags: education, writing, speaking, webinars, Enns
Download PDF EmailComments (1) Let's outsource!
May 12, 2009 at 1:19 PM by Mark O'BrienI just received a great email from some apparently very smart people about why I should outsource Newfangled's programming work to India via the U.K. The subject line read:
"Outsoucing Report: Outsoucing Why isnt Eveny One Doing it?"Great question. I have no idea, really. |
Tags: communication, outsourcing, language
Download PDF EmailComments (5) Service in Web Development - The Long Term Relationship
May 1, 2009 at 10:57 AM by Mark O'Brien| What do clients expect of their web developer after their web site is built? This industry is a far cry from most all others in regard to the post-project needs of the customer. The main reason for this is that websites are never truly done. Cars are basically done when they are built, it is the same with homes, and even with most services rendered. As Chris Butler likes to say, "the internet is a work in progress." Simple tune-ups aren't enough. Websites need to be in a state of continual improvement and positive growth, lest they give the impression that they are aging and irrelevant. As Newfangled has been developing sites over the past fourteen years, we have come across a few nuggets that I consider to be fundamental truths of the web, and that quote from Chris is one of them. The expertise, service and technical capabilities for which we are hired at the project stage are all just as necessary during the post-project stage, to which refer as the relationship stage. The Relationship Stage Of course, there is a relationship in place during the initial project, but the relationship is just being built at that point, and the focus of that initial stage is the project, not the relationship. Once the project is done, we are left with a great website, and each other - the client and the developer. This is a very loose parallel to parents raising a child to maturity and then sending her off to school. There is the child, who is off on her own and doing great. Some of her raising stuck, some didn't, but the job isn't over. That young adult is going to need a good deal of nurturing, smart attention and, probably, a little cash now and again! We talk about this internally at Newfangled, how putting a site live is oddly similar at times to bringing a baby into the world, but I see now that the comparison goes far beyond the going live stage. Funny how writing exposes insights. So, this is what we've realized as an inescapable truth. Once the site goes live, our clients are going to need a lot of help from us, regardless of what anyone says or thinks. Now that we have gotten very good at building sites, we see that It is at the post-project stage that we make or break it. We are judged, ultimately, by our performance over the long haul. This has everything to do with our transition from simply hosting to Total Managed Support. Hosting is the essential bare minimum. We've done such a good job at keeping sites up that our clients actually never really even think about hosting, but just keeping a site up is nowhere close to good enough. We need to not only keep the site running, but we must also be constantly available for any type of question that our clients might have about a new feature they'd like to add to their site, a bug that popped up, or a question about the latest doodad or tech rumor. This is not a problem, it is actually a wonderful opportunity, and an honor. We've done a good job of fielding these requests, and that has resulted in almost all of our clients staying with us for a very long time. But this, in addition to guaranteeing 99.9% uptime, is not enough. In order for us to be the resource our clients need us to be, we need to be proactive. Now, for our Total Managed Support clients, we are proactively reviewing their site every month and getting in touch with them to bring their attention to things that are out of the ordinary, be it good news or bad. Each month we review our clients' Google Analytics accounts and their general on-page approach to SEO and proactively set up a meeting to discuss our findings. Basically, we have their back. Serve is a verb, and sitting back waiting for clients to call us isn't what we consider service to be. Total Managed Support is our way of doing everything we can to make sure our clients have every opportunity to keep their "web-based work in progress" in top form for the long haul. This is much more expensive than typical hosting, but it is money well spent, and necessarily spent. Starting in January of this year, all new clients were put on our Total Managed Support model. Since we realize that clients who choose Newfangled have a very high expectation of their site's performance, this service is not optional. Total Managed Support is the foundation of the promise we make to every client to be the expert resource they absolutely need us to be, for the entirety of what is sure to be a long and positive relationship. |
Tags: web_development, service, hosting, support, uptime
Download PDF EmailComments (2) A Sense of Place
March 27, 2009 at 4:30 PM by Mark O'Brien| What makes you want to stick around? If you decide to take a walk in the woods on a Sunday afternoon, aren't you more likely to take your time and meander around if you are on clearly marked trails, each with a beginning and end with which you're familiar? This would be in contrast to getting off trail, or lost somehow. When we get lost, our objective becomes urgently clear: get found and get out. If you all of a sudden find yourself lost in the woods, chances are your walk is going to end up being a lot shorter than it would have if you felt safe and comfortable the entire time. The same is true for websites. Because most of us use Google to find information on very specific topics, we often times find ourselves on web pages that are buried deep inside of websites we've never visited. If you are in charge of your firm's website, you need to be very cognizant of the fact that most people visiting your site might never actually see your home page. If you've got an effective content strategy in place, there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of pages on your site that Google is more interested in than your homepage, and Google is going to be directing people to those pages far more than your home page.  What does this mean? Well, as Eric wrote a few years ago, it means that every page is your home page. I suggest that you go through your site today, and analyze how usable each page is based on its own merits. Look at each page as if it were the only gateway into your site.If you landed on one of your site's deepest pages via a Google search, would your company's mission statement be evident? Would you know what kinds of information are available throughout the rest of the site? Would you be able to act on a clear and compelling call to action from that page? Would you instantly develop a sense of place, feel confortable where you are, and be encouraged to delve deeper into the site? This type of thing doesn't happen by accident. The only way new visitors can develop an intuitive and comfortable sense of where they are on your site is through a very well constructed Information Architecture. Wikipedia defines Information Architecture as "the art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, online communities, and software to support findability and usability." I think that sums it up quite nicely. Now, the science of actually creating a great IA is a much deeper topic than I can cover in this post, but we've got some great resources elsewhere on the site. The benefit of creating a site that rolls out the red carpet on every page is that your visitors will evolve from one time viewers who read a paragraph and take off, to engaged potential buyers whose interest has been piqued. By treating each page as your home page and making sure that you have simple, thorough, and consistent navigation systems in place, you will foster longer initial sessions, more frequent return sessions, and more conversions on your calls to action. |
Tags: usability google navigation Information_Architecture calls_to_action
Download PDF EmailComments (0) Website Calls to Action
March 18, 2009 at 7:00 pm by Mark O'Brien| Many of us think about getting large amounts of high quality traffic to our websites. This is obviously a necessary element for online success, but most people don't think about what to do with that traffic once it arrives. Mark Greco, a consultant at HubSpot, told me a while back that "if the only call to action on your site is your contact form, you're missing the boat." We were guilty of this at the time, as are most website owners. As marketers, our job is to make it very easy for conversions to happen on our site. This means creating expert content, and making sure it is easily indexed by Google, but it also means making it easy for your visitors to choose to get closer to you, to learn more about you, to hear from you regularly. Calls to action must be clear and present There should be calls on almost all of your pages, and they need to be clearly identifiable. You'll see an example of this in the right sidebar of this page. Calls to action must be compelling These calls have to build on the momentum you've created. The traffic is on your site for some reason, look to the causes to understand what more people would probably want form you. In our case, people come to us for our content, so we use two of our three calls to action to invite them to have access to even more content, and to receive our content in an automated way, through email or RSS. Calls to action must be easy to say yes to Don't make your audience jump through hurdles to act on your calls. Make them quick and easy to act on. Below are some examples of CTA we've used, and what our thought patterns are around them.
Instead of them finding us on Google, reading a nice article and promptly forgetting who we are, we now have set the seed of a relationship with them. Because they acted on one of our CTA, they are going to hear from us at least a few more times. Who knows how many of these 50 might need a website built for them, or someone they know, in the coming years? At least a few, I'm sure, and chances are pretty good that they might think of us when that time comes. So, I think this is pretty sound proof that this stuff work. I hope you're able to start implementing some smart Calls to Action on your site soon. |
Tags: newsletter, call_to_action, CTA, webinar, conversion
Download PDF EmailComments (1) You Only Know What Google Says You Know
February 22, 2009 at 7:46 PM by Mark O'BrienLately, I've been spending a whole lot more time talking about blogging than actually blogging. The good thing about this is that I've started to notice some trends and central themes that exist in the conversations I've been having, and this is one of the big ones. In this age of the Google-dominated web, everyone researches everything before they make a purchase. Be it a microwave, a camera, a car, or a house, you can bet that people are going to develop their opinions first and foremost from what they learn through the searches they perform on the product. Forget about the TV, print, radio, and billboard ads. The only thing you can do, as a marketer, to influence people's purchasing decisions is to get your message high up on Google's organic search rankings. Assuming you're marketing a service, your job as a marketer is to convey your expertise as accurately, thoroughly, and regularly as possible to Google, so that Google may refer the specific masses to you. Google is in the business of organizing the world's content, and the best way to woo them is by putting lots of specific expert content on your website. Let's look at an example. Say you own a high-end women's fashion store in one of the country's larger cities. You're in business, and doing exceptionally well, for two reasons: you've got a great eye, and you know how to create a meaningful and personal shopping experience that your clients can't get anywhere else. Because of these things, and probably a few other factors, you happen to have exclusive relationships with clothing and jewelry designers from around the world. Since you're in a big city, you're able to do well with local business accounting for 90% of your sales. But what if that city falls on hard times? Tying your fate to a specific locale is never a good plan if it can be helped, and it can almost always be helped. In this case, how many women around the world would be thrilled to have you show up at their door, with a few outfits in tow, that they could never get if they didn't have a relationship with you? In this economy, who knows, but we can be sure that there are far more around the globe, or even just across the country, than there are in any one city. If you're doing this well, you probably get great press, and that is wonderful; it establishes notoriety and credibility. What great press doesn't do, however, is give your "clients-to-be" a sense of what it might be like to work with you. In this case, a perfect strategy would be a blogging strategy. Blog from the big fashion events around the world about what you're seeing and what your thoughts are. Blog about your (anonymous) client interactions, past and present; blog about the service moments that have defined your career and success; blog about what you love about what you do, because that is why you're good at it. Blog blog blog blog blog. Blog for 30 minutes, 5 days a week, and you are going to have an impressive wealth of content on your site before too long. Have key members of your firm participate as well. The web is the dominant marketing medium for four reasons. A web marketing investment is quicker, cheaper, far more measurable, and much, much longer lasting than any other marketing investment one can make. This particular point on blogging highlights this last benefit. Your expert blog content will never stop working for you. Fashion changes daily. Service, intelligence, and insight shine on forever, and your great content detailing these aspects of your business will serve as an effective, passive, sales tool that works for you every moment of every day and never expires. Convey the subtleties of your expertise to Google. Let the select corner of the world you care about know that you are here to serve them. Let Google tell them. That's who they're asking anyway. |
Tags: advertising, service Marketing, Google, strategy,
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