Building Our Own Website

We recently went through a website redesign and it was a very interesting process for us. It revealed interesting things about how our company works together on projects and it reminded us what it is like to be on the other side of the web design process.

Mark and I served as the “clients” while the design, development and marketing team members served as both our web design agency but also contributing members of our staff. What an interesting dynamic it was, competitive and cooperative and amazingly productive. I think it brought our whole team together in a way I haven’t seen outside of brewing beer.

I saw how hard it is to communicate a vision sometimes and how exciting it is to have that vision transformed and enhanced. I also really felt the pain of my clients as we struggled to create all of the content for our new website. Luckily for me some of my staff members are great writers and we have some others who were awesome editors. Graphics were a no brainer, I knew they would be beautiful and development stepped up the plate to make everything work according to my “vision”.

Although I love to look at the portfolio and enjoy seeing all the work our team has done in a way I have never seen it before, I gotta love the staff page. Everyone wrote their own biography and each person was really encouraged to express their inner self in their “fun” photo. I think it is a great representation of our company. This page is really what our company is, us. Picture day was a blast and our photographer captured each person so well. Guess which member of our staff doesn’t put up with tom-foolery, although he has a great sense of humor?

We have a great base but we are still playing, updating and tweaking every day. We didn’t try to make sure our site had “everything” or did everything we want it to do right off the bat. It was launched as a child and will continue to grow and mature.

She’s a cute kid isn’t she?

Your Domain as a Business Asset

The first question I usually need to ask folks when they call us to create a new website or to redesign a site is "Do you control your domain name?".


Unfortunately, most folks don't know, don't know how to find out and they don't know how important it is.


Two TRUE nightmare scenarios that actual clients of mine have experienced:

1. Their domain name was purchased by an employee who left the company. The employee had made themselves the Registrant and so now controls the domain and will not relinquish control back to the company.
   
2. A domain was purchased by a vendor for the company and that vendor no longer exists. The vendor also made themselves the Registrant and Adminstrative contact and all email addresses associated with the vendor are now defunct. No one controls the domain and the company whose website uses the domain cannot change where their website is hosted. They may have to repurchase their domain at auction when it expires.

Sound bad? It is not uncommon, not at all. Part of the problem is the underlying belief that "This stuff is best left to the techies" and a lack of realization that YOUR DOMAIN NAME IS A COMPANY ASSET. It has value, and it should belong to your company and be controlled by your company.

How do you make this happen?

1. Know who your Registrar is. The Registrar is the company that maintains your domain record and from who you purchase the domain such as Network Solutions or GoDaddy. Keep the account login information printed out and on file where it can be found. The company should keep this information on file just like any other important account information such as your banking information. You would never lose your bank account information would you?
   
2. Be sure that your company is the Registrant for your domain. The Registrant has top level control and most importantly, the address associated with it should always be available. The Registrant ultimately owns the domain.
   
3. The Administrative Contact should be a person at your company who is your contact for all things website related. This person should be organized and detail oriented and responsible for making sure the domain is paid for and all information is up to date. If you change your phone number, the Adminstrative Contact can update your account information.
   
4. The Technical Contact should be your IT department or your Website Design company. This is where the techie comes in and the appropriate role for them to play. They can then control where the name points and when. And, as the Registrant you can change the Technical Contact at any time.

HINT: When selecting the email addresses that should be used for each of these, it is a good idea to create an "alias" or generic address so that when staff changes are made, you do not need to update the email addresses. For example: domain@yourcompanyname.com could be the Registrant email address, administrator@yourcompanyname.com could be the Administrative Contact and IT@yourcompanyname.com could be the Technical Contact. For example: When Jenny your assistant leaves, your IT department or consultant can forward the mail for adminstrator@yourcompanyname.com to the new staff member, and your domain record does not need to be changed and is always up to date.

How do you find out the current Registrar, Registrant, Administrative Contact and Technical Contact are for your domain name?

1. First you can check the Internic WhoIs database. Type in your domain name and the underlying information for your domain will be displayed. You can determine who your Registrar is from the results.
   
2. Then go to the Registrar's website and use their WhoIs service to determine the rest of the information. The Registrars are required to collect all of this information but not to display it, so the amount of information displayed may vary.

In most cases you can at least identify the Registrant. There are services available that help people to register domain names while keeping their information completely private or services that register the domains as a proxy. Determining the Registrants for those domains can be more challenging.

There are a lot more questions that arise such as "what to do if there is a problem or a dispute", but that is for another blog. Right now, ask yourself...

Do you know who controls YOUR domain name?

Social Media Success & Relationship Building

• Decisions are Emotional
• Relationships Foster Positive Emotions
• Develop Relationships with Consumers through Social Media

When anyone is marketing a product, what they are doing at the most fundamental level is trying to convince the consumer to make a decision to purchase that product. That decision might be whether or not they need the product at all, or whether one version of the product is more desirable than another.

At their core all decisions are emotional decisions. We like to think that we make decisions based on logic and facts, but rigorous scientific study does not bear out this fact. We make decisions based on how we FEEL about the choices more than how we THINK about the choices. Choices are more centered in the pit of our stomach than in our head. If we feel good about the decision, that is the most important thing. In fact, people who have brain damage affecting the emotional part of their brain have great difficulty making decisions even with all of the basic facts in front of them.

What does this mean for marketers? It means that creating a state of positive emotion surrounding your product is much more important than presenting a set of logical facts about why they should use your product or why your product is better. The consumer has to feel good about your product and feel good after making the decision to buy it.

One way that you as a marketing professional can instill these “feel good” emotions in consumers is to develop a RELATIONSHIP with them. We tend to trust those with whom we have relationships and we feel good about making a decision that includes them.

In business, we have all seen the power of relationships for good or bad in politics, business and our own families. We may find it frustrating, but if we acknowledge that it is real instead of trying to fight that you can work within that reality that emotion trumps logic for success.

Here is the real power of Social Media. Your focus in all of your social media interactions as a marketer should be built around the idea of building a strong relationship with your followers. Posts to your Social Media platforms that develop that “relationship” feeling are very similar to the types of information you share with a person when you are trying to develop a relationship. We share stories, feelings and intimate details about ourselves hoping to create a connection through shared experience and humor.

So talk to your followers like a friend. Tell them your intimate secrets, embarrassing stuff. They will love you for it. Every 5-10 posts or so, you can put in a plug for your product, but do it in a very conversational tone including an offer or special event or some other reason you are bringing it up. Other times talk about the weather, sports, television, news, tell jokes, relate funny stories. ASK QUESTIONS, just like real people, your followers like talking about themselves most of all.

Then when your followers are making a decision about what to buy, where to go or what to do…they are going to do it with their “friend”, YOU!