I’m going to be redoing my website soon.

In fact, I’ll be redesigning it and changing it time and time again over the coming months and years because the damn thing keeps going out of date.

But so it is for all businesses, including yours.

A website is never ‘finished’. Never out of beta testing. Never safe to let it rest on its online laurels.

It’s unbelievably annoying, especially when we are all so busy and the marketing budget is tight as hell.

So I thought you might be interested to see my tips for how to approach a website brief and how to go about appointing a good agency to do the job for you.

Actually, it’s the latter that bothers me the most. 

Most good marketers and business owners have clear views on their communications and business development objectives, and many know what they need to achieve.  (See the questions below if you want a bit of help with that).

I find that the trickiest bit tends to be finding the right people to help, because there are all sorts of options out there and no shortage of web wizards prepared to blind you with science and bore you with technobabble.

Other than a few shining examples of excellence, my experience is that the market broadly divides into three. 

So at the risk of upsetting everyone with hugely unfair generalisations, you can end up with a choice between:

1. The freelance programmer who can build you a fully functioning site quickly based on some simple templates and an impressive love of HTML, XML, SEO and MySQL. Often the cheapest option, but unfortunately programmers usually make very poor designers and some use some really dire templates. Needs a lot of supervision.
2. The graphic design agency which puts visuals first, turning your website into a thing of beauty which gets you envious looks. But a bit too fond of Flash and other user-unfriendly gizmos, and don’t think enough about a structure of a site or the back-end stuff. Needs a lot of supervision.
3. The digital marketing consultancy which does it all, integrating and optimising your every online and offline move. They’re usually very thorough in their analysis of your business needs, but it’s a pricey service. They’re happiest talking Web 2.0 and will try to sell you all sorts of other services afterwards. Needs a lot of supervision.

Which to choose? 

Well, much depends therefore on your budget, preferred outcome and how much time you’ve got to manage the whole project. Did I mention supervision?  Yes, you’ll need to set aside plenty of time for this.

Generally I look for a team which has the right balance between heart-stopping visual creativity, bottom line business pragmatism and nerd-like obsession with technical programming and SEO. Oh, and great client handling skills too. I have found some really good teams like that, but sadly it’s not a mix you find that often.

Second, I now put my greatest trust in agencies which don’t try and tie me in to their bespoke content management system. I’ve heard the arguments on both sides, but sorry guys, my mind is increasingly made up these days that a future-proofed, portable, scaleable site needs to be built using Umbraco or a similar mainstream open source CMS.

Third, the Achilles heel of almost all agencies is their writing skills. Writing for the web is completely different from other sorts of copywriting. I look for a team who understand that, and which demonstrates brilliant attention to detail. More often, I do it myself.

Finally, I take up references now about after-sales service. Once the technical specification for a website is signed off, too many agencies just churn you through the sausage machine. They’re off finding the next client. 

I want to be nurtured, proactively contacted with ideas for ongoing tweaks and simple improvements that won’t cost much, and no nasty surprises in the maintenance contract. I want evaluation and regular metrics built in from day one, with hands-on help and free advice on how to measure things ourselves using tools like Google Analytics.

Like most consultants, I’ve neglected my own website for far too long. And I'm no digital guru, by any means. But I regularly project manage and supervise the creation of new websites for my clients, so these tips (and prejudices) are based on real life experience. 

What has your experience been? If you have any other tips, I’d be glad to hear them.

Five simple steps to inform a website brief
 

1. Understand your business goals and what you want a website to do for you.

2. Understand your priority target audiences.

3. Understand what products, services and areas of expertise will fuel your economic future for the next 12 months, and think about the content which shows this off to its best advantage.

4. Understand your customers’ purchasing journey, the information they need at different stages to help them buy from you, and the other actions you want them to take along the way.

5. Understand what’s currently bringing traffic to your existing website and what people are doing once they find you.

There is also some great advice on website design and creation on the Design Council website (look for the 'Getting a great website' guide on www.designcouncil.org.uk)

Ok, I'm going to be a bit outspoken here.

I'm on the attack against the Bah Humbug Brigade. The finance director who cut the Christmas Card budget because times are tough, it cost a few hundred quid and it was too much bother anyway. And the marketing manager who decided that it would be "greener and more socially responsible" to just send everyone an email instead.

Boo. Boring. Where's your Christmas spirit guys?

Sure, Christmas cards are still a bit out of fashion.

But I can think of no better way than a creative, well designed card to send a message of Christmas blessings and genuine thanks to all the people who make our working life so fulfilling and full of laughter and fun.

By all means give a donation and/or your time to charity too (big plug here: the Construction Youth Trust is doing some awesome work to get disadvantaged young people into the UK construction industry and it's a great cause to support if you really want to give something back to benefit the future of the industry).

But we also believe in the huge power of a Christmas card and the message of love and laughter we can send out every year.

That's why this year's card is a Ration Book. (Download a copy of the PDF by clicking on the picture above or the link below)

Liz Male Consulting has joined forces with the Ministry of Austerity to bring you a carefully rationed package of silliness and satire. A seasonal allowance to offset against cuts of any sort. Plus a collection of outrageously disrespectful low carbon recipes for the construction industry, and a carol with a twist.

We hope our card brings a bit of a giggle amidst the gloom. As the warning poster says: LAUGHTER IS IN PERIL. DEFEND IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT.

Our thanks go as always to Mike Spike, designer of our Christmas card for many years (see our earlier versions on the Fun Stuff page).

We also thank you, clients, suppliers and friends for all your support this year. Have a very, very Happy Christmas.

Ration_Book2010.pdf (3.50 mb)

Sadly, I missed it. But the other day at Ecobuild a group of eagle-eyed marketeers went on a guided tour of the Ecobuild exhibition.

Led by Rick Osman of Highwire Design for CIMCIG - the Chartered Institute of Marketing's construction interest group - they scanned a selection of exhibition stands looking for the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Rick then published a very useful and diplomatic guide - the CIMCIG Walkabout Notes (PDF) - which highlighted how many companies could increase the effectiveness of their stand by simple adjustments of the display material.

It's an excellent read. Some of his top tips include:

• Ensure your stand gives clear and unambiguous messages about who you are and what you do (no matter how well known your brand might be).
• Make information readable from the aisle, always keep words above waist level, and provide pictures of case studies.
• The display should be rooted in the product itself and its benefits.
• Ensure well-stocked brochure holders.
• Consider use of good, large explanatory drawings and plenty of examples.
• Avoid any rubbish on your stand (busy-ness and activity should not degenerate into messiness).
• Never eat on your stand.
• Don't create a fortress by putting large displays/counters/products at the front of a stand which act as a barrier.
• Don't put videos at the back of your stand and then stand in front of them!
• A4 is far too small a size to be an exhibition poster.

For professional services companies, Rick's advice is spot on:

"For consultancies and similar companies, the lesson is the same as for a product supplier - tell visitors who you are and what you do, and rather than displaying actual products use the benefits of using the consultancy and ensure this is backed up with case studies."

Of course I'm not as diplomatic as Rick. So when I did a bit of a tour of the exhibition myself each day, I will admit that I was struck even more by the lack of human engagement by some of the exhibitors:

This stand (see above) looks busy but actually the people on it are the guys from the stand next door, picking over the marketing materials and samples on display. The stand itself was entirely un-manned every time I passed it during the three days of the exhibition.

This stand (see above) just made me sad. Maybe he was tired out from a flurry of new business enquiries and decided to have a quiet sit down for an hour or two. But never have I seen a company representative look so bored, lonely or dejected. If you see him next year, please buy him a coffee and stop for a chat?

In contrast, I'm breaking all rules of impartiality and giving the People Make The Difference Award to my client Inbuilt (see above), who put on a series of free '20 Minute Briefings' talks on their stand. Even the youngest consultants there had the gumption to stand in front of a crowd of strangers, put on a microphone and launch energetically into a presentation on some critical aspect of sustainability in the built environment. Every day, every hour, they'd put on a show - even if, at first, there was just a single person in the audience.

So by all means invest in a fantastic stand and the best brochures money can buy, but don't forget that it's your people who make exhibitions commercially successful. There's some great advice on all aspects of exhibition marketing, particularly the people bit, at this website - Exhibition-Stand-Training.com. 

I was asked by an editor to give some thought to what makes for good marketing and business in the face of another year of hardship in the building and construction industry. So below are my 5 Tell-Tale Signs of what, in my humble opinion and my experience of two severe industry recessions, mark out the winners from the losers.

You can also read our 'Seven Day Plan' (top tips for a week's worth of things companies can do to improve their marketing and communications) in today's TTJ magazine - see page 22.

What would you add to this list? Please do drop me a comment below.

1.  Winners invest in relationships
… and they invest in the people who forge these relationships. They listen closely to the sales team and front line staff, and are passionate about little things that make a big difference.  They find time for real conversations. 

2.  Winners wear their customers’ socks
They keep looking outwards, eyes firmly on the horizon.  They actually know more about their customers’ businesses than they know about their competitors (never the other way around). They prioritise market research and market intelligence, have a powerful contacts database or CRM system, and they could make spookily well-informed guesses about the issues that will be discussed at their customers’ next Board meetings.  They sell solutions, not materials with a mark-up.

3.  Winners don’t let the stress show
In recessions, customers need a lot of reassurance.  Winners always stay true to their corporate values and keep communicating.  They remain easy to do business with. They are seen to treat people well.  They pay on time. They bring their best suppliers much closer to the business so that people are more willing to go that extra mile for them.  Word soon gets out that this is a confident company that you want on your side in rocky times.

4.  Winners keep their heads above the parapet
A big part of building confidence is about maintaining visibility – particularly through cost-effective tools like PR, awards, networking events, online communications and social media.  They don’t spend loads but are highly targeted and focused and they integrate all these marketing activities very tightly together so they squeeze out every ounce of value.

5.  Winners just get on with it
Recessions don’t last forever – this time next year the market will be entirely different, and to be honest the most successful clients we are working with today have been vigorously lobbying, meeting journalists, manoeuvring into position and shaping that market since last January. They are much more likely to say “we never waste a good crisis” than “let’s put that on hold until we see what happens after the election”.

There's a fascinating viewpoint by the FT's columnist Stefan Stern today on the battle by corporations to get our attention and win some 'mind share'.

Everyone is so busy, so surrounded by the sheer noise of too much information, so bombarded by messages and images in the competition to communicate, that in fact it's getting much harder for businesses and brands to be heard.

"Does better marketing hold the answer to this attention deficit problem? Unlikely. More of the same, only a bit cleverer (Twittering corporations, anyone?) is not really going to alter the basic situation..." says Stern.

He has a good point about gimmickry. But this is not just an issue of 'traditional business' v. 'the internet age'. Nor is it relevant only to Business-to-Consumer (B2C) activities.

The problem of getting noticed in the construction sector can be just as tricky. Want to communicate how well you understand clients' needs to design and build low carbon buildings? Join the queue mate.

But actually better marketing can help. By that, I mean better market research and more intelligent communications planning as part of your Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing strategy. Because to get someone's attention requires us first to understand what is meaningful to them. To be heard, first we must listen.

This is the rationale behind the opinion former research work we do. The details of these research projects always pinpoint something new that our clients' target audiences really want or need. Armed with this relevant information delivered in a timely and appropriate way, there is no problem in getting the right peoples' attention.

This is good news, particularly in a recession when we all need to cut out waste: a well-timed whisper in the right ears can achieve more than a shouting match.