Climber

Don't be tempted to put the cart before the horse. The site, it's design, and the copy should always be led by the business and marketing plan. The business is a very easy one to market as most in the industry won't have a clue. If you fancy a chat, feel free to get in touch. I tell small service and trades type businesses how to formulate a strategic marketing plan (and also tell web designers how to built sites for such clients) for a living. What you have done already is pretty good, but you could make a real impact on the clients income and profit if you suggested a few tweaks.

It's not a bad site to be fair. I'm no expert when it comes to the technicalities of web design, but it looks as if it will do the job. It could do with a few tweaks from a marketing perspective, but that's more to do with the client's lack of a proper marketing or business development plan, rather than your efforts. Some of the copy could do with a bit of work too, but a good effort for a first attempt for sure. I'm sure others will be along soon to help you work out the monetary value of your efforts.

Hi Aaron. Sounds like you know about as much about web design as I do.

I can't see a Millionaires 100% inheritance tax being popular. I would hope you realise that technically being a millionaire doesn't mean that you are rich. With property prices at the level they are, many of us are paper millionaires simply because we own a reasonable house in a decent location. In many parts of the country, anyone owning an average home will be half way to being a millionaire. I will resist the temptation to turn this post into a rant, but it reminds me of a lot of the nonsense I have been reading recently (with the election looming) regarding the levels of income at which many seem to think we should be taxed ridiculous percentages of our income. Obviously, to anyone working for minimum wage 150 grand a year seems like a fortune. The reality is, however, that it's not. In answer to your question, yes advertising and activism are similar. In fact, any activist will have much more success with a decent strategic marketing plan in place.

You've made the same mistakes an awful lot of web designers make. It looks nice enough, but isn't tailored to any particular marketing strategy, so falls down from a marketing perspective. It's not going to be particularly effective at generating leads from prospective clients, or from prospective strategic alliance partners. The first thing you need to do is get a marketing plan in place. Once you have done that you can fix the site. At the moment you are putting the cart before the horse. The copy on the sites in your portfolio also needs work.

The site has many issues, and is obviously not built around any kind of sound marketing strategy. I was going to offer some pointers, but agree with CibGraphics in that the original post seems to be a simple link drop, rather than a genuine request for assistance.

Thank you for taking the time to post such an informative response. I'm going to give it the attention it deserves, and spend a bit of time digesting it before I respond.

Hi. Thanks for your reply. I've always declined work on e-commerce and online only businesses (and will continue to do so) as that's not my area of expertise. I'd be more of a hindrance than a help on such projects. The reason I advise and work for service based businesses is that if I'm involved everyone WILL make more money (and everyone involved knows it). This gives me quite a competitive advantage, which would be completely lost if I simply started involving myself in projects that were outside of my area of expertise. I completely agree with the point regarding middle men causing problems when they promise things that are hard to deliver. However, this is not a problem in this case as I don't act as a middleman or barrier between the parties, instead simply ensuring that everything being done is in line with the broader marketing strategy.

Thanks for taking the time to give me your thoughts. I'll be honest, most of the projects I get involved with aren't particularly complicated. My specialist area of expertise is the marketing of service based businesses, so 9 times out of 10 the kind of websites my clients need are simply brochure type sites used to promote their services. I don't work for e-commerce businesses, or for businesses that operate solely online. As a marketing consultant specialising in marketing service based businesses, finding the ideal type of client isn't an issue. I could almost do that in my sleep.

Thanks Fuzzy. Your thoughts are interesting. The way you describe it is exactly the way I see it working. My role isn't to keep the designer and client apart, just to act as a knowledgeable go-between to ensure the site is built based on sound marketing principles. Most of this type of work is currently on behalf of (and arranged by) the client, once they already have a designer in place, but I'm wondering if it could be a service the designers themselves could offer their clients. I already have a good few marketing professionals of all types who recommend that their clients speak to me before they carry out any work for them. This service has very much grown organically from there.

Teodora, thanks for your reply. As far as cost goes, it's obviously a consideration (and the numbers wouldn't stack up for anyone wanting a quick £500 site), but generally due to increased efficiency it doesn't actually add to the price. If the web designer can save a day or 2 based on the increased efficiency, and the client can get a site built around a decent marketing strategy, everyone's a winner. The 'scope creep' you mention is a good point, and up to this point has been dealt with on an individual basis. For some clients I write the copy for the site, where as with others I have no 'hands on' input at all. I always have a 45-60 minute telephone consultation with the client prior to offering this service anyway, so it's a good time to 'manage expectations'. I'm currently arranging for a stonemason's site to have an overhaul. He has already found himself a designer, an on-page SEO guy, and also a copywriter, so my job is to work out a strategic marketing plan, and then act a bit like an orchestra's conductor, to ensure all the other pro's are all pulling in the right direction.

As a marketing consultant, over the last couple of years more and more clients are asking me if I can deal with their web designer, copywriter, SEO for them, in a kind of project managers role. I've never actually offered this as a service, but am considering it. All the other pro's (web designers etc) have loved the idea, as they deal with me rather than the client. This means that all the strategic work is done, the copy gets delivered on time, and the whole site can be built based on the foundation of a decent marketing strategy. No more having the client change their mind mid project, or supply you with dodgy copy and images that are poorly planned and doomed to fail from the start. The projects also get completed on time, and everyone makes more money. I'd love to know what you all think of the idea, as I'm seriously considering offering it as a stand alone service. I'm particularly interested to hear any negative feedback, or problems that any of you can foresee. Thanks

£4000 per month for some part time work on the side is great, but not so exciting if it becomes your only source of income. Without knowing how many hours it takes you per month to earn that (and also where you are finding the freelance work) it's difficult to know what to advise.

I think this thread is done now. Ill explain on a separate thread why every small business doesn't need a brand. OP, if you have read this far down I'd be more than happy to give you some pointers for the tree surgeon's site. It's a business type which I can fairly safely say I know more about the marketing of, than anyone else in the country*. Feel free to get in touch if you want to bounce any ideas around, or just fancy a chat. *Yes, I do realise this is a fairly bold statement, however, I do actually have evidence to support this claim, before anyone jumps on me about it.

That's a great client to add to your portfolio, well done.

Thanks Jack, that's really interesting.

Quite right. If they understood it, they wouldn't be tutors. Those who can, do, and all that. LOL.

I'm not getting into it on this thread, we can argue the toss when I start a thread specifically about the subject if you like. I also remember you telling me that I don't understand marketing too, which did give us quite a chuckle here.

If I tell you why you are wrong, we are going to go round in circles again. I've made my opinion on this thread clear. The OP can either follow my advice or not. I have been talking with Ben about starting a series of marketing related threads to provide some valuable info for the members here. Ill make sure that one of the first is why a small service based business doesn't need a brand, just for you.

A tree surgeon doesn't need a brand. You are getting far too caught up seeing it from a superficial design perspective, and not thinking about it from a marketing perspective.

Same thing. A large football club will only outsource their promotional marketing. All strategic decisions will be made in-house. Hence his view of marketing from purely a promotional and marketing comm's perspective. The same can actually be said for most large organisations. The marketing department aren't usually the ones who make the marketing decisions. The board and high level managers make the marketing decisions, and the marketing department just to the promotional work.

That's the opinion of an 'employee' who works in marketing if ever I heard one. He's right that marketing and advertising are different things, and that they are often confused as the same thing, but the purpose of marketing isn't solely to develop a brand. In fact, for a lot of SME's, a brand is often not even a requirement.

Obviously I can't speak for McDonalds, but I would say they have perfectly defined a sweet spot between the minimum quality the consumers will accept, and the maximum price they will buy it in huge numbers. It's not a case of persuading them that they want it, quite the opposite. It's a case of using constant research to find out what will be acceptable, then leveraging the hell out of a strong brand to sell, sell, sell. I do have concerns that the reason kids like Mcdonalds is because McD's have persuaded them they should. However, that's a sensitive issue and not one that we could discuss and stay anywhere near 'on- topic' here. There is some general info about their marketing strategy here. It's a pretty good overview, although obviously hugely biased as they published it themselves.

To a certain extent, if we go far enough down the road in this debate, it becomes more about semantics than what is actually right and wrong. The reason I defended my original point, is that designers who understand that they need to be led by marketing, are the ones who are going to get it right, where as designers who don't understand this are never going to be achieving decent results. This then goes back to my original statement that designers who understand marketing are worth their weight in gold. It's very important that designers really understand that advertising and promotional marketing are only the tip of the marketing iceberg, and that to let design take the lead is like letting the tail wag the dog.

You are just messing with me now aren't you? There is no way on earth that could be right. If you aren't joking we are right back to the start, where you disagree with what I'm saying, purely because you don't understand what's involved in marketing. I thought we had got past that now. Have a look at the part of Nillervision's post that I quoted. He gets it.