Your website – don’t count the cost, look at the value

"You're too expensive . . . ."
"My mate's son can do it for . . . ."
"I can do it myself for free . . . ."
"I want it to do everything, I don't care how much it costs . . . ."

These comments, and many more, have all been heard when we start talking to prospective clients about web design projects. But they're focussing on the wrong thing: The Cost.

Why is cost the wrong thing? Because cost is just the money you hand over - value is what will make a difference to your business.

Any project should deliver value, or Return on Investment (ROI). A simple question proves the point: Which of these two options would you prefer? To spend £200 on your website and get £199 worth of business, or spend £2,000 and get £50,000 worth of business? I'm pretty sure you've gone for the second option, but so often conversations focus on the difference between the cost of £199 and £2,000 and not the difference in value between £199 and £50,000, and the fact that the former might have made them a net loss!

There is another question which also often fails to get asked, including by many design agencies of their potential clients. Are you spending too much on your website?

If you had a website costing £2,000, could you realise that in extra revenue within twelve months? For example a service based business, with only limited time slots available, might not physically be able to take on the extra clients that would deliver the return. This is why it's so important when working on such a project, not to consider it in isolation, but to look at it within your overall business and marketing strategy, and a good design agency should ask the questions that prompt this. We have turned clients down or persuaded them to rethink their plans because we could see that they were spending in the wrong places and at the end of the day that does no-one any favours.

So next time you speak to your design agency, don't ask how much a project will cost but how much value they're going to deliver. If it delivers the value, it's worth the cost.

November 14, 2011 at 8:53 pm | Design, News and views on design | 1 comment

Speak the language of your customers

With thoughts on the recent TV series, Planet Word, about langugage affecting how we experience the world and the way we express and feel culture, combined with my sister's comments on language of the heart with her work in minority language groups, I was given pause to think about our use of language when communicating with our customers.

When you're writing your website's content do you take the time to understand the language of your audience?

I'm not talking about the obvious element, if I'm targeting a French or Chinese audience, then yes I should write in French or Chinese. It's important if you're designing a multi-country website that you design in the ability to be multi-lingual (and budget for the translation costs). But what about the regional variations, the age group variations, the sector variations?

Every group of people have their own understanding of words, a cultural bond that is expressed through a shared language. It can easily be the case that you can understand every word someone says, but not understand a single bit of their meaning . . . . you only need to witness conversations between parents and their children to see it in action!

So if you want to turn your site's visitors into customers, then make sure you understand their heart language expressing their culture, otherwise you might be saying all the wrong things! Step out of your own culture and step into theirs.

November 12, 2011 at 11:42 pm | Design, News and views on design | 3 comments

New website on exhibition at the NEC

It's not often that websites we've designed get launched with a show; they normally just go live with maybe an email or two to our client's existing customers to let them know.

But the e-commerce website we've just designed for A-dec to promote the Zirc range of products in the UK was launched at the BDTA Dental Showcase. And as the NEC Birmingham is only just up the road from our office, I went along yesterday to take a look. The Zirc products look really colourful and if I had a dental practice to organise, I'd be first in line!

October 22, 2011 at 3:59 pm | Design, Project Updates | No comment

A beach, in the middle of England?

If someone had said to me a couple of years ago "let's pop to the beach" I'd probably have called for the men in white coats. To explain, our office is near Meriden, the claimed centre of England; you can't get much further from the sea. A journey to the beach is a major excursion, not a "pop" anywhere.

All that changed when we met a new web design client a couple of years ago. They had decided that travelling all that way was just unnecessary; it was much easier to bring the beach to the Midlands, and so Heart Park was born, complete with lighthouse, paddle boats, seaside rock and deck chairs. Now people from Coventry, Birmingham, Solihull – in fact, anywhere in the Midlands – no longer have to do the big beach trip, we can just "pop to the beach".

What's more, they have some great conference facilities too, and there aren’t many meeting venues, especially in the Midlands, that you can finish your day's conference with a barbecue on the beach and a paddle in the water.

Heart Park and Heart of England Conference Centre is just one of Real Point's clients who do great things that are just that bit different from the norm and we plan to feature a selection over the coming months. From fake teeth for trainee dentists to driving lessons for under 17's, we've come across some amazing companies and ideas in our time!

August 8, 2011 at 8:47 am | Clients | No comment

Speaking on web design, usability and SEO launch checklists at Coventry Business Network

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak at Coventry Business Network on how we add value to the web design process with a structured approach, ensuring our client's success online through search engine optimisation, usability testing and website launch checklists.

It was 10 minute spot so I took the opportunity to film it, apologies for moving around too much and occasionally chopping the top of my head off (though you may think that's a good thing!)

There's quite a lot of useful information in there that you can take and apply to your own website, if you would like a copy of the hand out mentioned drop me an email - ian@realpoint.co.uk.

May 5, 2011 at 12:57 pm | Design | No comment

Keeping trade local

Last week a new client signed us up to design their website and they couldn't be much more local. They're a bed and breakfast in the village of Hampton in Arden where our web design agency is based.

I was therefore able to use the oldest form of transport known to man when I went to visit them to take some photographs - two feet! On the way back I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of our village. It has to be said, we're very fortunate to be located in such a picturesque spot and I thought I'd share a few of my snaps with you.

April 6, 2011 at 8:19 pm | Design | No comment

Take a look at your website through your customers’ eyes

It's the New Year, it's the time when we think through our plans for the year ahead and take a look at how we can perform better this year. But have you thought about the fact your customers and potential customers will be doing the same too? Are you making sure that they know that the best supplier for the year ahead is you? Are you making doing business with you easy?

Why not take some time to take a look at your customers' experience of you through their eyes? To quote Henry Ford "A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large." This is especially true when it comes to your website. So often websites are designed to mirror your internal systems and talk in your internal language. Take this new year as the opportunity to see how your website could be changed to become the most effective tool for business growth in 2011. After all, your website is a sales person that works for you 24 hours a day 365 days of the year, make sure it's working in the right way!

Five tips for website analysis:

KISS - Keep it simple, is it easy and obvious for your customers to find out how you can solve their problem
Language - avoid the use of jargon and include the care words your customer is looking for
Watch a customer - ask someone, preferably who hasn't been on your site before, to carry out tasks that you would hope customers will achieve on your site, and see where they struggle, a good start for making changes!
Structure - structure the content of your site in the way your customer thinks, not just a reflection of your internal methods and structures
Talk to Real Point, sorry couldn't resist this but, after all, our years of experience of building websites that help our customers' businesses grow could make a difference to yours!

So this year, make your customers' lives better by making your hardest working team member work effectively!

January 13, 2011 at 2:32 pm | Design, General | No comment

About

The Real Point Blog is a chance for, me, Ian O'Donnell, director of Real Point Design, to share my views, thoughts and comments on the world of web and print design, business and a bit of the world in general.

I started Real Point at eighteen and have been working in print and web design in the west midlands ever since, growing Real Point to the company it is today. I'm evangelistic about everything web releated and have a passion to see everyone make their life just that bit easier, better and more profitable online. Currently I'm fascinated by just where the web going is in the next few years, social media is just starting to have a real impact in the business world and I can't wait to see if it is going to be just as disruptive as the web was to begin with.

If you want to know more about me, keep in touch or find out what others have said I can be found in various places online:

Mostly Business

LinkedIn
YouTube
Twitter
StumbleUpon - Websites that I have found really helpful or worth telling others about
Delicious - My website bookmarks
Digg - Tend to use stumble more but occasionally I remember to digg websites as well
Real Point Design Website
Real Point Business Technology website

Mostly Personal
Facebook and Myspace are more places for keeping in touch with friends and family as well members of the Youth Group I help to run. Having said that, my facebook tends to blur the lines between business and personal quite often and does get used as a bit of a business networking tool as well.

MySpace - Where I tend to keep track of bands and venues
Facebook

November 11, 2008 at 12:29 am | | No comment

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