Austin Schultz, Business Development Associate
636.534.5741 | achultz@technologypartners.net
There is one word that I often hear in meetings about developing websites that always sticks out to me because it is the same word that I saw embodied by my Air Force father growing up:
Strategy.
Let me tell you, when your father is a career military man, you move a lot and get pretty good at it. Also when your father is a career military man he doesn't do anything without a strategy. Sure, anyone can pack your things into boxes and load a truck, but when you have to repeat this process over and over you learn that with the proper planning you'll have a smoother move and less headaches during unpacking. Things like systematic box labeling, loading the truck in the right order, making sure on move day everyone knows what they are (and aren't) supposed to do.
If moving well requires strategy, wouldn't you think that building a website well would, too? Why then do so many companies depend on their college aged nephew who "knows how to build websites"? It's the equivalent of walking out of your house and finding the first guy on the street to be your mover because "he knows how to pick up boxes."
It's been a privilege to work with our website strategists and see how they work with our client partners to build beautiful, powerful websites that meet real business objectives. Here's just a snippet of the strategy we use.
Who are you really trying to talk to on your site? Are you a B2B services firm that has a dynamic sales team and your audience already knows who you are but needs to understand more detail about what you do? Are you a B2C cupcake hoping to convert your large database of in store purchasers into monthly subscription clients? Identifying your audience and knowing what primary experience you need them to have is how our team always begins a custom website strategy. We want this website to be your guidance missile for your target audience. While you want your website to accommodate all visitors, the shotgun approach is ineffective for websites because it doesn't strategize around a purpose.
Think about it like this: when you build a house you start with a blueprint. Our team takes this same approach and builds out a a visual site map that graphically represents your entire website in a flowchart. This shows you the page count and organizational structure of the future website. For clients with existing sites, this is a systematic approach of what to keep, change, or delete on existing pages. This is a crucial step that "your nephew" doesn't know to do.
With a firm strategy in place we get to work implementing and deploying your site. Despite the heavy lifting, this is the fun part because we get to see the planning pay off and actually take shape. It's easy to jump to this step (most companies as well as "your nephew" do) but skipping the strategy will lead to a site that doesn't best your meet your business goals. I will tell you, there isn't a client we work with who doesn't love the strategy component, and our team makes it fun. This is the chance to whiteboard out ideas and get creative at the start of the project. We make a plan so that we can enjoy the execution.
Just like on moving day growing up with my Dad, I trust and can count on my team here at Technology Partners . Let me tell you, there is not a much better feeling than a truck packed and loaded effectively on moving day. Get that same feeling by building your website well through strategy.
Interested in a website? Email me at achultz@technologypartners.net