Paul Scott has joined us to offer advice on marketing for the next few issues while Alan Gayle has a break from this column. Paul has worked in sales & marketing in construction for 20 years and now runs his own business called Front Elevation. This month he asks: Are you open all hours?
To many people the word ‘marketing’ conjures up £ signs – and usually in the debit column rather than the credit column.
In my guest slot on this column I am looking at the basics, although even many larger organisations overlook them. They are just as important to the SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises, in the jargon) as they are to the multi-million pound company.
One of the basics today is this: Updating your website.
These three words are enough to send a chill down most directors’ spines.
Let’s just go back to the traditional shop window – which is, of course, what a website should be.
This rather quaint phenomena might remind us older readers of Ronnie Barker in Open All Hours, In those days you displayed your wares so people could see them.
In our browsing on the high street we are far more likely to enter a shop that catches our attention. It doesn’t need to have firework displays or performing sea lions (website designers please note!) but it does need just enough to let us know who the retailer is and what they sell.
If, on the other hand, the shop display was faded and grubby, the shop was poorly lit and the door was shut, we would find ourselves wondering if they were still trading, especially during the past five years when one in seven shops has failed.
So now your potential client is having a wander down their virtual high street via Google and comes across your shop-front – your website.
We will take your ‘Latest News’ to be your shop doorway. If the latest news on your website is from August, September or even October 2013, they will consider your shop well and truly open for business and step in to have a look around.
If, on the other hand, your latest news entry is about a charity bike ride your company did in February 2011, and your latest case study is that fantastic project you finished in 2010, then your shop door is probably closed.
Given that hundreds more construction businesses have ceased trading in the past 12 months (let alone the past three years) your prospective customer is not very likely even to push the door to see if it opens.
There is possibly one thing worse than not having a website and that is not having a working website. I get 20 or so construction related publications a month, full of companies spending money on advertising. I am willing to bet that if you picked 12 advertisers at random you would find some of them with latest news older than three months ago.
Ignoring the mysticisms of search engine optimisation, updating your website once or twice a month shouldn’t be beyond any organisation of any size.
But you have to have something to update it with. That means you have to think about what you want to put on it. So don’t just stand back and admire your latest project, take a picture of it (having gained the proper authorisation from the client) and make a record of the materials used and any special effort required. It is often said that marketing is not an activity, it is a culture that should run through everything you do.
You could Tweet, but I am not a great fan of Twitter. It is better just to have a simple website where you can keep everything updated, probably linking to Facebook and LinkedIn.
Don’t try something too time consuming on your website or you will always find reasons why you don’t update it. Just pop a couple of notes in your diary. It could be every other Friday, or the 8th and 18th of every month: UPDATE WEBSITE. Get into a routine and maintain it.
Make sure your shop door says you are ‘open for business’.