I had occasion this week to write the specification for two website redesigns. And that has set me thinking about the new state of affairs within the wide range of marketing communications that includes a website as a communication tool.
When I was taught my trade we had a series of headings in our marketing budget and plan that included the word “Collateral” which used to mean anything-printed-that-promotes-our-brand.
Well, collateral now includes digital stuff as well as print and it is where I’d list a website in this group of communication tools. Now for the hard bit. Is a monologue website appropriate for the 21st century? What do I mean by monologue? Well when Web 2.0 first came along I used
to explain the difference between web 1.0 and 1eb 2.0 as being
monologue versus dialogue.
Answer that for your company and then for other brands and industry sectors. Are they different or do the same rules apply?
What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 tools enable consumers to talk back and have conversations with your brand.
A nice example was a tweet made by Amanda Bonnen about mould in her Chicago flat. This led to Horizon Realty Group filing a $50k lawsuit against her for defamation. Bad news travels fast on the social web. So Twitter closed her account… see all the fun tweets on the subject.
But we all love a good moan and some salacious gossip. Trouble with web 2.0 is that it's rather more public than you might choose
When I was working as a brand marketing manager I would regularly get calls from colleagues and ad sales folk trying to sell me ‘last minute’ space in their trade publications. I had a very firm rule to answer all of them “is it in the plan?”
If our plan didn’t include a budget to buy last minute space that was a ‘great deal’ then we didn’t buy it. No matter how wonderful the offer was. Period.
And I feel there’s a parallel here with mobile phone takeup in Africa. Landlines are still hideously expensive to set up and difficult to get to remote rural locations. And so mobile has 'overtaken' the fixed line business and many people have got a mobile handset and use it to run their business. My mate Stef is going to SA this week to be MD of a new sub-saharan Africa telco with just this business plan – leapfrogging.
Brand dialogue
So back to the start, when specifying your website are you going to let customers have dialogue with your brand on a site where you run the show or not? If your site isn’t enabled for web 2.0 yet – why not add ‘signposts’ from it to places where discussions take place so that you can get involved. This is sideways leapfrogging – make it clear that you know conversations are going on elsewhere and participate and track them as a minimum. Know what game's going on and later introduce it into your website – in the new financial year budget!
