The planning and construction of marketing websites is full of unlimited opportunities for enterprises. However, more than 80% of the corporate websites on the market currently lack professional guidance, and a large number of bad websites are dragging down corporate online marketing.
Nowadays, there are so many companies that provide website building services in the market. There is no uniform standard, good and bad. This causes a large number of corporate websites from them to have problems. The main reasons are as follows:
1. Under normal circumstances, the website construction company is only responsible for building the website. As to whether the website is effective after it is completed, it is not within its scope of responsibility. Under the current market background, it is beyond reasonable scope to make the website construction company responsible for the final effect of the promotion after the website goes online.
2. Most companies do not have a clear concept of website planning and do not know the role of website planning in network marketing activities. I don’t understand the meaning of a high conversion rate website, and of course I don’t know how to build a high conversion rate website.
3. Usually the focus of cooperation between enterprises and website construction companies is "website construction" rather than "website planning". Website planning is often given as an unimportant project for free. In terms of importance, this is actually putting the cart before the horse. If an enterprise wants to obtain a high conversion rate website, the importance of website planning cannot be ignored.
4. Most companies still cannot accept separate payment for website planning, let alone accept a website planning fee that is higher than the cost of building a website, but in fact website planning is very necessary and necessary.
Under this kind of market background, how can the website building company help customers make a truly useful marketing website? ——Strictly control the process and be more standardized in the service process, which can improve the final quality of the website. The following is based on my own years of experience in the website construction industry, summarized the process of website construction service providers serving enterprises for reference:
1. Research on the basic needs of the client who builds the site;
2. Research on the relevant situation of competitors;
3. Research on the client’s brand, product, business and business model;
4. Research on target customer needs and decision-making behavior;
5. Online marketing business model redesign and confirmation;
6. Organize a website planning brainstorming meeting;
7. Improve and discuss and determine the prototype of the website;
8. Design and confirmation of renderings;
9. Web page coding and background management program development;
10. Website delivery and acceptance
As for why such a service process is designed, let me briefly explain the reasons:
1. Understand the client’s needs and select customers
One thing I have to admit is that every website building company has its own industry and field, but also has its own limitations.
When the website construction company receives an order, it should do something and not do something. As the saying goes, don't buy porcelain without diamonds. In order to better serve the enterprise, customers should be appropriately screened according to the actual situation. Avoid accepting tasks that are seriously beyond the scope of ability to avoid unnecessary loss of time and money to customers and avoid unnecessary commercial disputes.
There is another important reason for selecting customers. If you encounter some malicious, counterfeit, and fraudulent companies requesting to build a website, you can categorically refuse it. You can't help criminals build a website for a little bit of profit, and then deceive consumers.
Therefore, before deciding to provide services, you should fully communicate with the company on the following issues.
1. Who is the website for?
2. What products and services will the website sell, or what content will it promote?
3. What purpose do you hope to achieve through the website?
4. What kind of website does the customer expect? (Understanding the psychological expectations of customers, it is easier to complete tasks beyond expectations, avoid unnecessary disagreements, and improve customer satisfaction)
5. Whether the customer has a satisfactory website as a reference (provide a reference website to understand the customer's preferences and expectations more quickly)
6. Project budget and expected project cycle
2. Do a good job of research and get twice the result with half the effort
After selecting customers, reaching a cooperation intention, and signing the contract, the next task that needs to be done is research.
The first is the investigation of the relevant situation of customers and competitors. Anything that can be called a market usually has competition. In order to stand out from the competition, you need to understand your competitors and have a full understanding to help customers find out the advantages and disadvantages of the company. In the marketing, we use our strengths and avoid our weaknesses to help customers make more precise positioning.
Who are the customers' competitors?
In the Internet world, customers’ competitors are not necessarily a specific company, but a competitive environment composed of individual scenarios. This scenario may be formed like this: the user searches for a word, then opens a bunch of web pages for comparison, and finally selects the satisfactory web page to consult or place an order.
For example, a customer who produces calcium hydroxide who purchases the Alibaba Cloud website product, for him, when a user searches for "calcium hydroxide manufacturer", his competitor is the page in the result corresponding to the search term. Content and manufacturers.
But when a user searches for "calcium hydroxide", the search results will change. The webpages that appeared before may no longer appear this time, but new webpages appear. At this time, the competitors are the content of these new webpages and Its corresponding enterprise.
Surpass competitors or industry standards
The purpose of investigating competitors is to surpass competitors, to study their selling points, and to see which ones can be surpassed. Anything that can be surpassed may become a weapon for us to win in the competition.
There are many research methods. Professional marketing research is usually long and costly, and it is not only carried out for a site construction project, but serves a broader and longer-term marketing plan. To persuade companies to spend tens of thousands of dollars before building a website, it will be difficult to hire a professional research company to do marketing research. But if you want to be responsible for the effect of the website, research is essential.
Fortunately, there are some simple, easy-to-operate, low-cost, and efficient research methods that can achieve the research goals. For example, questionnaire method, experience method, observation method, data analysis method, in-depth interview method, competition analysis method, etc.
3. Reconfirm the business model to avoid website failure
After the preliminary investigation, under normal circumstances, you will have a general idea of the customer's website planning. The thinking may involve product positioning, target customer positioning, core selling points, etc., and may also involve the redesign of customer online marketing business models.
The website that needs to be built in the end may not be the website that customers wanted when they first came to you. These changes need to be renegotiated with customers and won their approval. After the customer reconfirms, the following work can be continued.
The work at the confirmation level is mainly to reach agreement with the customer's decision-making level and put forward effective directional suggestions, rather than blindly catering to customer requirements. This is what a professional and responsible website builder should do. After all, sometimes the customer is not always right.
Take Alibaba Cloud website as an example. Alibaba Cloud website building products-"Cloud Enterprise Official Website" has a complete online delivery system, and website building products and services are delivered to customers at one time or in stages through the delivery system. Customers can clearly understand the progress of the project just like checking express logistics information, and click to confirm online at key nodes, and then the website designer will proceed to the next step.
If you are not satisfied with the design of the website, the customer can choose to pause in the online delivery system and put forward his own modification suggestions and ideas. Until the designer is satisfied with the change, he can proceed to the next step. Of course, if it is an unreasonable request from the client, the designer will politely refuse it. After all, designers need to be more professional in website design and they need to be responsible for the works they design.
The website building company should start from the overall situation of network marketing and give customers more professional advice, not just to complete the task of building a website. It is what customers want to achieve network marketing goals. After the confirmation is complete, you can start the sixth step of "website planning brainstorming meeting".
Four, quickly reach an agreement
Website planning brainstorming meeting refers to organizing the main person in charge of related projects of the enterprise, product development, production, sales, and network marketing related personnel to participate, and discuss and complete the following tasks including but not limited to:
1. Target customer positioning, product positioning, website goals and business model design, etc.;
2. Mining and shaping selling points;
3. Website persuasive element design;
4. Wireframe of the website (draft of the prototype);
5. Preparation list of site materials
Of course, these tasks can also be completed by a dedicated business team instead of through brainstorming meetings. However, practice has proved that having customers and website stakeholders participate in the discussion of the entire process will help to reach consensus faster and form the final result. Avoid various modification suggestions or new function requirements from different departments of the customer during the confirmation process, or even in the later stage of station construction.
Five, sign to confirm the gradual progress
After the completion of the prototype or the website rendering, the customer should be asked to sign or email to confirm, to avoid the phased results from being modified at will, resulting in unnecessary time cost increase and construction period extension.
Practice has proved that if the confirmation link is not well agreed in advance, it will often cause a lot of unexpected troubles. For example, customers repeatedly put forward new requirements, add new pages, and add new content on the pages to disrupt the project plan. In serious cases, all previous efforts have been lost.
The main time nodes for confirmation are: prototype drawing confirmation, rendering confirmation confirmation, website overall experience acceptance, and theoretically no major revisions after signing the agreement in advance, simple and time-consuming minor repairs and minor repairs, both parties can negotiate and resolve.
Upon final delivery, according to the functions agreed by both parties, various inspections and acceptances will be carried out with the previously signed and confirmed renderings.
Good workflow design not only gives customers a professional impression, but also effectively improves the quality of the final website, avoids unnecessary conflicts, and improves cooperation efficiency and customer satisfaction.
The above is the service process that a website construction company should follow when building a website for an enterprise. By doing this, the website built will not be bad, and it will have high conversion characteristics. The content of this article condenses some of my own insights in the website building industry for many years, and it can also be said to be experience. Share it, I hope everyone will work together and make progress together! For enterprises, knowing the service process of building a website can avoid detours.