Gentlemen, we can build him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s ideal web designer. We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Who will be that man? Or woman?

I love web designers. Hell, I am actually envious of the really good web designers. It’s a field I wish I had explored further back in college and during the early days of my career. Great web designers – the really great ones – are invaluable pieces of the marketing puzzle.

I can attest to the value of a great web designer because at any given moment, our firm is actively working with 3-4 web designers. Right now, we’re redesigning this blog, creating a client microsite, and plowing through various stages of 3 website redesigns. We can’t do any of that without a team of talented web designers. [And by the way, we're always looking for more. Drop us a line if you meet the criteria below.]

That also means that I can attest to the weaknesses of the not-so-great designers. Surprisingly, these weaknesses are rarely related to design skills. Here’s some simple advice for transforming yourself (or your design firm) from good to great:

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Whether you live in the Baltimore/Washington area like we do, or have only heard about it on the news, everyone knows we’ve been hit here by record snowfalls.  I saw yesterday that Baltimore just passed Syracuse NY for first place as the snowiest city in the U.S. this winter.

While technology has allowed me to continue working on just about everything I would in a normal day, some of the down time “snowed in” got me thinking about how people might use some of that down time to address items on the “marketing list” (you know, that list some people never quite get to).

With that mind, I went back through some of our posts to highlight 5 pretty tangible and actionable items you can think about, evaluate and improve right away.  And while I tried to avoid the “clip show” format — Didn’t you always hate when sitcoms did those episodes that were just recycled material? – It did seem to work best in this format.

So here you go – 5 Marketing Fixes for a Snowy Week.

1). Fix Your Core Messaging:

We all know how important it is to have a clear and consistent message – But do you have a messaging problem?

Your Marketing Message in 30 Seconds

2). Diversify Lead Generation:

In an ideal world, you are managing multiple buckets of leads, each bringing a different volume, a different quality, and a different set of metrics.  But are you putting all your eggs in one basket?

Buckets of Leads

3). Convert More Visitors to Leads:

Make sure you are getting the most from your online visitors.  Tune up your contact forms and landing pages by looking at 5 common problems.

Better Contact Forms = More Prospects

4). Improve Your Search Marketing:

Writing ad copy for pay-per-click ads, particularly for Google AdWords, is an extremely challenging task.  Are you getting the most from your paid search campaigns?

The Most Challenging Copywriting Job in the World

5). Update Your Website:

Your company may have all kinds of exciting things going on – new customers, partners, upcoming events, etc.  But if from the viewpoint of the random website visitor, you’re not doing much lately it may not be worth taking the next step to get in touch.

Keeping the Newsroom Fresh

Implementing these 5 fixes will help you to upgrade your marketing — And give you a reason to avoid that snow shovel.

Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow@willdavis on Twitter for more commentary like this.

So you’re ready to redesign your website.  Or maybe you’ve launched a new business and are designing a new site from the ground up.  Congratulations, while this is going to take some effort and involvement on your part — whether you work with an internal team or bring in a firm or specialist as a partner — it’s going to be exciting, interesting, and probably a chance for you to learn a lot.

Before you do anything though, it’s critical to have a plan.  I know those of you who regularly read Marketing Trenches aren’t at all shocked – it’s rare that we do anything without mentioning a plan.  In this case, what you really need to think about before you do anything with the website is everything that you are going to do after the website.  What do I mean by that?

Let’s face it, the days of “If you build it, they will come” are long gone.  Except with some very rare exceptions, you can’t just launch a website, lay back, and wait for prospects, customers and dollars to roll in.  So, before you even start on your new website, make sure you have planned – and budgeted – for the marketing of that website.  Make sure you have thought about marketing as an ongoing piece of the puzzle as well, not just a burst at launch for a month or two and then nothing.  Don’t think that a launch email and submitting to search engines is all you need, you need to make sure you address all your online and offline marketing channels, including a plan for search, email, and social media among others.

Too often I’ve seen it happens where clients spend a huge chunk of their budget on the website itself and have little if anything budgeted to market it.  Make sure you don’t fall into that trap, even if it means reserving some website pieces for a second phase.  Because without a commitment to a marketing plan, it probably won’t matter what content or features your website has if nobody knows about you.

Think of your ongoing marketing as the fuel for your website, powering you forward.

After all, what good is that new car if you don’t have any gas to take it out of your driveway?

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow Will on Twitter for more commentary like this.

Seth Godin blogged Friday on Things to Ask Before You Redo Your Website, and like most of his posts it was enlightening and made you think.  Seth provides just under 25 bullet points on the difficult and most important questions you have to ask before you redo your website.  While it’s a great post, I do have a small difference of opinion on one part.

The questions are right on track, with the focus on the strategy of the website vs. the technology.  Too many folks go wrong right out of the gates by making their first website conversation about the technology requirements or having the website look JUST LIKE a website they like, vs. the strategy and business objectives.  Once those are in place, the other items can fall out of that next.

So I think the approach and the questions are right on, and taking the time to do this is the right first step.  However, there is one place where I differ slightly with Seth.  Many companies will be able to ask and answer these questions themselves.  In my experience though, many more need additional outside assistance to help them step through this process.  In many organizations there is still a deer in the headlights look as we start talking about the web.  In the best ones they realize this and bring the right folks onto their team to help to navigate this.  A client recently described themselves to me as “They don’t know what they don’t know” when it comes to the web, and I think that is often an accurate assessment.  While these questions should serve as the starting point for redoing your website, I think it’s just as critical to make sure you can provide the right answers – or get somebody on the team that can help you get there.

If you tried to plan a new home from the ground up without an architect, I’m sure there are things you would miss.  Making sure you have the right plan in place out of the gates is the only real way to succeed in your website project.  Understanding what is important and what doesn’t need to be a focus right up front is critical.

After all, as Seth closes, everything is not an option.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow Will on Twitter for more commentary like this.

So you got yourself involved with a startup company.  It may have happened by circumstance or by choice.  You’re either a founder or one of the first employees.  You either envision your concept as a potential single to be flipped in 3-4 years, or a grand slam that will allow you to socialize with the likes of Brin, Bezos and Cuban.

Awesome.  We all love a good startup story.

Unless you’ve got an inherently viral concept on your hands (and by the way, keep in mind that there have only been about 5 inherently viral products introduced over the past 5-7 years), you’re going to need to put a significant emphasis on marketing.  I wrote an earlier post about the necessity of bringing marketing expertise to your internal/external team, but this post isn’t designed to belabor that point.

You’re going to need to do certain things during your first 90 days to survive and show some traction from a marketing standpoint.  Why 90 days?  It’s simple.  Business plans are great for fundraising and for attracting senior-level employees, but executing on a 5-10 year grand vision usually happens in pieces.  I happen to believe that this execution is best broken down into 90-day pieces.

One caveat before we get into the list.  All of the items below are tactics.  Tactics that do not flow from a broader strategy usually fail at some point.  Build a sound marketing strategy – identify goals, build your messaging, pinpoint target audiences – before you start getting tactical.

Here are the 10 marketing items every startup should consider executing within the first 90 days of operation:

1.  Build a clean, easy to navigate website.

I know.  Quite an “outside the box” statement.  All I can say is that people still miss on this first step, and miss in an embarrassing way.  Remember this – depending on which web genius you listen to, you have between 3-10 seconds just to convince a visitor to move further on your site.

And if you’re a startup that doesn’t think you need a web site at all, I wish you luck.  No need to read further.

2.  Create a blog, post quality content, and learn how to market it.

You’re still reading this post because you find the content interesting and the site doesn’t look half bad.  You’re here because you found the content via a search engine, another website, or perhaps a social media property like Twitter or LinkedIn.

If your website is your brochure (and hopefully it doesn’t look like one), then your blog is your platform to express your ideas and distribute some of your marketing content.

3.  Spend the time to do the basic SEO work, or have someone do it for you.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), generally speaking, rarely will impact your business in the short-term.  That being said, if anyone tells you that SEO is dead and you shouldn’t worry about it, toss them out the window like the guy in the Bud Light commercial.  Even the most basic SEO work, if done appropriately, will pay significant dividends eventually.

4.  Do some public relations, or at a bare minimum issue a press release surrounding your launch.

Not every startup can afford to spend thousands of dollars a month on retaining a public relations agency, but that’s not an excuse to ignore public relations.  You can get a high quality press release written, distributed and pitched for as little as $1,500 – $2,000, even less if you do some of it yourself.

Is there a good reason NOT to announce your business?  Afraid of a poor first impression on the media and consumers of your product?  If so, you may be facing a product problem or a problem with other elements in your marketing mix.

5.  Get involved in social media.

Notice that I didn’t say to rush out, join all 10,000 social media properties and start posting.  As always, with social media, my advice is to join, listen, learn, then post.  Most startups join and post.  They don’t even acknowledge the listen and learn part.  Startups are typically in a rush to show some traction, and unfortunately some investors judge traction based on Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn connections.  That’s just silly, almost as silly as the valuations those investors placed on the revenue-less companies of dot-com boom times.

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