Publicity Heaven » Off topic

What’s stopping you updating your website?

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:59:34 +0000

My Tuesday PR & Marketing Tips yesterday was all about the easy way to create new content for your website.

And I had a really interesting email back from a business owner in Wales.

She said:

“Hi Paul,

Think you may have missed the crucial point with this feature. When a w/site owner can update themselves, updates are usually frequent. Suggest the reason why most business owners don’t update their sites regularly is that there are, as you say, plenty of w/site designers but in many people’s experience they’re hard work to useless.

1. The w/site may not have been designed/built in a way that it can be easily changed anyway.
Sometimes it will require going back & re-designing & re-programming the entire site.

2. Next there can be long backlogs of work – months pass & nothing’s started.

3. When they do start, they are continually jumping between jobs.

4. Some bigger or status job will crop up which will result in other jobs being sidelined for weeks – then creating another queue.

5. The biggest problem is that almost always they are designers who can’t program & so this part has to be out-sourced – so they lose control of the job & forget about it. Frequently it’s disappeared out in India because programming’s cheaper there & then the programmers disappear to another job/company.

Anything w/sites usually means endless delays & a bucket load of stress with waiting, changing the firm, all promises & then the same again. By the time you get it, so long has passed you no longer want it, it’s out of date anyway & then you’ve got to pay some over-priced figure for it.

Currently I’m looking for a local IT teacher or employed programmer wanting extra work to handle precisely the updates you wrote about, but no more “firms”. The days go to weeks, the weeks go to months & the months go to years.

Maybe you could feature this problem & some programmers might jump in to fill this gap. I’ll list what I & most clients probably want :-

1. A start date.
2. A date, even if approximate, when the job will be completed.
3. They come back to you with a report to confirm progress.
4. Being able to do the job fairly quickly – if you’re planning a summer special it’s no use in December & it’ll be out of date for next summer.

Yikes a rant ! but the problem is not as easy as you make out & I suggest that building a good team around you is the real problem & many businesses haven’t managed this yet on the web front. What is needed is a handy person/team who can say like “Yes I can start this next Monday & be done by end Wednesday” – & simply do it.

By the way I’m in Cardiff South Wales, & if you know of anyone who could fill this gap, as they say, “I’d love to hear from you”. “

Of course, she’s completely right. That hadn’t occurred to me, I guess because we keep our private clients’ websites updated for them so don’t see this problem with the people we work closely with.

Website designers – defend yourselves!

Oh, and if you are based near Cardiff and can help this lady, please contact us and we will put you in touch.

Meet Mr Fowley

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:33:18 +0000

While speaking at event in London a few weeks ago I met Mr Fowley.

Mr Fowley

He’s the biggest dog I’ve ever met and absolutely lovely! Here’s the photo he reluctantly posed for (I suspect he’d have been more interested in the camera if I had biscuits)

He was in London raising money for the South West Children’s Hospice.

Here’s Mr Fowley’s website. Would make for a good Christmas donation if you’ve got a fiver burning a hole in your pocket.

The world is changing faster than we think it is

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:28:25 +0000

This video may be a year old and very US-focused, but it doesn’t half get you thinking about how your business is going to have to change as the world does.

We just got a mention from Dale Winton on Radio 2

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:43:02 +0000

Even after nine years in radio myself, still find it exciting to get an email read out!

We can add Dale to the Publicity Heaven Radio 2 mentions checklist. Steve Wright, Jeremy Vine and Chris Evans… all ticked.

Just need Ken Bruce and Wogan and we’ll have a full house of daytime presenters… hey, whatever gets you through the day…

Don’t let your IT people ruin your email marketing

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:06:32 +0000

Sadly my grandmother passed away recently and today was her funeral. So after a long day away from the office and out of email contact, I just ran through a day’s worth of work emails to get them cleared.

If you send a lot of email marketing like I do, it’s always good to approach your email in a different frame of mind now and again. With more than 50+ emails to read in just 30 minutes, I had little time for messages that weren’t totally relevant to me.

Email newsletters that I would normally scour for something useful didn’t get a glance before I hit the delete key. It goes to show why you need to send regular emails to prospects; I might open and read the same email next week.

But I got one email today that really made me chuckle, from a company called MarketingFile.com. I think I bought some data from them a few years ago.

The email told me that I hadn’t logged into my account for 12 months, so as a security measure they had changed my username and password from the familiar login I know, to a bunch of random characters.

Why? What’s the benefit to me, the customer? There isn’t one; in fact they have just made it harder for me to buy from them in the future as my usual account login won’t work.

And since that will probably frustrate me (as I will have forgotten about this change by then), surely that can’t help the company either, as they could lose a sale.

The email suggested I login right now and change my new “random” login to something I’ll remember. Er, no thanks, don’t think I’ll bother.

Is this a case of the IT department ruining the marketing? Security is very important, but really there was no need for them to change my account details without being requested to. Nobody benefits here.

Karting with Star Digital

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:16:45 +0000

Had a great evening last night karting at Whilton Mill with the team from Star Digital. Thanks guys!

See the pics and report here.

Sad to say my lap times were poor… I must be getting old…

What the hell does BT mean?

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:06:10 +0000

We just re-signed our business broadband with BT. Please don’t email me to tell me it’s cheaper and more reliable elsewhere, I don’t want to know now.

Anyway, one of the factors that swayed me was them throwing in a free mobile broadband dongle. It arrived in the post today. A big deal for me – this is a new gadget!

Inside the package there was a letter. Did it say “well done you superstar, you just got yourself a great free mobile broadband deal”?

Sadly not.

After a paragraph welcoming me to BT (actually BT, we’re existing customers. Check your database), the letter said this:

“As a BT Business One Plan customer you can you can include the BT Business Mobile Broadband spend under Option 3 with inclusive Mobile Broadband within BT Business One Plan. As a BT Business One Plan Plus customer you can you can include the BT Business Mobile Broadband spend under Option 3 with inclusive Mobile Broadband within BT Business One Plan Plus.”

WHAT?

(And yes the letter did repeat the phrase “you can”… twice…)

I have no idea what this means. So I ignored the rest of the letter. Let’s hope there was nothing important in there (frankly, I doubt it).

When you have something good or exciting to say to a customer, say it in a way they can understand.

Thanks for the Christmas card, but…

admin — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:48:09 +0000

Had four Christmas cards in the post this morning.

One was from a new supplier of PR tools we have just signed with; another from our friendly accountants.

But the other two had no company name on them, and just scribbled first names at the bottom.

Er… who sent them? The first names were both common ones, which could be one of a number of clients, suppliers and contacts.

Pity to go to all the effort of sending Christmas cards to get none of the benefit!

If you’re doing cards on the cheap and not having your business name professional printed inside, why not get a stamp made up and stamp each one?

Or don’t bother sending cards. This year we have made another donation to charity.

Will you help Autism Concern please

admin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:01:55 +0000

We are currently helping a Northamptonshire charity called Autism Concern.

After 17 years they are in the scary position of facing closure at Christmas, unless they can raise £150,000.

We’re donating our services for free to raise awareness.

The media have been fantastic picking this up, with a great piece on BBC Look East TV last night, stories in the Northampton Chronicle & Echo and the Northants ET today, and most of the other news outlets in the county have agreed some kind of coverage. Thank you!

After some national coverage as we speak.

If you can spare a few quid please do make a donation, every penny makes a difference at this stage.

Man bites dog

admin — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:39:17 +0000

There’s a saying in journalism that when a dog bites a man, that’s not news. But if a man bites a dog, that’s news!

Well, it’s finally happened according to this Reuters report.