What’s Hip Hapnin?

A client asked me to put this together so they could understand exactly what I do as a consultant.  I think often times we make it look way too easy.  People say they want it to be easy and they don’t want to think about it but often times if they don’t understand what is going into the process they will think it is easy.  Maybe that is why so many people when pressed about the website suggest they have a neighbor or a nephew who could do it.

So this is my advice for the day.  Let your clients know how involved it is and that you are saving them tons of time by knowing the answers to these questions.  Maybe you could present them with this list and have them fill out everything they know or at least what they are thinking.  Spend a little bit of time educating your clients and they won’t try to tell you how to do your job.

Why are you building a website?

• Recruiting
• Awareness
• Retention
• Cost savings efficiency
• Commerce
• Partnering
• Generating leads
• Launch a new product
• Sales
• Promote industry

Personas/Audience Segments
Who will be using the website and what will they search for?
What will your visitors want to do immediately once they get to the website? (let them pee) How will they go about doing that?
Should you be using the web to build community?

• Blog
• Forum
• Newsletter
• Podcasts

If you could only communicate one thing from your website what would that be?

Marketing strategy/launch plan
Where does the website fit into the marketing mix?
How will people find you on the web?

• Brandable URL?
• Web Marketing
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Pay-per-click
  • Buzz building
  • Affiliate Marketing
  • Banner ads = waste of money (usually)
  • PR
• Offline Marketing
  • Print
  • Radio
  • Flyers
  • Direct Mail
  • Television
  • Billboards
  • Trade Shows

How will you get people to stay on the website and then comeback later?

• Newsletter
• Email opt-in list
• RSS feeds
• Frequently updated content

Where does this website fit within it’s web ecosystem?

Measurement
How do you define success? How will we measure that? What are the metrics that matter?

• Analytics?
• Call Tracking?

Do you know what your acceptable customer acquisition costs are?

Operations
Who will create/update the content?
How will the website be kept current who will be updating it? How often? CMS?
Who will answer the email?
Who will answer the phone?
Who will maintain the website?

Constraints
Are there any Imperatives

• Creative
  • Colors?
  • Images?
• Platform
  • Windows
  • Linux - This is what I prefer
  • Unix
• Hosting
  • Who is the current host and what do they support? Can they scale? Are they reliable?
  • I like Media Temple
  • (more) I need a reliable link that isn’t just a bunch of affiliate marketers
• Web Programming Languages
  • ASP
  • PHP
  • xHTML
  • Ruby
  • Java
  • Flash
  • (more)
• Database
  • MySQL
  • ColdFusion
  • Microsoft SQL server
  • PostgreSQL
  • (more)

What is the budget?
What is the timeline?
How long do you need this website to exist before it is redesigned?
Who are the stakeholders in this process and the key decision makers?
What is the approval process?