I was in a meeting last week and someone made a comment that a website is not that big of a deal and really not much different than a yellow-page ad in the phone book.  I nearly leapt out of my chair!  Online marketing and yellow-page marketing are worlds apart!  Here are just a few points of refutation to this argument:

Measurement:    It’s tough to measure the success of a print piece other than the number of people who get it.  With a website, you can not only measure (using analytics tools) how many people come to it, but which pages they go to, how long they stay on each page, the path they took as they navigated through your website, where they came from, where they went to, and the list goes on and on and on.  The limits of understanding are endless!

Flexibility:  Once you’ve placed your print ad, you are stuck with it until the next round of printing (or in the case of yellow-pages, next year’s printing).  That typo is there until you reprint – read time and expense.  With a website that has even a basic content management system you can make changes any time you want, day or night.  Typo - Fixed.  New product - Added.  You get the idea.

Space: With a print ad you are limited to the size of the block.  With a website, not only do you have more space, but you can add more pages and sub-pages to make sure that the additional detail (and levels of detail) are available.  You can also link to other pages or websites where there’s even more content!

2D versus 3D:  Print is a 2-dimensional product – unless it’s a pop-up book.  Online is a multi-dimensional, interactive technology that allows one to drill-down into layers of information, link to other sites, launch applications, view videos, etc.  The ability for interaction is much greater!

Level of interactivity:  One can have real-time, immediate interaction with applications or other people via the web.  Have you tried Skype?  Played a multiplayer game online? Used instant chat?  Placed an order with Amazon?  Now remember how you interacted with that print piece?  It probably made you smile, or at most go to their website at a later time (notice how it still drives to a website?)!  But, did it make you “click” right then and there to make the purchase or fill out the contact form?  No, it didn’t, because print can’t.  A great deal of the impact the Web provides for businesses comes from the immediacy it allows.

Behavioral swing:  Because of all of the previous points – and probably some more that I didn’t mention – people are turning to the Web more and more.  While there may be a variety of very legitimate reasons to continue your print pieces, you cannot neglect the Web.

At BitWise, we don’t know the print business, we know the Web.  If you have print related needs, you should call someone else...but if you would like some help with your Web strategy, Web asset management, web development or anything Web related really, give us a call, I am fairly confident we can help.

A relatively new friend of mine, a smart guy named David, whom I met through Sigma Chi fraternity connections, recently asked me what I thought of human hosted sites, such as http://www.burdford.com,  http://www.phaneuf.net/ and http://www.csnh.com/. 

My initial reaction was to say that I think that the human host functionality is kind of cool the first time you visit the site that has it, but after that it gets kind of annoying.  David’s reply was that “for a [site] a user would visit routinely, perhaps the human host would be frustrating as it would get in the way of a frequent user.  I could also [imagine] it being annoying to a skilled web browser that just wants to find their own way to the information they are seeking.  But, for the new customer (you know the ones with money to spend and we are all working to attract), a well presented, informative approach by a human host can be an extremely effective way to deliver the message by ensuring the correct tone and completeness of the information presented.  For the frequent user, an easy "opt out" button would minimize frustration.” 

After more reflection, I think that my answer was influenced because most of my career in the technology field has been involved in business-to-business solutions.  However, for more “one-off” transactional Web sites that are consumer-oriented, then the human host solution may very well be a good fit, because it takes some of the benefits of video and personalizes the presentation.  However, at the time I replied to David that I would give the visitor the choice of whether they would want the “human host” to run and present the product/service.  Then, I would be more inclined to leverage a Website design that incorporates “live-chat” instant messaging with an option to opt out of the live chat and go to a call back by the firm to the visitor who was interested in talking to someone at that point.  I understand that not everyone can staff live chat all the time, but the “human host” option can “fill-in” in the interim.

David offered this interesting observation – “I continue to be blown away by the number of people that are starved for attention/human interaction/entertainment (i.e.: lots of lonely people)....somewhere in there is an opportunity….”    David is right. We are all just people looking to make meaningful connections with other people.  That’s why Facebook and other social media offerings have taken off in such a big way. 

That begs the question, if we were created to be social creatures and make connections with others, then how can we each do it personally with our co-workers? Our customers?  And, how can we make a better connection through a solid Web site design strategy?

Thanks to David for the dialogue.  I appreciate his thoughts and for those of you reading I’d appreciate your thoughts and insights around making better connections both online and off.