| Revealed! Everything you wanted to know about internet marketing (but were too busy to ask) ---------------------------------------------------------- Hi Name and welcome to GETTING STARTED IN THE WAY THAT'S RIGHT FOR YOU In this issue: 1. Could you DIY? Great, you've decided to get your business online. How are you going to do it - DIY or hire somebody to help you? If the DIY route is a non-starter for you, skip the next paragraph and explore the freelance and agency options below. 1. Could you DIY? Building, marketing and maintaining your own website can be great fun, enormously satisfying and very profitable. So why doesn't everybody do it? Obviously you need time and patience - you may have colleagues who can help too. But it's unlikely that you'll be an expert at every aspect – copywriting for example is a specialist skill – so you'll be learning as you go. If you're up for it, the good news is that with the tools available today, you don't have to be a web developer, designer or search engine expert to do a lot of the work in-house. Doing it yourself means you can test the market, learn about how your customers react and get a good grounding in the fundamentals of e-commerce. And if you decide to work with an agency or consultant in the future, you'll be able to deal with them from an informed position. Here's some ways to get started You could start by reading Shelley Lowery's brilliant book – Web Design Mastery. It takes you step by step through the process of designing and marketing an e-commerce site. Click here for details and reviews. You'll then want an all-in-one design, marketing and maintenance package. Forgive the plug but you could have a look at the Incise Webmaster kits which start at just £199 a year. They enable you to do everything necessary to get trading on the net including website building, marketing and ezine tools. We offer these kits in three comprehensive packages to suit all budgets. To see how they work take a Virtual Tour or view the Website Builder Demonstration An alternative option is the automated design, marketing and maintenance package called the Site Build It programme . It's recognised as one of the best DIY options on the market. ---------------------------------------------------------- Protect your business from crashes, viruses and hackers and save over 15%. Depositit is the leading online data back-up solution. Incise subscribers get nearly 20% off standard prices. Find out more here ---------------------------------------------------------- 2. Work with FREELANCERS? If you know precisely what you want for your website and its marketing, hiring freelancers has many advantages: - t he good ones are usually very responsive - they have few overheads so they're competitive - they're often experts in a specialist field - they can be flexible. In fact many agencies hire freelancers for these reasons. The disadvantages are: - being specialists in design, copywriting etc, you'll need to hire one for each task, which means project management is critical. Web projects can be complex, so unless you know what you're doing, you'd be well advised to hire a professional web project manager too - you may lose the freelancer! The flip side of their flexibility is that they may decide to work on a different project. Most are reliable though and you can mitigate this risk through staged payments, by having a reserve freelancer and by getting recommendations. If you think this is the best route for your project, have a look at http://www.getafreelancer.com and http://www.elance.com where you can post projects and invite bids. 3. Work with a WEB AGENCY The advantages of a web agency are: - breadth and depth of expertise The disadvantages can be: - overheads and the impact on cost We're an agency at Incise but we're DIYERS too - and we hire freelancers! We overcome the cost issue by outsourcing our technical work to a dedicated offshore development centre. Our aim is to give best value by offering strategic input, creativity and project management here in the UK . We then get all the technical expertise offshore at globally competitive prices. You can find out more about how we work at http://www.incisecomms.co.uk And you'll find lots of agencies on the internet and in your Yellow Pages. That's it for today. In your next session, we'll get to grips with how you build your internet strategy. Look out for it in three or four days. Cheers for now, Paul +44(0)870 420 3181 NOTES 1. Please forward this course to anyone you think might find it useful, whether they're considering © Paul Lock 2005. All rights reserved. No copying or extraction without permission from service@incisecomms.co.uk. |