Two years ago, the students in this course worked with the
officers of the start-up Greater Buffalo Savings Bank. They're open for business
now, but at the time they were still in development. The MBA 604 course teams
each came up with a site design and a look-and-feel. They presented the
prototype webs to the bank officers at the end of the course. The bank officers
had a question or two, then took the students' prototypes to the bank's ad
agency. The agency mixed and matched and came up with a web site. On the home
page, the bank gave the students the credit they deserved for contributing.
After the bank is open, they totally redesigned the corporate site. Now, they're
down to two pages, a picture or Irv and a rate comparison chart, which is the
one you'll see at
http://www.gbsb.com/
From the bank's point of view, the MBA 604 project was great.
The officers provided the teacher with a bunch of corporate info (but not a
marketing plan) and some pictures and then showed up to see the presentations.
They got enough good ideas to make a placeholder site until they were open for
business.
From the students' point of view, however, the project had two
drawbacks:
Everyone was working with the same corporate brochures and
info sheets. They had only a vague, oral marketing plan. These restraints
created a competitive atmosphere and unwillingness to share design ideas and
Front Page techniques.
The students had no contact with the bank's officers during
the course of the project. This is not only unrealistic, it's highly detrimental
to a successful web development process.
What I'd like you to do is find your own business or
organization and work with them to develop a marketing web, and I mean marketing
in the broad sense.
What makes a good client for this project?
1) a felt need
You need to work with the clients, so they should feel as
though they need a new or revised web.
After a reminder by Toni, I can see virtue in working with a
small-business client who does not have the resources of a large corporation.
2) authority
A good client will have the authority to put the new or revised
web online. You should make it clear that they should expect only a prototype.
3) access
You need information, preferably a written marketing plan. You
may need to take some pictures; you may need to interview employees.
4) availability
On June 8th, I'd like to start the evening at 5 PM with food and
as large an audience as possible. The clients and anyone from their organization
are invited (on June 6th, too, though June 8th is more important). All the
faculty and students in the MBA program are invited. Your family is invited so
they can see how you spend your evenings.
Starting about 5:45, each team is going to have half an hour to
make a slick marketing presentation, with the emphasis on slick.
Step One: Gap analysis
I'd like you to come up with several possible clients and let me
help you choose. After you've chosen, the next task will be to write a couple of
paragraphs defining their need.
Where are they now?
Where
would they like to be?
What
are a couple of preliminary ideas for getting them there (closing the gap)?
Example
Garden of Earthly Delights
Where are they now?
Clear Light Studio is a small business on Main Street in
Clarence Hollow at the top of the hill across from Mazia's pizza. The
proprietors, Bill Jobling and Donna Ioviero, are the only employees. They have
been in business since the late 1980's when Bill left his last salaried job. As
you can see at
http://ClearLightStudio.com/garden.htm
Donna has a distinctive style. She makes enameled copper
sculptures, fountains, and jewelry. Donna's work is hard work. The
fountains are outdoor and all-weather, so they're heavy. Donna hammers and cuts
and bends and welds copper. The enameling is a very tricky process involving
timing, temperature, and good luck. She's never sure what its going to look like
until she pulls it out of the kiln and lets it cool.
Usually, Donna makes things and then puts them on display in her
house and yard. Customers come to the Studio much as they would to any store.
They shop by looking around and talking to Donna. They often return several
times before they buy.
As with many small businesses, Clear Light Studio doesn't have a
written marketing plan. Bill and Donna provide terrific customer service.
They're very patient. They run occasional ads in Art Voice. They hand out
black-and-white xeroxed flyers to anyone who comes to the Studio or expresses
interest. Their marketing is viral: they rely on repeat business, word of mouth,
and quick personal response to a phone query or a walk-in.
Because enameled copper easily packs and ships, it struck me
that The Garden of Earthly Delights was a good candidate for marketing on the
Web. In June 1999, we went online with ClearLightStudio.com. Bill and Donna make
all the design and marketing decisions. I make the pages, manage the site, and
provide marketing advice.
A year ago, Bill and Donna were new to the Internet. Their
expectations were to sell the occasional fountain and get more people to look at
the work. They didn't expect to grow in the sense of more work because Donna's
fountains are hands-on, labor-intensive, and one-of-a-kind. At best, they wanted
to be able to charge more. Perhaps the Web could attract a more affluent
customer. Skip to Step Two to learn how we proceeded.
Now traffic patterns are emerging, expectations are adjusting,
and it's time to change the site.
Where would they like to be?
Donna would like to:
1) keep more visitors longer
2) move them further along the sales process
What are some preliminary ideas?
Add content. People who buy the fountains from the Studio are
fascinated by the process of how Donna makes the copper shapes and enamels them.
Put that information in pictures and text. Yes, it will draw people interested
only in the process and not in buying the fountains. But it will also give
potential buyers a repeat visit experience without their having to physically
return to the Studio. It will also let them see the most interesting parts of
the process without Donna's having to repeatedly demonstrate it, which consumes
time and material.
Step Two: Design Concept
Before you get very far, you want to think through your
preliminary ideas. Some will break down, fall apart, or prove impossible. Others
will overlap and blend. One may well stand out as the way to go.
In addition to your experience on the Web, the best resource for
shaping your ideas at this point is Patrick Lynch's Web Style Manual.
To follow the example from the above gap analysis,
I will tell you what we decided for The Garden of Earthly Delights in May 1999.
Tip | Use paper or a text editor for brainstorming
and taking notes. Use an erasable board or large, unlined paper for sketching
interfaces.
Who is the web for?
market segments
Marketing experts love to segment and re-segment consumers. In
the upcoming presidential race, we'll see the candidates' marketing experts talk
about appealing to the "white male suburban Catholic gun-owning
cross-over" voter. Of course, a real human being who fits into that
category may cast his vote on the basis of something else entirely, such as what
one of the candidates said about unions and free trade.
It's more economical to market to a small group. Marketing to
everyone is really marketing to no one. It's also easier to make decisions for a
smaller group. For example, an ad for an automobile on MTV will stress different
features than an ad for the same automobile in Car & Driver magazine.
The idea that groups of people behave similarly is called
stereotyping in psychology. Stereotyping has social implications. For example, a
cop stops most teenagers driving an expensive car. The same cop stops every
black male teen driving an expensive car. People of one race, gender, and
socioeconomic group fear and mistrust those of another.
Because of these negative connotations, marketers often call it
profiling. The Holy Grail is one-to-one marketing, targeting a market segment of
one. Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos calls it "remaking the store for every
customer."
Garden
Although Donna's fountains work just fine inside the house, she
decided to concentrate her Web marketing on outdoor fountains. For starters,
then, her target market had a Web-connected computer. They had a yard. They
could afford the price of the fountains. They either had one of her fountains
already or had been to the Studio to see them. They lived within driving
distance of Clarence.
Three types of website visitors:
casual surfers
new
customers
repeat
customers
What is its purpose, part I?
strategic objectives
Goals are vague: to increase revenue. Objectives are measurable:
to generate 10 sales leads in the first month and to double that number in each
of the three succeeding months.
The strategic part comes from its benefit to the business or
organization. How does the objective contribute to a sustainable competitive
advantage?
Although there are other ways to approach it, for this project
I'm suggesting that you use some or all of the ways you're approaching the panel
discussions:
branding and partnering
advertising and promoting
personalizing and customizing
building community
making accessible, esp. internationalizing
Garden
Since most customers visit her yard several times before they
buy, she didn't expect online purchases from first-time customers. The goal of
the site is to turn the casual surfer into a new customer and the new customer
into a repeat customer. Nor did she expect any strangers to enter a credit card
number.
Objectives
Whether it's because the customers volunteered the information
or Donna asked, in-store customers should identify visiting the site as a
positive part of their buying decision. Because most of the outdoor fountains
sell from May to September, one customer per week, whether or not they bought,
should mention the site in 1999. One buyer per week should identify the site
positively in 2000.
Outcome
These may seem like modest objectives, but they're realistic,
too, and not succumbing to Web Hype, a nasty marketing illness. As it turned
out, the site got very little traffic until October 1999, so the 1999 objective
wasn't met. Since then, most of the site traffic has been from outside the WNY
area. Most repeat customers during the winter months mentioned the site
positively. Donna has high hopes for the coming outdoor season and is retaining
the 2000 objective of one buyer per week mentioning the site positively.
Tip | Note how easy it is to measure this objective.
To integrate her efforts, Donna has included the URL on all
of her other marketing material, including hats and t-shirts.
What is its purpose, part II?
users' tasks, roles
Given the strategic objectives, what do you want users to do?
Buy? Give you contact info? Ask a question? Subscribe to a newsletter? Request
that a sales rep call them? Give demographic info? Download samples?
What features
will further these actions? No site can do everything for everybody. Every
feature -- every word, image, and sound -- should relate to one of the strategic
objectives. This strict requirement makes decision-making much easier.
Garden
casual, out-of-town Web surfers
new customers: If the web visitors were first-timers, the web
would encourage them to visit the yard.
repeat customers: If they were repeat customers, they needed to
see new work.
Here's what Donna decided about the list of features
| catalog |
the site's main feature |
| product samples |
not relevant, though pictures
are good reminders |
| shopping cart |
shoppers not likely to buy
enough fountains to justify a shopping cart
we did, however, make an order page |
| policy statement |
This "page" turned
into several: security, returns, etc. It took more time and thought than
any of us thought it would. |
| site searching |
not enough pages or text to make
it worthwhile |
| product comparisons |
The fountains are one of a kind,
so what should we compare them to, other lawn ornaments? Pink flamingos?
All the pages are similar so that the shopper can easily compare the
fountains to each other. |
| product reviews
(recommendations) |
not for the first version |
| user groups |
not for the first version |
| technical support |
not for the first version |
| ancillary services |
not for the first version |
| non-cash currency systems |
not applicable |
| wallets |
not applicable |
| payment systems |
We used Donna's regular merchant
account. The order page has a place to type in the card number, which
Donna would then treat as a phone order. |
| fulfillment |
Bill and the U.S. Postal
Service, FedEx or UPS, or whatever else the customer desired. |
What will go into the web?
words, images, sounds, code
These are also known as digital assets or media assets.
Garden
From Donna's point of view, the catalog with lots of images. In
her experience, one image works far better than lots of words. She needed names
for the fountains, prices, and contact information.
What will go into each node?
chunks, groups
What will the web links connect?
relative links
The web should be self-contained. All the links to other pages
within the web should provide only the path to that page from the page where the
link is. For example, if I want to link from this page to the Online Store page
with the marketing web features,
the tag reads:
<a href="../../../gizmos/office/storefront.htm#product">features</a>
In English, that says, "From this page, go three steps back
up the directory hierarchy to the gizmos directory. Within its office
subdirectory, you'll find the file named storefront.htm. Place the
bookmark product at the top of the browser screen."
If the web uses only relative links, the web can be moved as a
unit anywhere and still function.
Garden
The web was small enough that all the catalog pages can link to
all the other catalog pages. Before the summer was over, however, Donna had
created a couple of little cul-de-sacs or loops.
What will the Web links connect to?
absolute links
Will the web contain links to other pages on the World Wide Web?
Many commercial webs don't. They want to keep the user on their site as long as
possible. Increasing stickiness in this way seems easy but is constantly foiled
by the users' back button or favorites list or history list (pull down the
address or location menu).
Garden
At first, Donna had links to Bill's pages. In addition, at the
bottom of each page, I put a link to me and to the toLearn home page. Other than
that, she had no outside links.
What will the interfaces / screens look like?
palettes and grids
plain, strong, centered
What will the navigation system look like?
where? how big?
top and bottom, as small as possible
What will be interactive?
why? what?
forms, email links
step three: concept map and interface sketches
step four: acquire digital assets (make, scan, buy, download)
step five: manipulate digital assets (edit, combine, compress)
step six: publish the web
1. Have two identical versions of the site:
one on the hard drive (usually C: drive) of the computer
you work on
one
on the server
I mean identical down to the last capitalized letter and blank
space. The server is probably using Unix or Linux, which are case-sensitive and
very unfriendly to file names and directory names that have more than one word
and contain blank spaces.
tip | Use all lower-case one-word file names and
directory names.
2. Use WS_FTP to:
delete files from the server
transfer
files from your hard drive to the server.
For academic purposes, WS_FTP 5.08 is free from Ipswitch.com.
It's what I use for Ricci Street. Ipswitch's (from IP switch, IP for Internet
Protocol) commercial version is 6.0, but this free one works just fine for basic
site maintenance. It's almost at the bottom of the list of Ipswitch's products.
To use it, you will need the IP# of the server, an ID name for
access to the server's directories, and a password. After you enter them and
click Connect, WS_FTP will present a two-paned interface.
Note that you can watch the progress below the panes. What
WS_FTP does is keep you from having to telnet to the server and type in all
those command lines that fly past. Plus it's free? What a bargain!
The directory listings for your local hard drive will appear on
the right. The listings for the server will appear on the left. Navigate until
they mirror each other. You should then be able to highlight the file on the
left that you want to move and have the same directory displayed on the right.
Click the right-pointing arrow between the two panes.
Tip | This is trickier than it sounds. Be very
careful.
3. Very important
After you have transfered the files, use your browser to
make sure the page is available and that all the images and graphics are
showing.
Click on everything to make sure the links work. Other than
mistyping, the most common problem will be an <a href> to your A: drive or
your C: drive instead of a relative link within the web or an absolute link to
an http: address.
Cast a critical eye on what others are going to see. Be
willing to return to your desktop to make more changes and then transfer the
page back.
Course
Project, Spring 2000
