Collaboration requires integration of all your sales and marketing assets into business processes.  A key sales and marketing asset is your company website.

What role does your website play in the overall mission, vision, and execution of your business plan?  What is the central purpose, the major reason for the existence of your website?  Do you know the top three reasons people visit your website and what specific feedback they require?  Can you immediately meet their needs upon entry - an indication that you "know" what they need? 

Some ways that websites are used are:  branding, chatting, supporting, searching, communicating, transacting (eCommerce), delivering (IP), tracking (Fed-X), compensating (affiliations), promoting, advertising, click-tracking, opt-in (customer information and data entry), channels and partner management, aggregating, servicing, ... and many more.  It is very important for you to identify the primary value of your website, then focus and provide that value to all your customers.

Regardless of what your website is now, it is important to regularly examine your website to ensure it provides specific outputs that meet and exceed your customer's reason for thinking of your site and supports the overall mission and execution of your business and collaboration plan.  Focusing your website on the specific reason people are coming to your site is a very important and productive business exercise.

Many of my clients proclaim that they do not worry about the website because it:  "is a brand-awareness vehicle".  My response is this:  "Have you been to McDonald's website today?"  McDonald's is the #1 recognized brand in the world and I still haven't met a person who has logged on to their website today:  www.mcdonalds.com .  Now, how about this:  If McDonald's begins a PR campaign announcing that on August 1, 2012, the first 100 people to log onto the site after 12:00 Midnight will win $20 million dollars, how many "hits" do you think McDonalds will have tomorrow and at Midnight, July 31, 2012?

Contrast McDonalds website with www.youtube.com .  How many loyal McDonald's customers use youtube every day and never consider using McDonalds?

Highly targeted websites include www.Webster.com, where the cursor is positioned in an "enter word or phrase" search box upon entry into the site (the #1 reason people would be thinking of Webster.com).  Typing a word or phrase produces a pop-up advertisement soliciting a subscription to The Economist or other product (affiliate revenue) that has the title of a timely information piece.  In this model, the company understands who their target market is; people searching for definitions, and further understands that people who are searching for definitions are the same profile of customers who read the economist and other intellectual journals. 

Using this process as a base, the step for Webster.com to integrate this existing process into the collaboration space would be to also display or pop-up an abstract or ad for an online WebEx seminar co-sponsored by Webster and The Economist or to a more general seminar on how to use all the services Webster's and / or The Economist has to offer ... Virtual Thesaurus

In Summary

1.  What drives revenue and margins in your business?

2.  Does your website support the mission and execution of the business plan?

3. Does your website focus on the needs of the customers who visit?  Can 80% of your customers find what they need on your home page?

4. Can it be used to directly drive revenue and support your customer inquiries?

5. How will you use WebEx collaboration tools in that process to extend your reach and reduce the cost of sales and marketing activities?

6. Does your home page have an "online seminars" button that takes customers to your online events calendar?

7. Does your website make effect use of frames; always keeping people inside your website, with your company website tabs visible on top or bottom regardless of the outside links they click?  Never send a link-clicking  customer outside your website.

Mr Sagmiller is a Senior Management Consultant with Cisco / WebEx.  He delivers custom business, marketing, and sales consulting around the use of WebEx collaboration as a competitive and productivity differentiator.

www.collaborateworld.com

www.onlinesupermarketing.com