Category Archives for "Technique"

2 In-Person Marketing: Public Speaking Events

When you use public speaking as part of your marketing campaign, you need to plan more than your speech.  Here are three things you need to consider, when organising public speaking events:

How to Find Public Speaking Opportunities

This is, I find, the hardest part of using public speaking for marketing.  You need to be clear about what you’re offering and who you are marketing to.

Ideally, you’re seeking an audience made up of several prospective customers.  So, this is not the same as addressing a meeting of people from the same business or organisation.  You could deliver the same speech to them but you have only one possible customer.  Such an organisation, if impressed by your speech, might refer you to others and so such a meeting might be worthwhile.  However, you need to be clear whether they are able to do that and confident they’ll find your performance worth passing on.

When you set up an event, be clear in advance what you will offer your audience as a call to action.  It is not a good idea to go for a hard sell.  Discuss your call to action with your host in advance.  It is a doubly bad idea not to tell your host if you do go for a hard sell!

As a call to action, it is helpful to offer an opportunity to explore your topic in more depth.  I offer a Community Marketing Conversation, where the participant takes away next steps for their marketing campaign.  Usually this will be a referral and occasionally I make them an offer.

What to Consider When Delivering Your Speech

Your aim throughout the presentation is to build relationships with your audience.

See my previous post about the practicalities of public speaking.  Be clear about whether you are providing notes, especially if you use PowerPoint.  Notes are useful because you can include contact details and details of your offers.

As you approach the end of your talk, ask those who are interested to sign up to your offer.  You can ask them to provide their name, mobile number and email address so you can contact them to arrange a meeting.  Or you can offer dates and times and encourage people to sign up for them.  It is perhaps best to combine these two as people who get to sign up late may find no slots remain they can attend.

You don’t necessarily need to provide your contact details to those who sign up because you will contact them within 48 hours to confirm your arrangements.  If you do want to make sure people can contact you, a handout that lists ways they can support your enterprise will do the trick.  Many people use business cards and these can be the best way of passing on details.

Follow-Up to Your Speech

Hang around and talk to people.  There may be opportunities to ask people to sign up who have so far hesitated.  In any event it is better than making a dash for the door.  You may also be able to find referrals from the people present, if they can think of potential customers for you in the light of your presentation.

Don’t forget to thank your host and check out they are happy with your performance.

Don’t forget to email those who signed up, confirming their meeting.  Don’t assume they entered it in their diary.

On the day, text them with details of the meeting.  This serves as a reminder but also puts your number near the top of their list in case they get lost or delayed.  See my post about sales conversations for more information about what to do when you meet.

And don’t forget to review your presentation as soon as you can.  This way you will remember elements that didn’t go so well.

Have you any experience of presentations and tips you would like to share?

1 In-Person Marketing: Public Speaking

Public Speaking is a valuable local marketing tool.  This post focuses on speaking itself and the next is about how to organise public speaking as a marketing activity.

My main advice is practice speaking and listen to others speak.  You can learn a lot by listening, even to poor speakers.  You need opportunities to find your voice and become confident in your ability to hold your audience’s attention.  Despite what people say about audiences with the attention span of a gnat, the truth is a good speaker can capture and hold their attention for long periods.

One important aspect of any compelling public speech is the use of stories.  If possible you should have a keynote or origin story, which is a story about you.  Its aim is to build rapport with your audience.  I won’t dwell on this here but refer you to earlier posts about the use of story.

Rhetoric is the process of speaking in public and involves several skills you need to bring together.  It isn’t easy but it is easier than it sounds!

Arguing

You may on occasion share a platform with someone with a message to some degree opposed to yours.  However, when you are the sole speaker you still need to hone your arguing skills.

Your argument is the strategy you use to engage your audience and keep them with you.  It may include telling a few stories and illustrating the point you want to make.  The argument should culminate in a call to action.  This means those persuaded by your speech can follow-up by taking some action.

The awareness ladder is one way you can structure your argument, starting where your audience is and carrying them forward to the point where they are ready respond.  There are of course other ways of structuring an argument.

Proving

Proving something may be part of your argument.  It can be central to your argument or else it may be a minor element.

For proof you need to marshal hard evidence and soft evidence as well as ensuring your narrative makes sense and actually proves what you claim it proves.

I recently attended a debate about the European referendum.  The Brexiter made two mistakes; despite being the most engaging speaker, his account did not stack up.  He claimed the European Union plans to create a single European state, which is not the subject of the referendum and then he went on to show that as 28 countries would have to vote in favour of such a state, it is almost impossible.  First, the chances are the UK would not support such a change as many pro-Europeans would not be in favour of it.  This is not the subject of the referendum, the pro-European speaker actually said he would not support a European state if that was the question for a referendum!  His second mistake was his proof (if we assume each state is 50% likely to join, the chances of agreement is one half raised to the power of 28) actually favours the “remain in Europe” argument.  After all, if a European State were on the agenda it is very unlikely to get the support it needs.  We can stay in Europe confident that we won’t be somehow turned into a single state.

So, make sure your proof proves what you claim it proves because if it doesn’t, it will favour the other side.

Inventing

The speaker at the European debate had invented what to him was a compelling argument.  He was a good speaker, let down by his own material.

By all means be inventive.  If I were speaking in the same debate, I would argue against the holding of a referendum at all!  I don’t believe the referendums, organised in recent years, have been democratic.  They are divisive and narrow down the debate to a binary decision that in no way mirrors political reality.

If I developed that argument, solely my own as I haven’t seen or read anything like it elsewhere (such arguments are beginning to appear, eg Irvine Welsh), I am confident I’d hold my audience’s attention.  I know this because I broached the topic in a two-minute speech recently and the response was positive, people wanted to hear more (which does not mean they agree with me).

Your invention can be in the argument you choose, the way you structure it and the stories you use to support it.

Memorising

Memorising relevant passages can be effective.  The chances of you stumbling means the audience will be with you and cheer you on.

However, that is not the main meaning of this point.  Memorising means getting away from your notes.  You remember the flow of your argument and put it into your own words.

This is impressive albeit difficult to do.  Especially in a long talk, it is easy to get off the point or forget the order of the argument.

But memorising frees your eyes to make contact with your audience, so that you can gauge how the talk is going down.

Delivery

And this brings us to how you deliver your message.  How you stand, what you wear, your tone of voice and the words you use to communicate.

This is an enormous topic and the value of training in public speaking is you receive feedback about how you are coming across and what you can do to improve it.

Figures of speech

Finally, figures of speech are what is normally understood as rhetoric although a small part of what you do when you deliver a speech.

They often involve some form of repetition.  If you can vary the rhythm of your speech and include memorable turns of phrase, it will impress people.  You can’t rely on these techniques alone because on their own they don’t add up to an effective speech.  However, they can be used to spice up a speech and are effective when used to support the other elements in your rhetoric.

This is a fairly standard list of the elements of rhetoric.  What do you find to be the most important consideration when you are speaking to market something?

2 In-Person Marketing: Sales Conversations

I find sales conversations the hardest part of doing business.  For most of my life, I’ve been sceptical about business.  I believed grants to be ethically superior to business.

I’m not entirely opposed to grants but sceptical about the grant-making industry; what grants can achieve and a project’s sustainability when supported by grants.

Many of the values of community I’ve supported during my working life can be found in business networks.  However, if you enter those networks you are sooner or later going to have sales conversations.

How do You Know it is a Sales Conversation?

Not all business conversations are sales conversations and it is important you know what type of conversation you are having.  Your partner in the conversation also needs to know.

The aim of a one-to-one conversation is not to make a sale.  It is to find out about the other person’s business.  If you are going to help another business it is important you understand their offer and their market.

Sometimes a one-to-one turns into a sales conversation.  I don’t necessarily recommend you try this.  It is better if the initiative comes from the other person.  A question like, “Do you know anyone who might be interested in my offer?” can occasionally result in interest from the person opposite.  This is not necessarily as helpful as a list of possible contacts!

It may at this point be a good idea to adjourn and meet again for the sales conversation.

On Not Being Slimy

Everyone fears the hard sell and most people have built-in slime detectors and will run a mile.  Even more problematic is if they detect hidden slime.  It is amazing how a conversation slips away when people detect hidden sales intentions.  I sometimes have to check back over what I said because people are incredibly sensitive and back off at a hint of sales.

The hard sell is out and the sneaky sell is also out.  So, what’s left?  First, sit down and listen to the other person.  In a sales conversation, the prospect must do the talking.  You ask a few questions and let them talk.

At some stage, assuming you can help, you can ask if they would like to hear how you can help them.

On Not Being Understood

This is a real problem.  Prospects often have a fixed idea of the solution they need.  Sometimes they don’t even know what the problem is.  I’m often approached for a website.  The sales conversation is crucial because prospects do not always need a website.

I don’t sell websites.  I sell local marketing solutions and sometimes they include a website.

If you’re ill, you don’t go to your doctor and demand an antibiotic.  You expect to take time to explain your symptoms and be examined by the doctor.  Usually, you’re relieved there is a cure and happy to do whatever it takes.  You might think you need an antibiotic and you may be right but usually you accept the doctor’s solution.

With your business, the chances are you know more about it than your marketing consultant.  Nevertheless, it is always better to take the opportunity to talk through your problem and discuss possible solutions with the consultant.  That way you can be sure your chosen solution is the right one for your business.

I had a prospect a few months ago who turned me down.  The other day I saw the offer of a website from a competitor they had accepted.  Their new designer is charging a little less than I did and is reproducing their current site with slightly better graphics.

Their solution is in flat html and is actually not an improvement on what they had before.  I failed to get across to them that (1) solutions like this are a waste of money and time, and (2) far more powerful solutions are available than many website designers are offering.

Their new designer has an advantage in that they are selling something simple and easy to understand.  Unfortunately it is the solution they want and not the solution they need.

On Not Saying No

One thing to bear in mind is many prospects do not understand they have two options; yes and no.  Both options are acceptable.  There are many advantages to someone saying no:

What can happen is the cold shoulder.  The prospect goes silent.  I suspect many people say yes to get out of the room and mean no.

I’m sure this is something I’m doing wrong and I share it here because I suspect it is a problem many business people encounter.  The solution?  I’m still working on it but I think it includes at an early stage reassuring your prospect and explaining the advantages of saying no, without making it so attractive that no-one ever says yes!

Closing the Deal

When someone says yes, depending on what is on offer, there are several steps to turning it into a deal.  Leaving aside those who say yes but mean no, there is another group who change their mind.

Clearly, there may be an advantage in having a cooling off period, particularly if you offer a consultancy service.  A programme of work with someone who is full of doubts is unlikely to work to anyone’s advantage.

However, there is something called buyers’ remorse and this often kicks in when you make an expensive purchase.  You will have experienced it.  If there are several days between yes and sealing the deal, it is possible for buyers’ remorse to set in before the payment.

Understand buyers’ remorse is independent of the advantages of sealing the deal.  It is a natural emotional response.  I’ve suggested some ways to counter buyer’s remorse and so I won’t go through that again – especially as I don’t know as yet whether any will work!

A lot depends on your belief in what you sell.  You need to be positive and on the ball.  I can remember times when I simply didn’t think of the right thing to say until afterwards, when it was too late.  The point is a lot of this is down to experience and whilst there are plenty of ideas around, nothing replaces experience.

Please share any approaches you have tried to sales conversations.  Did they work?

5 In-Person Marketing: Referral Marketing

Last Wednesday, I wrote about networking and how to arrange one-to-one meetings with relevant people.  These meetings are opportunities for referral marketing and that is my topic today.

What is a one-to-one meeting?

Usually, you arrange a one-to-one to get to know someone who you have not met before.  You want to tell them about your business or cause and usually they will want to tell you about theirs.

So, here are some common reasons for a one-to-one:

Referral Marketing Reaches Further than the People in the Room

Referral marketing happens when you meet to exchange information about your businesses.  It is where you learn about someone else’s business because you might have contacts you can refer to them.  Similarly they learn about your business and may have contacts they can refer to you.

Realistically, your one-to-one is the start of a relationship and this is why a lot of referral marketing takes place in the context of a business breakfast or lunch.  This means participants can build relationships over time.  It can take a while for people to understand your business and who your market is likely to be.

It is easy to forget they need to know both what you offer and who it is for.

Don’t assume the other person understands referral marketing.  One common problem is people look only at the people in the room.  They do not consider the possibility that people in the room know many other people.  They very likely do know people who would be interested in your offer; it’s just that sometimes it takes a while for the penny to drop.

If they do refer you to someone, do not forget to ask for credentials.  Can you mention who referred you to them?  Sometimes they will arrange an introduction for you.

Making Referrals

If you are part of a group of people committed to referral marketing, you will find when you have sales conversations, sometimes it is right to refer the prospect onto another business.  It is as if in one conversation the prospect is talking to several businesses.

It is always helpful to make a good referral.  The prospect will be grateful, assuming it is a good referral, and so will the person to whom you make the referral.

Remember that whilst they are not likely to be a prospect, you can ask them if they know anyone who is.  Occasionally, you may find someone interested in your offer, at which point you can arrange another meeting or switch into your marketing conversation.

I never turn down an offer of a one-to-one because I know this is the way I can spread the word about my business as well as maybe find another business to which I can make referrals.  I am often turned down by businesses when I ask for a one-to-one.  There are lots of reasons why this happens.  It is common that they look at what I am doing and decide my business is not compatible with theirs.  Several times I have been turned down by people who initially say yes.  Usually, I have something in mind that might benefit them.  If I don’t share it, normally it will be because the conversation take us to a new place and I think of something even better.  This is what referral marketers do, they link people to useful contacts.

Use E-Mail to Follow Up

One thing I have started to do is a follow-up email.  This allows me to

Very few people are this organised, I find.  But I want to take this aspect of my work seriously because to me it is a developmental role.  It is very hard work, finding prospects and the more people who are looking out for your business, the easier it becomes.  It also takes time.  You need to work out how to market your offer.  Understanding what people need to know to find prospects for you takes time to work out.

Have you examples of times when referral marketing has worked for you?  What practices have you found effective?

1 In-Person Marketing: Networking

Networking is fundamental to community development and community-based marketing.  Many businesses find networks of local contacts a great platform for marketing their business.  I found much the same as a community development worker, supporting community groups building their membership.

Businesses have enshrined the one-to-one over coffee, whilst as a community development worker I met a lot of people in their workplace or home.

The first step is to meet people.  This can be hard if you are, like me, introvert.  I can happily hide out in a crowd and not talk to anyone.  This is never particularly helpful.  There are broadly two ways to do networking.

The Networking Event

These are often advertised as network events but any events where people gather will do.  At a big event you will speak to a small number of people, even if you are extrovert.  So, the first point for my fellow introverts is you will never get to speak to everyone so don’t worry if it doesn’t feel as if you are meeting enough people.  No one speaks to everyone at networking events.

Once you’re in a conversation and you’ve found some common ground, here are a few things to remember:

Referral Networking

Another approach to networking often used by community development workers is referral networking.  You make first contacts and arrange one-to-ones with them.  These might be members of a management committee or officers of local groups.  Anyone who is willing to meet with you.

During the conversation you ask if they can think of two relevant people who might be willing to meet with you.  Also ask if it is OK to tell the referrals they recommended them.  This latter is your credentials.  They are more likely to meet you if a friend or associate recommends you.

Get their phone number, call them and explain your previous contact suggested they might like to meet you.  (Usually email is not a good way to make first contact.)  The last four bullets in the list above can then be followed.  Don’t forget to ask your new contacts for their two contacts and credentials during your meeting.

This approach works well if you are familiarising yourself with a neighbourhood.  It can help you reach people you would not otherwise contact.  You will eventually have more contacts than you have time to contact but usually some people can’t think of anyone or some contacts drop out for various reasons.

Both these approaches are good ways to make contact with people.  What I haven’t really mentioned is what you discuss at the meetings.  That will be my topic next time.

Do you have an approach to networking that works?  What are your tips for making networking more effective?

0 In-Person Marketing Techniques

So far, most of my posts under the category “Technique” have been about online marketing.  Online marketing is hard to escape these days, especially if you are in business.  Customers do not have to go online but if they are online they are aware of marketing daily.  However, online marketing is secondary to in-person marketing.  It always will be so because in-person interactions will always have a more profound impact.

This is especially true for local marketing.  We can use the Internet to market offers nationally and even globally.  In-person interactions will be fewer under these circumstances.  Cost is the reason for this.  Few people can afford to fly all over the world and meet people in expensive hotels.  The traditional approaches to marketing on this scale such as newspaper or TV advertising, are still very expensive.  The Internet has opened up global marketing to many more people.  It is cheaper.  It is still difficult but certainly possible.

However my focus is on community-based marketing and there are many in-person techniques you can use to build a marketing strategy locally.  Mostly these remain unchanged.  The Internet can support most of these approaches but they are much as they always were.

Marketing

In this blog, I apply the language of marketing to community development.  The way I see it, local businesses need to market to communities, while community organisations need to recognise business as an essential element within their neighbourhoods.

When I write about promoting or campaigning, what I say is just the same.  There is, however, one difference between marketing and promoting / campaigning.  Marketing aims to make a sale, usually in a business context.  It may make sense to keep this distinction.  I market when I’m aiming for a sale; I promote or campaign when I seek to do something else.  This is fair enough if only because it allows these three words to retain distinct meanings.

Marketing in its narrow meaning has a business context and aims for sales.  In its more general sense, marketing means any kind of promotion.  Why?

1. Whether you are marketing towards a sale, promoting or campaigning, the methods are indistinguishable.
2. The marketplace is central to community development and not solely for financial transactions. Fundamentally I want to distinguish between genuine marketplaces, where people have a right to promote whatever they wish (so long as its legal) and the private shopping centre where the campaigner is moved along.  The private shopping centre is not a marketplace because it lacks the fundamental right we all have to live our lives in public; they are leisure centres, where the primary leisure pursuit is shopping.

Promoting

In its specific sense, promoting is where you are seeking support for an activity.  So, you are organising an event where there is a guest speaker and you want people to attend.  A flyer or email to a list informs people of the venue, time and place.  You’ll say a little about the speaker and their subject and hope people turn up.

There are many activities that need to be promoted.  Here are a few:

There may be a charge for some of these but the main point is the political message; charges cover costs.

Conclusion

Whilst most people agree these are distinct approaches, there is significant overlap of the activities involved.  The in-person marketing techniques I will describe in this sequence of posts can equally be used to market, promote or campaign.

Do you agree all these approaches are marketing methods?  How do you set about promoting your activities?

2 The Inevitability of Hardware Failure

I haven’t written a great deal about hardware because mostly it doesn’t matter.  The beauty of most software these days is it will run on just about anything.  This is obviously an advantage but a qualified one.

Your software may run on your hardware but that doesn’t mean it runs well.  I sometimes find when working with clients, they are struggling with ancient systems and have no concept of how much easier life would be if they invested in  up-to-date hardware.  You would not believe how many steam-powered computers there are out there!

Yes it is expensive but essential if you are planning some significant online activity.

There is one thing everyone needs to know about hardware: sooner or later it will fail.  (Software can also fail cataclysmically and so what I say here applies equally to hardware and software failure.)

This has just happened to me.  There was no warning.  Everything was running as normal and then in an instant, it wasn’t.  My lap-top was between 3 and 4 years old and so was due for renewal.  It went to the doctors and returned yesterday with all my files wiped against my explicit instructions to contact me if they needed to wipe the hardware.  It is back with the doctors for data recovery.  They claimed they phoned me twice.  They had the correct number and I have an answer machine.  And why did they think, after finding me unavailable twice, I wanted to lose all my files?  This is not hardware failure, is it?

The most important safeguard against such cataclysms is you must back things up.  I’m more or less confident I will recover everything I need in the fullness  of time but at the moment I can’t access my work between 10 and 26 June.  (This will have a few consequences for the blog but I’ll resume normal services in time.)

So, how should we guard against inevitable hardware failure?

Things are easier than they were.  Ideally, these days you can set up new hardware and instantly access your files and continue as normal.  Inevitably, things are never that easy but it is certainly easier than it used to be.

Essentially there are two approaches to backing up your system.  The belt and braces approach is to use both and I would recommend you do that.

First, you can back up in the cloud.  I have used Norton to do that and I’ve found three problems with it:

1. For some reason it hadn’t backed up my files for 15 – 16 days.  It’s meant to back-up periodically but I hadn’t kept an eye on it.
2. It takes forever to download from back-up to my new lap top.  I used their support services and 4 or 5 different people helped me over three days.  They contradicted one another and didn’t fully understand their system.  This is why it took so long.  Eventually I found someone who knew my files were too big to download in one sitting.  I had to download them in sections.  Of course, keeping track of what you have downloaded is difficult but I got there in the end.
3. It was not backing up everything in my folders.  As far as I can see it backed up from every folder I asked it to but it did not copy all the files in the folders.  I use an application called xmind that creates it own file type.  Norton decided they didn’t count.

It is generally true that you only learn the true nature of something when you use it!  I shall not be using Norton for back-up again.  It’s anti-virus and identity functions are brilliant, so I’m not saying you shouldn’t use them for those purposes but I would use a different back-up system.

There are alternatives.  My new lap-top uses Windows 8 and this includes OneDrive.  I’ve used it for only a few days, so this is by no means a recommendation but it does seem to have advantages over Norton’s back-up.

However, it is a good idea to back-up onto an external hard drive as well.  This is the second approach.  I recommend you do this as well as the cloud so that you know you have both.

Usually, it is possible to recover files lost if your equipment fails.  You can’t be certain of this and even if it is possible it is likely to take several days or even weeks.  And you have to factor in the vagaries of techies who know how machines work but can’t communicate with human beings.

Finally, if you have a website you will need to back it up too.  That’s a topic for another time.

0 PDF Files in WordPress

Before anyone complains, there is no mistake; “pdf files” is no misnomer! PDF stands for “portable document format” and so it is OK to write pdf files.

Someone asked me recently if it is possible to link to pdf files in WordPress. It is very easy and an opportunity to learn a little more about the basics of working with WordPress.

Installing PDF Files

Open the editor and then click the Add Media button towards the top left. Then click the Upload Files tab. Drag and drop a pdf file from your desktop or click Select Files and navigate to your pdf file.

Now click on the Media Library tab. The pdf file will soon upload, depending on its size and will appear on the left of the top row. Highlight it by clicking on it once.

Using PDF Files

There are two things in the Attachment Details column on the right you need to know. The first is the url. You will see the pdf file has its own unique url. You can link to it from anywhere on the site or on the web.

Everything in the media library has its own unique url. You can set up an image so, when a visitor clicks on it, they see just the image. This can be useful if the image has a lot detail.

Let’s say you call your pdf file “How to install a frog pool”. In your text you have highlighted the words “install a garden pond” and want that to link to the pdf. You can do this by using the link button in the editor and pasting in the pdf url.

Usually, though there may seem to be little point in doing this because you will need to go into Media Library to find the url. However, if you click Insert into post, you will find “install a garden pond” is replaced by “How to install a frog pool”. Why?

You will find the name of the pdf file copied into the document title and if you insert from the Media Library, it pastes the title over the highlighted text. If you want to insert the document title, then simply position the cursor where you want the title and link to appear.

Alternatively, paste in the url in as I described earlier. If you know you will feature the pdf file only once, then it may be OK to change the text in the Title box but if you are likely to use it more than once, it is better to use the other method.

0 Delivery of Needs Assessments

In the two previous posts I described how needs assessments can be helpful and outlined the questionnaire I use for needs assessments.  Now we move onto delivery of needs assessments.  (This is an early post and my approach has changed beyond recognition.  But some of the ideas herein may be helpful.)

This post is about how I deliver needs assessments and options for delivering them in the future. I’ve found the questionnaire is a turn-off for clients. Yet many consultants use something similar and so I shall review some options in this post.

Most assessments have four stages, although movement between them is fairly seamless; most people move through them without being aware of it.

1. The initial needs assessment, usually by questionnaire.
2. Evaluation of the results
3. Planning the website
4. Implementation

My practice so far has been to send out a Word document questionnaire for people to complete and return by email. I usually send it to several key people. This is not proving to be effective.

Some options

As they answer the questions, it is likely people will start to evaluate. One question will be whether to allow that or to take a break to complete and circulate the questionnaire, check out they’ve covered everything and then a return session for evaluation and planning.

0 A Look Inside a Needs Assessment Questionnaire

Last Thursday, I explained why needs assessments are helpful and today I shall review my needs assessment questionnaire. Check out my description of what my needs assessment involves. You will see where the questionnaire fits into the assessment. Next time I shall discuss how I deliver the assessment.

The current questionnaire is daunting. It has nine sections and aims to trigger deep thinking about the organisation. Follow completing the questionnaire with a conversation; it is not necessary to complete all the questions before the conversation. Often in conversation new ideas emerge and sections that started difficult can become easier to complete.  Some organisations may not have previously met anything like this and so may need more support.

Here is a brief description of the nine sections of my questionnaire:

Web Presence

The consultant will want to review the organisation’s current web presence and so needs the details of everything the organisation has online. Be aware of likely issues such as the current site controlled by a previous designer. A surprisingly common problem that may need to be resolved before the client changes their site.

Personnel

This section helps picture the people involved with the organisation and the skills or experience they can offer to its online work. Most organisations need to build their capacity to maintain their web presence, and this helps assess their current capacity and potential to develop it.  Some organisations will want to develop their own site and others will need to maintain a site developed for them.

The questions cover the skills of people who are directly involved and whether there are others who might be invited to be involved with the website, eg as guest bloggers.

Marketing Plan

This section reviews  aims and objectives, hopes and fears, frustrations with performance, etc.

The aim is to encourage deeper reflection about the organisation and what it wants to do online.  Many organisations want a website and have given little thought to what they need it for and often find they do not appreciate what their site can do for them.

Development Plan

This section is about finance and the organisation’s aspirations. Many organisations focus on balancing their current accounts and this section invites them to consider what they would do if their income increased significantly beyond their current expenditure. This is an important question because it can unearth aspirations that would otherwise remain obscure. With such objectives stated, it may be possible to include them in the objectives of the organisation. They are not always so expensive and it may be possible to meet them, at least in part, with lower income.

Products and Services

Products and services are things to sell or give away. A product  can be replicated and sold to many people. Tailor services to the needs of each customer. Both products and services can be real life or online.

This section goes into a lot of detail about the information the organisation owns. Many organisations have material they can turn into products and skills they can turn into services and they are not aware of the potential of what they own. Some organisations may be sitting on a goldmine. Others may be able to generate modest income online, supplementing their work. It is important to make sure this work progresses the organisation’s wider aims. Money is a means to an end and not an end in itself.

Some organisations may want to give stuff away and do not need an income. There are pros and cons to this approach. It needs to be considered in the wider context of the organisation’s objectives.

Market

To design your web presence, you need to be as clear as possible about your market. Some organisations have a membership list and / or a list of web subscribers. These contacts will not only join purchase products and services, they will also pass on information to friends and other contacts. This is why it is important to add stimulating material to the website, as this will appeal to new contacts.

These questions cover the current contacts the organisation has as well as potential contacts they have yet to reach.

Partners

Partners are organisations who support or might support the organisation’s work. These questions cover current partners, potential partners and competitors.

Communications

These questions assess capacity to communicate with market and partners; including mailings lists, which can be stored in a variety of media and covers social media.

Equipment

This is about equipment organisations can use to develop products and services.

This summarises my current needs assessment questions. My plan is to review them in the near future. There are other systems which might have a better fit to my market. Next time I shall explain how I use these questions and alternative options for their use.