One of the hardest jobs I do is my own marketing. It’s always low priority compared to fee-paying work. Worse than that, it’s very hard. As my own client, there is no objectivity or creative dialogue. But, I’ve got you, dear reader!
I’ve written a marketing plan that covers the next year and I won’t bore you with all the details but my main focus is the website at the moment.
In a fit of masochism I hand-coded the Articulate Marketing site in HTML. This makes it fiddly to update. I don’t have time to rebuild it in WordPress or some other CMS so I have to live with it for a bit longer. However, I am making some changes.
- Clearer description of what we do. Deleted the whimsical home page and made the “what we do” page the home page. If someone comes to the site now they will get a one-hit view of everything we can do for them.
- Stronger tagline. Changed the tagline from “Our passion is communication: we help businesses talk about technology” to “Articulate helps companies communicate more effectively” which is both more concise and reflects the broader range of work we do now; with the new training and presentation services we offer.
- Adding detailed product sheets. I’ve added spec sheets for case studies, proofreading and the initial consultation service. They take time to write but eventually I hope to have a spec sheet for every service I offer. This is part of a process of ‘productising’ Articulate’s services. Each one takes a while to do so it’ll probably take me until Christmas to finish them all. Then I want to go through and add examples and case studies for each service.
- Added terms and conditions. Yes, I spoke to a lawyer. Oh well.
- Deleted the ‘how we work page.’ It wasn’t very specific and people weren’t looking at it.
- Refreshed the examples page. It’s hard to choose which clippings and samples to include and a lot of my work isn’t public or doesn’t boil down to a single document. Still, now the list is recent and has up to date endorsements from clients.
Now – and here’s the scary bit – I’d love it if you could go to the site (www.articulatemarketing.com) and give me your feedback on how it’s going and what I can do to make it work harder for my business. Please email me or leave comments to this post.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for that breakdown of reasons why you made such changes, got me thinking about different things for my own sites.
My smallest of observations were that the three columns on the front page start with bullet points, the second one uses paragraphs and the final column is a mix of the two – to me looks a little strange on the eye.
Also spotted smallest of errors on consultation.htm page:
Reduce risk. Picking [a] the right agency is a challenge. Will they produce good work that doesn’t need endless editing? Will they deliver on time?
You have given me a few jobs for the weekend and thoughts on future ideas.
Thanks for inviting comment. I’m one of those dreaded lawyers (American too). I enjoy regularly reading your posts for ideas in making my communications clearer. Law is anything but.
Since you asked, I’ll offer my 2 cents on the redesign. Keep in mind that I know nothing about your industry or web design.
(By the way, I’m viewing the page in Mozilla/Firefox.) My impulse is to click the picture above each column to go to examples of those items, but was disappointed that they weren’t active links. The underlining of text in the same color as the print is misleading as an active link. I initially thought it was for emphasis. I wouldn’t have known those were hyperlinks without scrolling over them. I don’t like the barely visible boxes on the right-hand side with the smaller font. It gives the impression of an oversight. I’d prefer bold lines or just a side bar that would indicate that those options are on every page. When I click “Examples” at the top, the wording underneath on the menu bar doesn’t change — it stays with “What We Do”. Without other sub-options, I don’t understand the need for the menu bar. I like the highlighted summary on each page. It is easy to scan and understand. I like the white space allocation on the first two pages (what we do and examples) but it seems unbalanced on the last two (prices and contact us). This may be a bit too American, but I’d look for a photo that isn’t just all Caucasians. (Larger companies are pushing American firms for ethnic diversity so it’s something we think about over here quite a bit. Appearances, appearances.)
Thanks again for your blog and please keep it up!
Craig, Nichole and everyone who replied by email – THANKS. All good points, well made and very useful to hear. I’ve made a bunch of updates to the site and will continue to work on it over the coming months to make it better. I really appreciate everyone’s time and candour.
One thing I would say is that the way you’re positioning yourself is a little confusing – in particular the way you refer to Articulate in the third person plural.
Are you a self-employed individual or a larger organisation? The fact that you’re the only one listed as a contact – and that you’re the only writer of this blog – conflicts with the consistent use of ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ on the site.
I don’t think there’s any harm in letting potential clients know that they’ll be getting the attention of one person, who clearly is going to have a greater investment in doing the job well than, say, an employee of Articulate.
(I know that my clients value me because they think no one else can do the job as well as I can. I haven’t yet got to the point where I’m employing other writers, but when I do, that will require some careful handling to engender clients’ trust in someone else’s abilities).
In contrast, I think that perhaps passing yourself off as ‘we’ when you really mean ‘I’ could be seen as slightly untrustworthy marketing hype.
It’s an issue I’m grappling with on my own site too, by the way!
Clare,
The I/we debate is a live one. Articulate is mainly me and for most projects I am the right guy for the job. However, I work with the help of a team of specialist contractors, including proofreaders, graphic designers, trainers and so on. I’m always very clear with clients about who is doing their work. On the whole I think this is the best of all possible worlds but the trick (which I haven’t mastered is explaining it positively in words).
Matthew
Hi Matthew – a small thing for AM management to consider…
It’s just a personal preference, but I’m not a fan of starting words right next to an image (see your Prices page). I prefer a frame of white space around the image.
I think that there is an ‘img attribute’ that can can create just that border and I see it’s currently stipulating no border (img border=”0″).
Cheers!
Thanks Nick. I’ve passed on that comment to the boss and it’s been fixed
Matthew
Matthew, on the I/we comment, I’ve been through the same debate with my/our business.
If it is you doing most of the work, I’d be more upfront about that, as it’s bound to be appealing to potential clients. And if you do bring in other experts from your network to help out when needed, that’s great.
I think it’s often the case that clients start to work with a small people-based business – whether it’s writing, PR, design, law, accountancy, whatever – and find that they never see the charming and highly experienced person the met to begin with, and end up dealing with junior dorks.
Also, I would urge you to add a “to” to your strapline. Could you please help “companies [to] communicate more effectively.” Or maybe I’m just old fashioned.
Hi Matthew,
First, let me mention that you’re crazy for doing all this in HTML. Can’t you just pay somebody to built it in Wordpress or something?
As for your objectives – from my experience web users love short and direct statements. They always prefer “writing” to “textual commuications”.
On the other hand, customers love to know something special about you and have a certain feeling into it, some personality.
If most of your clients reach you through the web, then you’re in the right direction. But if word of mouth and this blog bring you most work (and I do hope that’s the case), then you should think about adding something more personal that sets you apart. Not hype, but more like branding .vs. sales promotion.
One last thing that caught my eye (by not catching it) is the right-hand menu boxes. They really resemble AdSense ads and cause immediate “banner blindness”. They could use a redesign.
Matthew: Sorry for coming late to the comment party, but better late than later.
Here are my comments. Feel free to toss them out if they aren’t useful.
1) I’m an Opera user (primary browser) and font for the Articulate site shows up really small in Opera, at least 20% smaller than what I’m normally used to reading. (Font size 6 I would say). You might want to check that, though I am not sure how many readers use Opera.
2) Your “What We Do” page and the Home page link lead to the same page. Also, if you’re in the “What We Do” page, which is the home page, shouldn’t you show the reader that they are at the “What we do” page?
3) On the right-hand column, the link to your blog says, “Read Matthew Stibbe’s blog about writing in business.” I wonder if a reader who doesn’t know who you are will get that you’re the person behind the site and the blog. Nitpicking here.
4) I’ve loaded the site in Firefox now and though the font’s bigger, it looks like you’re using a Serif font, which is harder to read onscreen.
5) Any reason for using red to highlight the text? Just checking because it’s the colour for danger, etc.
6) The outline boxes on the right-hand column are barely visible. Is it possible to use a different colour for the background there? In general, a bit more colour on the site wouldn’t hurt and would make it better.
7) Could you split the Examples section into a “Samples” (or Examples) section and a Clients section? I say this because people will usually look for a Clients page to see who you’ve worked for and it’s not immediately obvious. Of course, the icons in the Examples of our work (right-hand side) help, but I’m wondering why you have a link to examples, which is already in the main menu?
9) Why don’t you add an “About Us” page? Typically when I visit a site, I like to know something about the company or the individual.
10) Your site seems optimized for 800×600. I’m in 1024×768 and there’s a bunch of white space on the right hand side that’s unused. Maybe this is deliberate, in which case please ignore.
Good luck with the website and thanks for writing the blog.
Yessss! I get to be later! (Percy)
I had similar responses to the boxes on the right side and the overall font – similar to what was mentioned ahead of me. I’m sure you’re already considering those items, so I won’t go into detail.
Otherwise, kudos to you for your initiative to do it in HTML. You’re a brave soul. Additional cheers for a fascinating blog – I just discovered it today, and I’m lovin’ it!