Charlotte Web Design Helps Clients Identify New Online Marketing Opportunities

With marketing budgets tight, many of our clients are replacing a portion of traditional print and direct mail efforts with enhancements to their online presence. This means that many company web sites are receiving overdue facelifts and there is a surge of interest in SEO, email blasts, blogging, and social media, all topics that largely fell to the bottom of the marketing agenda in 2008 planning sessions. 

I have to admit to being a bit giddy over the prospect of helping clients realize how they can use the web more effectively. The Internet is now fully in Web 2.0 phase and offers countless opportunities for customer interaction, collaboration and communication at a relatively low cost. But before we pass out Facebook pages all around, upload our catalogs to Flickr or start tweeting with vigor, it's important to take a deep breath and create a strategy based on a thorough understanding of the potential impact (positive or negative) that each of these "new" media may have on reaching our respective target audiences. We've got to start with a few tough questions like: Is the communication an appropriate reflection of the brand? Because this will be an ongoing communication with current and potential customers, who will be assigned to speak on behalf of the company in a very timely manner? Are you equipped and ready for the kind of commitment it takes to be consistently responsive?

At Charlotte Web Design (aka Mindstorm), we help our clients identify the best fit for their respective businesses when it comes to online marketing and then devise a plan that allows them to wade into this pool of new opportunity at their own comfort levels.