So the company I work for is considering a web update. I was one of the privileged few who got to see the new design while it was in the works.
The first thing I noticed (since it came up in Dreamweaver first) was that it was built using tables, and so I encouraged the developer to use semantic HTML and use CSS to style the page. That way the next time all the people want a redesign, it’ll just be a matter of changing up the stylesheet. I found a good example of a page that does something like the type of layout we would have, and I’m trying to lift the technique and see if it would work for ours. There are more divs than one would normally want, but this is a boxy, tight grid type of layout, so I’m not sure how lightweight the HTML could be.
Besides that, it looked like a clone site of another website we had been showing focus groups and committees for quite some time. The fact that it’s nearly a twin with another site is a subject worth its own post (possibly in another blog to avoid trouble), but today I want to talk a little bit about a misperception of branding there. As I was given the “grand tour” of the prototype I heard something like (paraphrased as I don’t remember the exact quotation)
‘And this will always be the place where we put the marketing stuff – right here on the front page’
There are a lot of perception problems with this statement and this placement of “marketing content.” First of all, if our messages are annoying or too sugar-coated to be true, people will recognize them for what they are: ads. People don’t generally appreciate ads in their content. We’ve tried using ads to fund our print publications and that hasn’t gotten a good response. Having an “ad section” on the web site is worse, even if they are our “in-house” ads about ourselves. Soon people will start to ignore that section and say “That part is just propaganda” and they’ll learn to trust our organization even less.
Secondly, segregating the “marketing content” away from the rest of the content creates a disparity in brand image. The fundamental problem here is the structure of the people creating this content. One group pushes for specific “marketing messages” while another group (or person) pushes for the same style we’ve always had, making pages purely informational and not communicating those messages without the approval of many many people. Multiple authors of the content on the pages makes things even more difficult, because some people are shy about modifying other people’s writing. One group says “we have to get our marketing messages out there,” and thinking that some screen real estate on the front page of the website will solve this problem. This is the main issue with the perception of “brand” by every single person who works in the company.
Brand is everything you say, do, write, or design. Our company should have a brand that includes things like a suggested color scheme, consistent writing style, and mantra or code to guide employees on what makes us different from everyone else in our category. Our current mission statement is wonderful and our vision is fantastic, but there is no explanation to the people who work here about how to keep with the brand and portray it properly. That’s because we essentially have no brand. Someone made a logo a long time ago and we still have it today. It’s a difficult logo to work with, though it’s quite patriotic. The major misconception that people around here seem to have is that marketing is separate from everyday activities. People need to learn and understand that every point of contact is a statement about brand and that’s marketing.
For the first time, our company offered a customer service class. Out of nearly 10,000 employees, 11 signed up. Every single person who deals with customers should have some sort of customer service training where they are taught how to represent the brand to the public. I was met with the comment “But that person did so many customer service trainings. We’ve done that already.” Unfortunately that person can’t possibly have any idea of how we want to brand our company because no one has delineated it yet. Besides, that person didn’t train each and every employee when really that’s what needs to happen. Every. Single. Person.
“But we could never do that, there are too many people”
So we box off our marketing messages at the website with the hopes of increasing employee morale…How?
The third problem with this perception is thinking that marketing and branding are different from communication in general. Every communication with the public including the website is marketing. The website should be written in a consistent tone and style communicating the marketing messages along with the content. We can choose to highlight areas of the site that have content that fits with the messages we want to sent to the public.
But with one person in charge of the site and another person in charge of the marketing it’s a war between two perspectives. Who else in the organization has enough expertise to lead this group? We need someone to help with our image and the perception the public has of us as well as the employee morale are on the table this year. It seems we have no one with expertise.
P.S. Just because I think I know what I’m talking about doesn’t mean I do. I have no formal training in this field and we really need a qualified person. I say they fire me and hire someone who is a professional, not in the newspaper business, not in the secretarial business and not in the design business, but someone in the MARKETING business who has EXPERIENCE marketing a BUSINESS. Our current people (including me) have no real-world experience, and going into this delicate situation without an expert is just plain naive! Our people would probably learn more with the teachings of a mentor in this area, but as I have mentioned elsewhere, many don’t seem to be interested in learning these things.
Why do my explanations always take on a ranting tone at the end? I need to practice using my delete key before I get myself into trouble!
