Articles

Constructing (Reengineering) Your "Next Generation" Website

As seen in Greater Charlotte Biz Magazine, biztech, March-2009
Author: William H. (Kip) Cozart, III, CEO, President, Co-Founder
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When business-related Web sites first emerged in the early 1990s, they were typically seen as an ancillary adjunct to an organization’s entrenched traditional business model. Most 1st generation Web sites simply echoed established corporate protocols and limited aspirations to that of reinforcing awareness and inviting the occasional sales inquiry. At the time, Web sites were seen primarily as a supplemental advertising vehicle, and not much more.

Fast forward ahead to today’s digital marketplace, modern Web sites no longer just promote the business, but rather they function as a comprehensive working extension of the business itself. Your “online business” now reproduces many of your most fundamental operational interactions. Customers no longer perceive any significant difference between communicating through your Web site or e-mail versus interacting through direct person-to-person contact.

Today’s challenge (and opportunity) lies in your ability to translate traditional core business processes to a more responsive and more efficient online environment, through the construction of a “next generation” Web site.

Examine How Your Business Does Business

Before you overhaul your Web site, examine your current business practices and identify your primary communication tasks. Your next generation Web site should build upon those same activities. Once you have defined the unique core processes that drive your business in the off-line world, consider how you might reproduce, streamline and enhance those components utilizing the connectivity of the Internet.

Consider how you might attract, service, support and retain each of your individual groups online. Most 1st generation Web sites tend to focus only on a single audience group; typically, new prospects. A next generation Web site strategy should encompass each key player within your business model, including prospects, existing customers, employees, partners and influencers, media, vendors and others.

Recognize that modern Web sites are “multi-dimensional,” exchanging different content with different audiences in different ways, all through an organized “web” of branded Web sites, landing pages, personalized data centers, e-mail, multimedia, blogs, and other vehicles. The key is to establish an active online communications channel for each group of participants that contribute to your business’ success.

Consider your company’s unique, competitive value proposition. What is the single most important reason individuals choose to do business with you instead of someone else? Whatever the answer, convey this quality clearly throughout your online business model.

For the complete article, please Download a PDF copy.

About the author:

As one of the region’s earliest pioneers in the field of online communications, Kip Cozart, along with CC Communications owner/partners Russ Husky and Loretta Cozart, have consulted with hundreds of businesses and organizations to enhance and produce effective web, email, multimedia marketing initiatives and business process improvements for more than fourteen years. Contact kcozart@cccommunications.com or call CC Communications at 704-543-1171.