Web Design – Things to Consider When Picking Your E-Design Partner
Simply enter "Michigan Web Design" or "Michigan Web Development" into your Google search engine and see how many results you have returned – 673,000 is what we got!
The big issue is how do you sort through all those firms offering Michigan businesses their web design and e-marketing services?
There are first principles to cover such as your budgetary and time constraints; what the objectives are for your web site; what tangible results do you expect to generate from an e-marketing campaign; but to get behind the numbers and into the detail, you are going to need a partner who can deliver real value.
Before you dive in with a web design partner, filter the potential candidates with these questions and make sure you get answers you understand!
What type of outfit are they?
"Web development" and" e-business" covers a multitude of sins; there are some providers who simply design websites, some simply provide e-marketing, others worry about hosting … very few actually have the ability to provide a 100% in-house service or act as a one-stop shop.
What work do they really handle in-house? When you look at their portfolios, ask them what they actually did on the projects they are using as reference sites – was it technical (programming, online databases) or design (funky animations and effective marketing features)?
Where some of the work will be sub-contracted out, will it go to another agency or an individual freelancer and if so, who are they and what is their experience? We'll touch on this again later.
Are they Creatives or Technicians?
Ask your potential partners how they see themselves; a web design company; professional online marketers; a creative agency or a technical development and programming team?
You are looking for a company which combines technical and programming skills with creativity in rendering good design and imaginative marketing; if they can't deliver it all in-house, then how will they be able to deliver these ingredients to your marketing mix; by using an external contractor perhaps and if so how will that work and what experience do they have?
What aspects of the service will be subcontracted out?
Before we start here, just because a firm sub-contracts work out does not mean they are not capable of delivering a really good service; web development and internet marketing covers vast areas of expertise and no single company has a handle on everything. The vast majority of professional service providers will sub-contract work outside of their firm and this is to your advantage when you are getting expertise which would otherwise not be available to you.
This said, you have to be clear on what is going to be contracted out, who is going to be performing the work and who is responsible for managing the project and meeting milestones and most of all, establishing lines of communication between you, the design team and the subcontractor.
Does the potential supplier understand the target market and target users?
The provider must understand what the motivations are of the target users of the web site are and your e-marketing initiatives. Experience in your particular industry is great but not a prerequisite; more important is that they will participate in the marketing research as they construct the web site so it is optimized appropriately. If you are looking for "Michigan Web Design" for your business, you are already imposing a reasonable criterion; making sure the company you partner with understands the Michigan business climate by actually operating here – still with 673,000 results returned it is obvious a lot of companies may claim to cover the State but are in fact based elsewhere.
It is also important that the provider understands that the online marketing efforts of your business integrate with the rest of your marketing. Online marketing is frequently used in conjunction with offline campaigns, and your web design partner must have the ability to co-ordinate and operate effectively as part of a larger initiative.
Summary
While there are other criteria for selecting suppliers and professional partners, these questions will help you weed out many "companies" which provide a lot of "sizzle" but no "steak" when it comes to delivering real service. Returning to our initial search for "Michigan Web Design"; with hundreds of thousands of firms and search engine results being returned to you, you now have some basic tools to drastically narrow down the field and hopefully, down to one.
MetaSpring is a Digital Marketing Consultancy that focuses on the whole pie, rather than just a single slice of it. We design, develop, strategize, implement, and execute every project based on a proven processes and solid planning. Our goal is to become a valuable partner who understands your business inside and out, and can help to provide a unified, long-term strategy to contribute to your business’ success.
What Can We Do For You? While a website or web application may be your primary goal, our multi-talented team of experts can assist you in additional areas to help your business grow and reach it’s full potential. It may be social media marketing, search engine optimization or just establishing a simple newsletter – but at the end of the day, our goal is to see your ideas succeed. We development gurus for all your programming needs, masters of marketing for promotional needs and design experts to make sure that your site puts the competition to shame.
