Fred has a business. It’s not huge but it makes him a reasonable living. He has big plans
to grow from his current £400k turnover. He knows marketing is the key to improving market share and targets a new website and content marketing as the way forward. Let’s see how he gets on.

Photo Credit: Juhan Sonin via Compfight

January – commissioning a website

Fred realises that he needs to hire a web designer: ‘I can do most things but I know my limitations.’ A few whiz-bang presentations later he chooses Barney, who he knows will give him a great looking site, content management system and bundles of functionality.

February – website development starts

Barney puts together a detailed project plan and a few design ideas to get things moving. He also asks the question he has been dreading: ‘What about the content – who’s doing that?’

‘Don’t worry’ says Fred. I can take care of that. ‘I can describe what we do and get a few testimonials, no problem. Anyway, by the time I’ve briefed somebody else I might as well do it myself.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

March – now, about that content marketing idea

Fred has told Betty, one of the sales staff, that she’s going to write blog posts (she usually has an odd half-hour free every week), and needs to learn about Twitter. ‘Oh and get yourself some more LinkedIN connections, pronto – we’re going to need those.’

Barney reports that most of the site is built and asks how the content is coming on.

April – the website is built

Fred is very happy with how the new site looks. ‘I’m a bit busy this week, but I can knock the words out for you by the end of next week.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

May – Betty does her first blog post

Betty is a great salesperson and loves meeting customers face-to-face. Great at building relationships and closing deals. She hates writing. Eventually she forces herself to put aside a couple of hours to write the first post for the blog. It’s all about the company and the great things they do. It’s tweeted and posted on LinkedIN. Nobody reads it.

June – still no website content

Fred: ‘By the end of the month – I promise.’ ‘OK’ says Barney. ‘And don’t forget to include those keywords we discussed.’

Betty has a major proposal to write for Wilma, a regular and valued customer. So no time to write a blog post this month, ‘phew!’

July – the web content arrives!

Fred made sure he got this done before he went on holiday – the night before in fact. ‘I put plenty of those keywords in – hope I didn’t overdo it.’

August – the website goes live

Barney had to edit the content a bit as the keyword density was about 10% and he knows that Google won’t like that. He doesn’t think the rest of the content is very strong and is concerned that this will make the site less effective.

‘Don’t worry’ says Fred. ‘Just get the site up – we can tweak the words later using that content management system.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

September – back to the content marketing

Not having enough time to write blog posts, Betty is concentrating on tweeting to raise the company profile and build relationships, tweeting about all sorts of things. The weather, where she’s going for the weekend, the pedestrianisation of Exeter Fore Street – fascinating stuff.

December – time to review progress

There have been a few more hits on the website – mainly out of curiosity following emails and letters to existing contacts. There are 200 Twitter followers – mostly people who feel strongly about pedestrianisation in Exeter.

Increased sales £0

Staff time cost: £4000

Web design cost: £1500

Net effect -£5500

‘What a failure’  says Fred. ‘Thank heavens we didn’t waste even more money on a copywriter or somebody to look after the content marketing’.

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

And Finally…  there is another way

If you prefer an approach to content writing and content marketing that will bring results look at my cost-effective solutions HERE, spread the set-up costs over the first year. Complete the contact form by clicking the tab on the left or call me on 01823 674167

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