Most website owners now realize that, in order for their site to remain popular and successful, it needs to evolve. Exactly how it should evolve, however, isn’t always easy to determine. Should you blog or tweet or implement some other buzzword you’ve heard lately?  Should you do what your competitors have already done?  Although these changes and ideas certainly have merit, by focusing just on these approaches you will  constantly be playing catchup.

Instead, I suggest thinking about your customers first and how you can use the internet and technology to make their lives easier.  Sure, a blog or twitter stream lets your customers hear from you more readily, and this communication has tremendous value.  However, this added communication doesn’t necessarily make you any less dispensable to the customer. Rather, to become truly indispensable, you need to offer them new services and features that they come to depend on.

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It’s a common scenario.  Marketers in smaller businesses meet with management and decide to invest in a new online campaign for a product or service.  They all discuss how to structure the campaign – perhaps an email strategy that links to a micro-site or landing page or maybe a new site altogether.  The marketing team then writes up a request for proposal (RFP), solicits estimates, picks the provider they like best, and the new team rushes towards the deadline.  Intense discussion of the best look and feel and wording induces stress.  The project is completed, and then it’s only updated again when content needs to change. No attempts are made to quantitatively measure the success of the site!

Quite common in larger organizations with enviable budgets, but frequently absent with smaller operations is this analysis of the project’s success.  What return on investment (ROI) did the campaign provide?  How could it have been better? Can changes be made now to improve it moving forward?

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