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Case Study: Heirloom Woods (Introduction)

We're going to kick off this newsletter with a series of articles that takes a look at a real business: Heirloom Woods, based in Weymouth, Mass. Mike Glennon owns this one-man shop, and has very kindly agreed to submit his website for a public "web marketing retooling". Mike has an existing custom woodworking business, and wants to use the Internet to increase sales. He has the outline of a website started, and is ready for help moving forward. You can see his work-in-process at http://home.att.net/~mjag/

Mike has bravely (foolishly?) agreed to this public criticism of his hard work, but he assures me he has "thick skin" and can take it! Remember, we've all been there.

(Since Mike is constantly working to improve his website, whenever I refer to a page on his site, I'll provide a link to a static screen-shot instead of the live URL, so we'll all be looking at the same thing.)

I'll let Mike tell you himself about his motivation for creating a website:

"I would like to concentrate my business on high-end custom baby cradles and small chests and boxes (jewelry box up to blanket chest size). Unfortunately, it seems that most of my calls are from people who want production work--500 of this, 250 of that, 1000 of something else--which I am not equipped to handle nor am I inclined to do. Right now, to keep things going, I am taking small production runs, 10 items or less, and am getting some local repair and refinishing work (something I also enjoy, but the return isn't all that great).

"My thought, when initially designing my website, was to present a spectrum of individually made, non-production, goods and hopefully establish myself as a maker of these to high end customers."

Sound familiar? It sure did to me. In fact, Mike's story is a pretty standard refrain among small, custom woodworking businesses. Follow along in the articles to come as we work to turn the Heirloom Woods website into an effective sales tool, and you'll learn a lot about how to improve your own site. But first, a bit of marketing theory, as promised. You'll need to know what SWOT analysis is...

SWOT Analysis

For ages, the mainstay of marketing strategy has been the reliable Four Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Anyone who sells on the Internet needs to rethink this framework in light of the realities of the online experience: "Products" are complex bundles of info-services, entertainment and hard goods. "Price" is frequently free. "Place" is always ambiguous, often irrelevant. "Promotion" probably includes designing your site to get a top listing in search engines.

Instead of overthrowing an approach that has proved its worth in practice, the Four Ps need only be reinvigorated. What results is a more workable, web-enabled framework that I call SWOT: Surcharge, Website, Offering, Traffic.

SURCHARGE: What parts of your product and service offerings will be free, and which items will have a price tag? What prices, and how will those prices vary over time?

WEBSITE: How should your site be organized? What domain name(s) should you register? What kind of sales message will work best? How should you use graphics, frames, redirects, cgi, Javascript, html tags, etc. What web host is best for your needs? Should you use auto-responders? The list goes on, but you get the idea. This is the nuts and bolts stuff that has the potential to suck up a lot of your time and money. Most people are tempted to start here. Resist this temptation, or you'll spend a lot of time re-doing your work. (I know I have!)

OFFERING: What combination of merchandise, services, advertising and digital content will be available through your website? This is THE most important part of your web strategy, and it's a much trickier question than "what's your product?" It can be helpful to think about the various parts of your offering in these categories:
 - Most Wanted Response (MWR)
 - Back-up offer
 - Traffic generator
 - Targeted advertising
(To be fair, I should point out that I got the terms "Most Wanted Response" and "back-up offer" from Ken Evoy's excellent manual called "Make Your Site Sell", at myss.sitesell.com/woodworking.html ). I'll get into each of these and show how to use them in future articles.

TRAFFIC: How do you drive targeted traffic to your site? This includes both online and offline methods, but will typically rely heavily on search engine placement and effective use of e-mail. The degree to which you have already established an existing "bricks and mortar" business will also have an impact on your tactics in this area.

SWOT analysis is more subtle that a simple translation of the Four Ps. Using the SWOT framework means thinking differently, exploiting the unique and unprecedented opportunities inherent in web-based selling. And ultimately developing a more tightly integrated and effective web marketing strategy.

OK, I said there would be just a little marketing theory, so I'll stop there. Let's apply SWOT analysis to the Heirloom Woods homepage and see what specific improvements can be made...

Heirloom Woods Homepage

Just so we're all looking at the same page, here is a small screen-shot of the Heirloom Woods homepage as of this article:

Here is the central text from that page (reformatted), since it's hard to read in the shrunken screen-shot:

"Individually designed and crafted for you or your loved ones. Cradles, Jewelry Boxes, Presentation Quality Pens, Detached Cabinets and Wall Shelving, Small Furniture Items. We'll be happy to discuss your requirements with you. Come on in and visit for a bit."

Now, for the SWOT analysis. Remember, the single most important element to get right is the Offering. The offering should be multi-faceted, with all the elements tightly focused on a central theme. In fact, my First Law of Internet Sales is "Focus like a laser." You'll note that Mike lists five specific products that he specializes in, plus the catch-all "small furniture items." We've all fallen into this trap at some point--I know I have! You don't want to leave anything out, since it feels like you'll be passing up potential sales. Well, the reality is, the more you focus, the higher your sales. The next issue of this newsletter will explain this in much more detail, and then walk through the process of choosing a specific product focus for the Heirloom Woods site. (That's right, the next issue will be focused on focusing!)

Next in our review of SWOT is Website. (I'm saving Traffic and Surcharge for later articles.) There are several easy things to change on this main page that can make a big difference.

First, note the Heirloom Woods URL: home.att.net/~mjag/ I must confess, the first URL for Bridgewood Design looked just like this. Here's the problem: the tilde (that's the squiggly thing) is a dead give-away for a free website. Anyone clicking on this or typing it gets an immediate first impression that is something like "this is not a serious business; they can't even afford a real website."

With domain name registrations as cheap as they are now, there's really no reason not to register your business name.com. Plus, with so many small woodworking businesses having similar names, it makes sense to get your registration in sooner rather than later. In this case, heirloomwoods.com is already taken. However, heirloom-woods.com is available and makes perfect sense. At the minimum, Mike should register the domain name and have it point to (redirect to) his current site. That costs about $19 to $35 per year, depending on who you choose to register your domain, plus monthly charges for the redirection.

As we build the Heirloom Woods website together, it's likely that Mike will decide he needs features or services that you just can't get from a free hosting service. At that point, he can look into transferring his site to a new host. More on these features in later issues, but what I'm thinking of are catch-all e-mail accounts, autoresponders, web logs and cgi scripts. If you know what all this means and how to use it, you probably don't need my newsletter!

----- Sidebar --------------------------------------------- 
In case you're ready to upgrade your own website, I've put links to a recommended (inexpensive) domain registration provider and a web hosting firm at: www.bridgewooddesign.com/syww/tools.htm  Also, the "freebies" section below lists an offer for free domain registrations.
----- Sidebar ---------------------------------------------

Second, the main page at Heirloom Woods is what is sometimes called an "entry page" or "front door" or "splash page". This style of site design is often recommended by firms who get paid big bucks to design websites. It's great for setting the mood, or for entertainment-oriented sites.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help generate sales.

An entry page is just one more impediment to getting the order. Plus, this type of page usually has large graphics, which means slow downloads, which means frustrated potential customers. Instead, on the first page (index.html or default.html), lead with your Offering. But, I can already hear you saying you need that first page to direct the surfer to the appropriate item-specific page (cradles, jewelry boxes, pens, cabinets, furniture). Well, that's one of the virtues of focusing on a single product! After we decide how to focus the Heirloom Woods offering, we'll work on redesigning the main page.

Finally, note the copyright at the foot of the page which reads "1996". This makes the site look old and outdated. Similarly, many sites have a little note at the bottom that says something like "last updated on: July 4, 1776". Sometimes your html editor will insert this automatically, and you won't even notice it. This "last updated" information doesn't do anything to help you sell. The fix is easy: take off the unnecessary dates and make sure any remaining dates on your site are kept current.

Next issue, we'll talk about choosing a product to focus on and how that decision is related to the issue of driving targeted traffic to your site with good search engine placement. Then, we'll walk through an example of choosing keywords for Heirloom Woods.