Standing Still Is Not An Option

Many years ago, in a previous incarnation of this business we had a marketing strapline: Standing Still Is Not An Option. We don’t use it now in a marketing sense, even though it is possibly more relevant now than ever.

The Digital Marketing Business Model - Stage One

When we came up with it, the web was just in its infancy (we have been going for over 30 years now!) and websites were the province of designers; agencies that had previously designed your brochures and business cards learned the basics of html code and became Web Designers. That was the first stage of the Digital Marketing Business Model.

Second Stage

The second stage was driven by their customers: they were sick of static pages and having to go back to the web design company to get even basic things changed. They wanted to control their websites themselves. Enter the age of ‘The Platform’. Most of the design companies got smart and started to develop their sites on open source platforms such as WordPress or Umbraco. These allowed the web designers to quickly push out polished websites that their customers could update and edit themselves. By using these platforms, companies could use ‘plug-ins’ – small programs and widgets that did a lot of the hard stuff – which meant that design staff did not really have to understand programming. It looked like a win:win all round.

The New Era

We have now entered the third stage of the Digital Marketing Business Model, and that is being driven not by the web design houses, not by their customers…but by their customers’ customers. What has changed is the growth of the mobile device and its use for…well, everything!

The third stage looks very different to what has gone before. A modern website needs expertise from designers, programmers, sales professionals, business analysts, integrators, PR (social media) experts and marketing professionals. Gone are the days when the guy that used to do your brochures can cope with the demands of a modern digital marketing program or set up your website so that it functions perfectly on multiple devices and browsers.

At the time we created our marketing slogan, we sold primarily large finance and order processing systems to manufacturing and distribution companies. They needed expertise to help them get the best from their complex business systems and they looked for a long-term business partner to help them provide it. Strong customer service values, long-term support and service level agreements were always at the core of our business model, allied to experience and highly skilled programmers and analysts. 

The third stage model is just like that: your web site is no longer an online brochure; it is part of the beating heart of your business and is accessible on every phone by every person you know. Your digital partner needs to understand your customers as well as you do. They need to be thinking about your business and how to improve it as much as you do. They need to be there to support your website 24/7/365. They need to have designers, programmers, sales professionals, business analysts, integrators, PR (social media) experts and marketing professionals that have been around for a while and know what they are doing. In other words – they need to have experience.

Standing still is still not an option.