A website has become of one of the basic marketing tools a business can have at its disposal. It’s the key place on the Internet for people to find you – customers, potential employees, or investors, amongst others – so the website is really the virtual face of a company.
A well-designed website, along with the right content, not only tells a visitor what the company does, it also gives clearer view about an organization’s professionalism and business philosophy. Having a landing page that looks stuck in the 1990s, for example, may give the wrong impression that a company may be mired in decades-old processes, so it is critical for businesses to approach this online asset carefully.
Singapore-based boutique executive search firm Amandate was recently looking to boost its online presence by building a professionally-designed website. The headhunting agency, which specializes in sourcing talent for niche industries such as Oil & Gas, Aerospace, and Supply Chain & Logistics, wanted a simple website that helps them achieve their marketing objectives without expending too much resources – time, financial or otherwise – for their new website.
As such, for the new website, Amandate’s Managing Director, Juliet Tan wanted the ability for her staff to be able to regularly update its content easily without having to go to an agency each time. “Ease of management was definitely a concern as consultants can easily be coached into posting their advertisements or update their own profiles and projects as they go along,” she explained.
A website to meet business goals
With these objectives in mind, Juliet decided on Web Builder, a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) website creation tool, available on SingTel myBusiness, that helps companies such as hers to quickly and easily build their web assets. Designed to make web creation and management easy for business owners, the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution comprises of 2GB of web space to cater to a company’s communication needs and comes loaded with important web tools, such as analytics, automatic mobile optimization, social media integration and more.
But Juliet also decided to seek professional help and opted for Web Builder’s Professional Service, that allows her to obtain advice from a designer and project manager who would work with her in developing her website.
A Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solution can offer flexibility in designing and developing a website, but can also pose unique problems if a customer does not know what they want out of their online web asset. Coupled with the fact of limited resources to plan and design the site, that’s where professional advice can really help.
“We usually start by looking at the customer’s business, target audience, and key marketing messages,” said Hazel Ong, product manager at CommonTown, SingTel myBusiness’ partner which developed Web Builder. “We begin each project with a face-to-face meeting with the customer where we discuss their design requirements. In this meeting, we work together with the customer on their objective of the website, and also envision how they would like their website to look such as the layout, structure, design style and color schemes.”
“We provide design advice to the customer based on how they want their website to serve their business goals,” Hazel said, adding that each website project usually takes as little as 8 weeks to complete and go live depending on the complexity of the project.
Juliet said that previously, dealing with designers had been an issue. “Most designers simply did not ask good questions, and could never convince us that the final product would be anything close to what we would want or like,” she explained.
Hazel shared that the most challenging part about building a website is usually in trying to help a customer define their objectives. “Without clearly defined end goals, it is difficult to come up with a useful solution. A website is a valuable tool to help customers meet certain business needs, not simply something that only has to look nice,” said Hazel.
But Amandate had a firm idea of what they expected of their online presence, and the Web Builder Professional Service team was able to work out the site to Juliet’s satisfaction. “With the new website, we can update the website with our portfolio and refer them to our website,” she said. “The availability of a choice of going online to view our updated website is a welcome one. The website can also link to the consultants’ professional social media tools, LinkedIn.com and others.”
Juliet says an online presence in today’s marketplace is compulsory, but high initial investment costs can be a deterrent to businesses that may not traditionally rely on such tools. “Web Builder takes away much of the problems, hesitation and procrastination by providing a simple-to-use and easy-to-maintain solution with costs down to a manageable minimum across the years ahead. It becomes a fun project within the team and it does not require technical expertise.”
For the immediate future, Juliet is ready to grow Amandate’s online presence – the executive search firm is in the process of purchasing a specialised candidate management system that is able to link to its contact database, and also be able to fully integrate with their website through Web Builder.
Build your online presence today with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG web designing tool – SingTel Web Builder. To get started, why not sign up for a free trial and free workshop?
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