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Member of:
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 IWA
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Strategy
Define your strategy
The more clearly and
specifically you define your purpose and strategy, the more
efficiently you will accomplish your goals. Whether you want
to sell, educate, entertain, persuade or provoke, every part
of your site needs to support that strategy. Your strategy
should thoroughly consider a balanced relationship between
your purpose, the needs and tastes of your intended
audience, the strengths and weaknesses of your competition,
and your own available resources and capabilities. To define
a good strategy, follow the steps listed below:
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Define the message you
want to convey. In the case of the web site for exotic
fruits, you might want to convince people interested in
healthy eating that eating exotic fruits is exciting,
healthy, and fun.
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Decide how you will
persuade your audience to accept your message. You might
decide to educate users on the possible uses of each
fruit, to create a lively "hip" ambiance that users will
want to participate in, and to make purchasing easy.
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Select a tone. For
instance, do you want to be serious and formal or fun and
more informal? Visionary or conservative? Dramatic or
practical?
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Identify the depth of
information or the level of detail that you will offer.
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Select a visual and
language presentation approach that will help you meet
your goals effectively. To appeal to an upscale audience
and develop a site that loads quickly, you might want your
site to include original, lively, high-quality flat-toned
illustrations that will load faster than high-quality
photos.
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Plan site features that
will help you meet your goals. You might decide to
maintain a chat area where users can exchange exotic fruit
stories and recipes, an area containing interesting
history on each fruit, and an efficient ordering form.
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Identify your
capabilities and how they can be used to meet your goals.
For instance, does your staff have the knowledge and
skills to write interesting history articles on these
fruits? Do you have the budget to pay for high quality
illustrations? Does your design and maintenance staff
really understand the communication and technical issues
involved in keeping a chat area engaging?
Set measurable strategic goals
Set goals that will allow you to
determine, once the site is complete, if it is meeting its
overall purpose. For example, you may set a goal to have a
10% increase in sales during the first quarter after
publishing your site, or to record a certain amount of
"hits" on your site. Periodically evaluate your site using
these goals, and use this evaluation to help you plan
improvements. | |
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