Relaunch of website: how doing it formal and big?
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Sem Specialist at Ecweb
12 March 2008 15:51pm
I have the task to help in the relaunch of a website. After 10 years will be the old website turned off and then relaunch a complete new design and CMS system.
The company: B2B, related to automation, German based.
The relaunch will be done in Germany. ( so should be released in german language and german customers)
I am thinking about what to do, here some ideas ( with questions):
1) press release ( but where to publish? when? only in the website? )
2) Doing an event, inviting top customers.
3) Some promotion to bring visitors.. ( still don´t know how to do it )
Do you have some ideas?
Marketing Director at Rosebys
13 March 2008 08:52am
Hi - you are best asking some questions of the purpose of your site - this will give you the clues to how best to launch it
first answer the question - what is my website for? - I cant tell that from your posting. - to do this you need to answer "Who do you hope will visit your new website" and "what do you hope they will get from it."
Answering the "Who" question will give you the list of people you need to tell - if it is a short list - use the telephone (telemarketing - because its very effective) if its a lot - have you their email addresses? then the site can be linked - if you do not know (mass market) then your only options are bought lists for email or DM.
You need to ask yourself if the new website is enough of an excuse to have an event - I would say only if the website is now (for example a "fully integrated order management extranet system" with your clients - do you need them to behave differently - eg order online through a new catalogue and process instead of ringing up - only then do I think you have enough of an excuse to do an event - you need a reason to justify coming to your event
Answering the "what" question gives you your brief for what to put in the contact (telephone script / email / DM piece).... We have a new site. It now does this.... you can get this from it..... here is an incentive to visit.. (I think you are B2B so suggest this is a case of champagne for the 1000th customer to register with the new site....
For press releases the best bet is to release exclusively to your key industry publication - ring them up now and let them know they will get an exclusive when it launches - give them an indicative month so they will plan your story in. You need an interesting angle to give them to get coverage - does this coincide with an anniversary for the company do you have a new range that is launching is there a new process or service that is now available - are you launching an industry first with this website. They may want a photo shoot with your CEO and an exclusive interview about the future - the website alone may not be enough to get you the front page! ..... agree with them the dates that you need to complete the press release.... If your first choice publication is not interested - offer exclusively to the next choice.
By all means have the home page shouting about your fab new sites and include three links to the three best new features of the site - but until you have driven traffic to the site nobody will know you have a new site!
Dont forget all your internal colleagues - email to whole company highlighting with links the great new features of the site that will help the company share its information with its customers - the day of the official launch.... after all your hard work you deserve a bit of publicity - and your colleagues need to know that something significant has changed.
Remember to soft launch your site for at least a week to check its stable and all working correctly before driving all this traffic to it - you dont want to advertise a glitch.
Hope that helps
Sarah Cheetham
On 15:51:42 12 March 2008 gugo wrote:
Marketing Director at Rosebys
13 March 2008 08:52am
Hi - you are best asking some questions of the purpose of your site - this will give you the clues to how best to launch it
first answer the question - what is my website for? - I cant tell that from your posting. - to do this you need to answer "Who do you hope will visit your new website" and "what do you hope they will get from it."
Answering the "Who" question will give you the list of people you need to tell - if it is a short list - use the telephone (telemarketing - because its very effective) if its a lot - have you their email addresses? then the site can be linked - if you do not know (mass market) then your only options are bought lists for email or DM.
You need to ask yourself if the new website is enough of an excuse to have an event - I would say only if the website is now (for example a "fully integrated order management extranet system" with your clients - do you need them to behave differently - eg order online through a new catalogue and process instead of ringing up - only then do I think you have enough of an excuse to do an event - you need a reason to justify coming to your event
Answering the "what" question gives you your brief for what to put in the contact (telephone script / email / DM piece).... We have a new site. It now does this.... you can get this from it..... here is an incentive to visit.. (I think you are B2B so suggest this is a case of champagne for the 1000th customer to register with the new site....
For press releases the best bet is to release exclusively to your key industry publication - ring them up now and let them know they will get an exclusive when it launches - give them an indicative month so they will plan your story in. You need an interesting angle to give them to get coverage - does this coincide with an anniversary for the company do you have a new range that is launching is there a new process or service that is now available - are you launching an industry first with this website. They may want a photo shoot with your CEO and an exclusive interview about the future - the website alone may not be enough to get you the front page! ..... agree with them the dates that you need to complete the press release.... If your first choice publication is not interested - offer exclusively to the next choice.
By all means have the home page shouting about your fab new sites and include three links to the three best new features of the site - but until you have driven traffic to the site nobody will know you have a new site!
Dont forget all your internal colleagues - email to whole company highlighting with links the great new features of the site that will help the company share its information with its customers - the day of the official launch.... after all your hard work you deserve a bit of publicity - and your colleagues need to know that something significant has changed.
Remember to soft launch your site for at least a week to check its stable and all working correctly before driving all this traffic to it - you dont want to advertise a glitch.
Hope that helps
Sarah Cheetham
On 15:51:42 12 March 2008 gugo wrote:
Sem Specialist at Ecweb
13 March 2008 09:33am
The actual purposes of the website are:
-Products info
-Support
We have done a new information structure, speed improvement and better interaction with other tools.
Where I should focus the launch? Just doing a press release and thats it?
Should we send a email newsletter inviting the people to come to the new website?
Thanks for your feedback.
Managing Director at Cranmore Digital Consulting Ltd
13 March 2008 09:35am
Unless your new website has extra functionality or something seriously improved for clients, then why do they care that it is new? I know you have put a lot of time and effort and probably money into it but again, unless it delivers something really great for customers (and "improved navigation" and "easier on the eye" are not valued by customers) then it's a non event to them.
however, don't forget all your staff, especially the front line staff, make sure they know how good it is, perhaps it's easier for them to update or has better interface with backend systems? Make them enthusiastic for it and get them to help drive customers to it.
For customers some well planned email marketing, perhaps tied in to your automated receipts (thank you for your payment, did you know you can view your accoutant on line now?) or some straightforward direct marketing (we have updated our site, please let us know what you think by completing our online survey).
Sadly, improved websites are nowadays like better telephone systems, a means to an end.
On 15:51:42 12 March 2008 gugo wrote:
Freelance Web Consultant at architxt.net
13 March 2008 13:28pm
"Sadly, improved websites are nowadays like better telephone systems, a means to an end."
True, but a re-design -- however superficial it may be -- is always a very good excuse to fire off an email to the userbase (to those who have consented to such communications, of course).
Ideally, a sub-set of this list would be a group of users who would have already fed back comments at the beginning of the project, ot aks them whether the end-result is an improvement or not.
Even negative follow up comments have value and I would say that a very small percentage would ever feel their inboxes violated by such an announcement.