LUST – project blindness and desire to deliver

Businesses and agencies love projects. The project world is a familiar and comfortable place for us all; we know how to scrum, scope, budget,and deliver. And to put icing on the cake we enjoy that great feeling of hitting the finishing line, the launch party.

Too often, though, we are seduced into failing to realise that how the site looks is less important than how it works .

For our customers there is little short to medium term benefit in what happens prior to the launch date. The value to them comes afterwards. Delivering this value is based on publishing engaging content that is targeted at different audience segments. Even though many businesses understand this principle, they struggle to achieve it because they are geared towards one-off project delivery rather than the continuous improvement model for online publishing via effecive content marketing.

This is why when developing your online strategy you need to be marketing-led . By focusing on the importance of the long term relationship with your customers you will not be distracted by the lustful allures of the project life cycle.

Online, your message is fighting for the attention of the user alone against the rest of the internet. There are no sectors, there are no walls. The internet is one vast open playing field. And your message is up against the BBC, YouTube and blogs about kittens.

You’ve seen the success that other sites have had and you want that. But your downfall is that you do not appreciate why those others have succeeded. You want what they have but you haven’t done the work they have.

The BBC and Amazon are classic sites we all rightly admire and desire to copy in some shape or form. But the one principle many fail to recognise is their commitment to quality and engaging content – content that tells a story that people want to hear .

Every organisation has a story to tell about its brand, its products and services and online their is an audience that is receptitive to that message. Understanding the value proposition of your business and your customer is essential to ensuring your content reaches that audience.

This is the sin of indifference to your content and failure to make the most of what you have. It always happens after the dust of the project delivery has settled. The hustle and bustle of the project review meetings are a distant memory of post-it notes and cheap cofee. A good job has been done by one and all. But nobody has planned for what to do beyond the launch date.

Thinking and acting like a publisher is essential for seeing beyond the go-live date. Content marketing means a delivered site is just a tool to get started on the job of attracting an audience.