On this episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I want to talk about where your website actually falls within your business structure.
Now, the reason I’m bringing this up is because we spoke to a business this week—a quite large business, a national operating business—about their website. And we spoke to the marketing department within the business, because their website is, quite frankly, terrible. It’s an awful, self-built website. It’s not going to bring them any traffic, any business, any leads whatsoever.
And when we spoke to the marketing department within the business, they told us that the website was not part of the marketing department. It’s not part of their remit. It doesn’t fall under their scope of operation. They said we needed to actually speak with their IT department.
Now, this really got my back up for a number of different reasons. Firstly, because throughout the years I’ve been in digital marketing and web design—I started in the late 90s, as many people listening to this podcast know—over the years, I have frequently been incorrectly identified as being in IT.
People have introduced me as being in IT. People have said to me, “Ah, you’re in IT. You know how to fix my printer. You’re in IT.” Or, “This is Darren; he’s in IT. He does websites.”
Websites are not IT.
IT is in charge of connecting your computers, making your computers run effectively, making sure they’re secure from being hacked, that there’s no spam, no malware. It’s about making sure the computers run fast, keeping the operating systems up to date, and keeping your cyber security. Maybe they’re in charge of your emails—that’s IT. Networking your machines with a server, making sure you’re up to the latest software, everything’s kept up to date, and your internet is working fine—that’s IT.
A website is a marketing tool.
Your website should be bringing you increased reach, increased visibility with your target clients and your target market. It should be bringing traffic into the website—the kind of people that you want to do business with should be coming to it. It should be engaging them, making them want to stay longer, making them want to read more about what you do, how you do it, and how you can support them.
It should entice them into making an inquiry on your website, to add their details to your database, to your mailing list, to downloading something that you want to offer, to booking a call with you, booking a consultation with you, or sending an inquiry through to you so that you get the message—directly contacting you via email or by phone, or by WhatsApp, or by Facebook Messenger, or by whatever type of contact you want to receive from your website.
They should be buying from you. They should be paying you. They should be paying directly on your website.
It is a marketing tool. It is absolutely nothing to do with IT.
Any business that has its website sit firmly within its IT department does not understand what a website is actually for. It is not, in any way, shape, or form, in any capacity, anything at all to do with IT. Websites are not IT. Can I make that any clearer? I’m not sure I can.
I’m not sure I can.
Yet, this company—this national business—they trade all over the UK. I don’t want to say who they are, but they’re all over the country. They are a huge business. They clearly don’t get any business via the website because their website is the worst example of something that has been built by an IT department that I have ever seen in my entire life.
It’s got IT written all over it. It just smacks of IT. And I know, from looking at that, that they get no leads from it. They get no inquiries from it. They get no business from it. Why would they?
Because it’s nothing to do with their marketing department. They have a marketing department. They are big enough to have a whole marketing department, and their marketing department presumably gets involved with their print advertising, with magazine advertising. I believe they do direct outreach to businesses, because of the nature of what they’re in. They are very business-to-business.
They are very high-level. A contract with them is worth a lot of money because they would have contracts for a very long time.
Yet their website is not in their marketing.
Now please, please, let’s stop. Just stop right there. Let me explain this, very clearly and very importantly:
If you want to get business via your website—and I suggest that you do, I suggest that you do—then please do not look at a website as something that is to be operated by, managed by, run by, administered by, or strategized by somebody in IT.
Because somebody in IT knows nothing about marketing.
Now, people in IT have the technical skills to build a website. Many of them, they do. They have the technical ability. They understand how web hosting works. They understand how domain names work, how to register a domain name, how to set up hosting, and how to create a website using a simple system like Shopify or like WordPress or Wix.
They know how to create these systems and set them up. That is why IT companies think that a website is part of IT.
It is not.
It is marketing. If you want it to get you business, it needs to be run by your marketing department. It will never work if you use an IT company.
I have seen so many IT companies actually advertise themselves as web designers as well. They advertise themselves as digital marketing because they have the technical ability to create a website.
I have the technical ability to build a coffee table. I am not a furniture designer, and I would not, in any way, shape, or form, try to do that. I have the technical ability to cut someone’s hair. I am not a barber or a hairdresser. I have the technical ability to perform CPR on someone. I am not a paramedic. I would not profess to be a paramedic, and I would not advertise my services as a paramedic.
If you want your website to work for you, get a marketing person to do it. Get a web designer to do it. Not an IT company.
So, if you are a business owner listening to this—and I hope that you are, listening and taking it in—and your website was built by an IT company, or you are a business that is large enough to have an IT department and a marketing department, and your website sits within your IT department, then please, go and have a word with your IT department and your marketing department, and work out between them how your website can move from your IT department to your marketing department.
Because that is where it bloody belongs.
That is where it belongs.
Do not make these shocking mistakes that many businesses are doing, and this huge company in the UK is doing, because they are killing themselves online by doing this.
I hope you found this useful. If you haven’t, then tough.
You’ve been listening to The Engaging Marketeer. Please give me a follow, give me a like, and more importantly, if you found this episode of interest and you think it might be of interest to someone else, please share it with them.
If you know a company that’s had an IT department or an IT business build their website, please share this with them. They probably won’t thank you for it, but their business will benefit from it—assuming they pay attention, they listen, and they absorb it.
So, you’ve been listening to The Engaging Marketeer. I will catch you on the next podcast.
