Scenario: You've heard about the Internet and you're curious about a web site. So you ask around and find out that your home access to the Internet has web space available. The kid next door makes you a web page -- let's say you flip him a few bucks -- and now you have a site. After a few months, you've forgotten about the site -- the kid next door goes off to college -- and you're left with no clue how to change your site to show your new phone number.
Here's another scenario: You have an idea that you think might work for your HVAC business. If you could post assignments on the web, then you could let your employees take the company vans to their homes, get their assignments online, and go directly to their job sites. You figure you'll save a fortune on coffee and maybe get to sleep in a little later. Plus, this also gives you more time to concentrate on what you should be doing: growing your business. You have an account with a local provider and ask them to make a web site for you. It looks great! But in the first week of launching your idea, several employees have modem problems and can't get their assignments. One person's computer just stopped working. And you did your own updates only to find half your site missing! Now what?
Last scenario: After learning some HTML yourself you've become pretty good at it, if you don't mind saying so yourself. Then you look at the site of your biggest competitor in the city. It's gorgeous. It's like an Internet circus, with flashing messages, a chat room, and a little company truck that goes across the screen. You easily find out who did it for them and call them up. Then the estimate comes. Wowee! Maybe next year, if business picks up.
The web can be quite frustrating to small business owners. Where do you start? Do you go with the cheapest or the most established? Should you let the neighbor's kid be your webmaster, or your ISP? Do you try to take on the whole job yourself? Can you even compete with larger companies? Yes, you can. But you'll probably be surprised to hear that a web site may not be right for you.
At Desktop Chameleon we take a different approach. We believe that A) you know your business better than we do and B) it makes no sense for us to build you another "billboard" on the Information Superhighway. Sure, we could make you some nifty gizmos and graphics, but will they increase your business? No. That's why we'll talk to you about your business, your plans for the future, and how you market yourself now. We'll talk about goals for the site. And we'll be there for you after it's built to make updates or even train you to take over the site yourself.
It's all about Internet Marketing. ISPs don't want to sell you a site, they want to sell you a billboard. Companies that charge you by the page are going to give you cookie-cutter pages. We would question the idea in scenario 2 above, since it requires either complete buy-in on the part of the employees, or a committment on your part to maintain or even buy new computers for them. And in the last scenario, we'd scratch our heads and wonder what an HVAC service would do with a chat room on their web site.
Here's what you get when you work with DeskTop Chameleon:
- A clean site with fresh graphics and your text. Not sure what to write? We can help you.
- A site that does something for your business, like make the phones ring or the email buzz.
- We'll work with your existing company materials and use the site to build brand-name equity. Don't have a company identity? We can help with designing logos, business cards, stationery, forms and more!
- Experienced Internet Marketing to help customers find you online before they find the competition.
- A committment to maintaining your site so it's always updated and interesting.
- No fluff. Instead of animated graphics, let us create a mailing list or a newsletter to stay in touch with your clients. After all, the key to a successful customer relationship is CONTACT.
So what makes DeskTop Chameleon different? It's the experience of our staff, which comes from all areas of marketing like writing, public relations, trade shows, desktop publishing, and the web. And from industries like software, computer hardware, real estate, hospitality, and even non-profit organizations; both in the US and Canada.
Perhaps it's our modular approach: we believe in fitting the solution to the need, not the opposite. We've seen too many small businesses paying outlandish or unnecessary fees for web services. What do we consider outlandish or unnecessary? Paying more than $25 a month for web hosting. Accounts with services you'll never use. Set-up fees and add-on features that should be standard.
Maybe you have an idea but aren't sure how to get started. Maybe you even have a site that you feel could be doing more. Call us. If we don't talk you out of a site, you might be amazed how little it costs to put the web to work for you. After all, you know what your job is. Ours is to make you look good and bring in new business.
