…that combines the knowledge you use everyday…
To provide you an unparalleled online resource for reliable, accurate, and up-to-date information and knowledge specifically for green industry professionals, we have aggregated content from major green industry organizations and suppliers of products and services to the green industry…
A web site is fast becoming as important to small businesses as business cards, fax machines, and cell phones. What was once a highly expensive, confusing and uncertain endeavor has become far simpler, potentially inexpensive and, best of all, you have more choices than ever before.
While there are many different options for building and maintaining a web site, this article focuses on the two principal choices available to green industry firms: custom sites or template-based sites. Here is a brief overview of each choice, with the pros and cons of each. As you’ll see, the bottom line is that your choices will create trade offs that you must consider.
A custom site is one that a web development/design firm builds for you. A custom site can range from one page or more than 100 pages. A custom site can either be static, meaning that you cannot easily update it yourself, or dynamic, meaning that you can update it yourself.
The major advantage of a custom site is that you get a site that looks exactly like you want and does exactly what you want it to do. Of course you could spend anywhere from $2,500 to $50,000 on a custom site and, here, too, you get what you pay for (less if you just want a static “Yellow-Page” type site). Want flashy graphics, rotating photos, tips, etc? That will cost you.
The major disadvantage of most custom sites is that they are extremely challenging to keep up-to-date and interesting. Typically, you either need to submit changes to the designer (who makes them according to his/her schedule, for a fee) or hire or train someone in-house to make the changes (with webmasters commanding high salaries in today’s marketplace, you’ll want to think carefully about this option).
According to design firms, you can expect to spend about the same amount as your original design in yearly maintenance and hosting, unless you don’t update your site very often. For example, if you spend $5-10,000 on the original design (not excessive if you want to build a very nice, functional site) you should budget a similar amount for hosting and maintenance. Plus, you will learn that you want new functions, etc., after the site is built and this will cost money, too.
This type of site will allow your content to be placed in pre-designed graphical templates. Template based sites can cost anywhere from $29.95 a month (those free sites have largely disappeared) to several $100 dollars a month depending on what features and functions you want.
The major advantage is that virtually anyone can make most updates quickly and easily at no additional cost. Secondly, with a template-based site you will typically get lots more features and functions that you could afford to build in your own custom sites. Equally important, the cost of ownership is typically much lower than a custom site—and very predicible. And, if you ever decide that you really want a custom site, then the switching cost is relatively low, as you have not invested thousands in custom design work and programming. The same is NOT true of a custom site.
The major disadvantage is that there are some limitations in the look and feel, navigation, and functions of the site. For example, most programs have a selection of templates from which to choose—if you don’t like them, then that’s a disadvantage. If you want a particular feature, and the site doesn’t offer it, then you don’t have that as an option.
In the end, the question is value: You have to consider the variables of cost, functionality, and flexibility and decide what makes the most sense. Template based sites can be a great value, offering power and benefits for a small fee. However if having an original design and the flexibility to have exactly the features and functions you want, and money and time are not as important, then the custom route is clearly for you.
Well, you’ve built your web site—your online garden center. Now what?
Like any business, a web site doesn’t just achieve all your goals—increase revenue, build customer loyalty, and improve your brand and name recognition in your area.
No, your site, like any other part of your business, requires strategies to ensure your site brings you the benefits you want.
When you first create your online garden center, one of your first priorities is to tell your current customers about it.
As you use your brick-and-mortar customers to your online garden center, you should also market reciprocally—use your online garden center to drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar location. This is especially important because your online garden center may be your first interaction with prospective customers who have used the web to find a garden center near them.
Everyone in business knows the value of a knowledgeable sales person—a customer asks a question, the sales person establishes themselves as a knowledgeable, trusted provider of information, and the customer then moves from the information to rely on the sales person to help them make the right purchase.
In your online garden center, you may not have a traditional sales person—but you do have online sales person—content. Like your knowledgeable sales person, the content you provide in your site helps you establish yourself as a trusted, valued source of not only products, but also valuable information that is essential for building lasting, loyal relationships with your customers.
In your brick-and-mortar location, you make a range of choices about how and where you display your products based on your understanding of how your customers move about your store.
For your online garden center, you must have the same ability to evaluate how your online customers move through your site. Beyond your home page, which is the prime location for all your highest priorities, be sure your site is supported by reporting tools that enable you to see how and where visitors are going in your site so you can reorganize or redesign as needed.
The basis for evaluating your site traffic is page views. A page view is simply an instance where a visitor views a page in your site. Ideally, you will be able to see how many people viewed each of your pages—either by day or by month. This is a useful way to evaluate the success of promotions or incentives you’re using to bring customers to a particular part of your site or for your site in general.
You’ve probably considered building a web site for your garden center. Cost was probably an issue, and you might have had questions about the real value a site would bring your business.
Web sites are for large corporations, right? Internet companies, right? Does an independent garden center really need a web site?
Contrary to what you may think, web sites are powerful tools not only for large companies, large retailers, and internet companies, but are essential tools for small businesses to increase revenue, reach and retain new customers, build a loyal customer base, and provide value-added services and features to online visitors. Small budget or million-dollar budget, businesses of all sizes have a lot to gain from the Internet.
Whether you’re a garden center professional, landscape professional, or a grower, you should build a web site because:
The basic value of a web site for your business is that your current and prospective customers are already using the web in their daily lives—locating information, buying products, finding services—all online.
This is especially important for you as a way of reaching new customers. Today, your prospective customers are using web search engines and yellow pages directories to find businesses that provide what they want. When the businesses they’re looking for are displayed, some have just business contact information, like a phone number, address, and name.
Others displayed by the search also have a link to their web site—which can include a visual map, a directions service, and additional contact information. Even better, their site may also include promotions, online coupons, and a description of products and services that can help drive the online visitor to visit the brick-and-mortar location.
For you, the presence of a web site attached to your business is a value-added service to current and prospective customers and increases the possibility they will find out about the range of what you offer.
To leverage your web site to build and maintain a loyal customer base, include the following as standard parts of your site:
For many of your customers, a visit to your business probably goes something like this—the customer decides she needs certain products, then decides to go to your location. She’s been there before, so she moves quickly, moving from product-to-product and to the register—quickly and efficiently to get back to work.
Did they see that you provide landscape design, maintenance, and installation services? Do they know you’re running a special offer on a certain product? Did they put their names on a mailing list so they can receive your newsletter or direct mailings?
Your online garden center provides you an opportunity to introduce your customers and prospective customers to the range of what you offer— the pace is more leisurely, your visitors are likely to explore, and you stand to get wide exposure of all you offer. An online garden center offers you an opportunity like nothing else to showcase the range of your offerings by letting your customers and prospects explore your offerings in a no-pressure, relaxed environment.
A well conceived and organized online garden center is a powerful way to extend your sales and brand reach. As we talked about earlier, your online garden center will be your first interaction with many prospective customers and should provide basic contact information, maps, and some incentives for turning a visit to your web site to a visit to your brick-and-mortar location.
Your online garden center gives you the opportunity to provide your visitors with valuable content—content that not only helps educate your visitors, but also can help drive traffic to your priority products, promotions, or services.
For example, a content area devoted to landscape design tips and ideas can become an important gateway to your landscape design, installation, and maintenance services.
Like your sales professionals in your brick-and-mortar location, content and information can help drive sales by educating your customers and prospective customers about the range of what you offer.
For you as a knowledge supplier, the PlantAmerica AnswerBook is a versatile, flexible, and powerful tool for distributing and delivering the knowledge and content you want to the audience you want to reach.
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…that combines the knowledge you use everyday…
To provide you an unparalleled online resource for reliable, accurate, and up-to-date information and knowledge specifically for green industry professionals, we have aggregated content from major green industry organizations and suppliers of products and services to the green industry…
As a versatile knowledge delivery and management application, the AnswerBook is also a powerful way to deliver and distribute information to your customers, partners, and dealers.
As a tool for delivering and distributing content and information to customers, partners, and dealers, the PlantAmerica AnswerBook enables you to create private libraries of information, accessible only to the AnswerBook users you specify. These private libraries ensure that only the right users can view the information yet still enable you to employ the features and functionality of the application to distribute and deliver this information and content.
As important, the AnswerBook enables you to create the libraries–both public and private–you want, enabling you to use the AB to satisfy all your content and information delivery and distribution needs within a single, easy-to-use and -manage application.
Getting green industry professionals to visit the AnswerBook for the first time is one thing—getting savvy users to keep coming back is another. To turn first-time visitors into repeat AnswerBook users, we have blended value-added content management functionality with important strategic relationships to ensure that the AnswerBook is not only an unparalleled online source of green industry knowledge, but also a powerful business tool for our users.
If you’d like to read more about the tools and features we’ve included in the AnswerBook, please browse the AnswerBook Knowledge Consumer section of our site.
…that combines the knowledge you use everyday…
To provide you an unparalleled online resource for reliable, accurate, and up-to-date information and knowledge specifically for green industry professionals, we have aggregated content from major green industry organizations and suppliers of products and services to the green industry…
The PlantAmerica AnswerBook is not only about reliable, direct-from-the-source knowledge. Itís also about features that enable you to turn that knowledge into a powerful business tool.
create personalized books of the knowledge you frequently use
add personalized notes to each topic
add customized topics, including Word files, spreadsheets, .pdf documents, or HTML files
access the knowledge from anywhere you have a web browser and an internet connection
put an AnswerBook in your web site and create an online knowledge center for your customers
create an AnswerBook for your employees, customers, or partners and make information-sharing cost-efficient and effective
By providing these features with the information you use everyday, we hope that the AnswerBook will become your indispensable knowledge management tool. Whether you’re interested in efficiently finding and managing the information you use every day or accessing reliable product information so you can make the right buying decisions for your business, it’s time to start leveraging the PlantAmerica AnswewrBook to build a more efficient, more profitable, and more successful business.
For you as a green industry professional, the PlantAmerica AnswerBook promises to change the way you use technology and knoweldge to build better businesses.
With the AnswerBook, you can:
leverage access to supplier product or service information to make informed buying decisions
access comprehensive problem- and issue-related information to address the problems you meet everyday
organize AnswerBook knowledge into customized books so the information you use everyday is at your fingertips.
access product product documentation provided by the supplier