How Panther Frees You

Hi. This is Tim Nitz, President of Panther Internet.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to this podcast about the basics of Strategic, Comprehensive, and Integrated Web development, and how Panther can free you to focus on your vision for your organization.

We've been developing Web sites since 1995 and in that time we've learned some pretty important lessons about what it takes to succeed online.

My own first lesson was in 1995, when I was in school and wanted to open a music store in my college town of Hanover, New Hampshire. At the time there was only one music store in the area. My friends were complaining that they couldn't get reasonably priced CDs in town, and mail order catalogs had poor selection. I had connected with some music wholesalers in New York, and I could buy CDs to resell. So there was a market on campus for CDs, I had a supply to sell to that market, but retail space in Hanover was too expensive to make the numbers work.

The previous fall the Netscape browser was launched, and for me that was when the World Wide Web really came into existence. A lightbulb went off in my head, that the interactivity that was available through the Web could be used as a virtual storefront to sell CDs to my classmates. A Dartmouth professor was offering free courses in rudimentary Web design, and soon I developed a Web site and Web application to handle orders, and started selling CDs to my friends.

So why did my online music store not become the Amazon.com of music? For one, I was a dedicated college student and did not have the time to devote to it. But more importantly, I did not have faith that a broad range of people would feel secure enough to use the Web for financial transactions to make it worthwhile. So I closed my store, liquidated my inventory, and concentrated on my studies.

And here is where I learned my first and very costly lesson about what it takes to succeed online: Even though I had a Web site, a Web application to handle orders and inventory, a captive market, and supply of merchandise, I didn't do my market research. Obviously people do trust financial transactions over the Web, and had I researched further I would have found that out. In other words, I did not take an integrated Web development approach to my business, and it failed because of it.

We've seen this same kind of failure happen over and over on the Web. A wonderful Web site will be built, and no one will use it because it's not marketed well from the beginning. An organization with resources will effectively market a Web site that does not provide its users with quality information or quality experience, site visitors don't tell their friensd about it,viral marketing never takes off, and the site flounders. Or, a great Web application that would simplifiy some aspect of life for a vast number of users is unattractive or not fun to use, and so goes unutilized.

One of my mottoes is "Do fewer stupid things every day." At Panther, we help our clients do fewer stupid things like make the mistakes I just talked about,and we've codified that into our Web development program and Web development process. Our Web development process is simply a protocol for making sure everything gets done correctly during the construction of a Web site, and that everyone is on board and agrees with the reasons for creating the Web site in the first place. You can find a link to our process by clicking on the "Process" link on our Web site.

But it's the Web Development Program that is really the crystallization of the lessons we've learned over the past 10 years and more.

We've come to learn that if you really want to make a solid, longlasting, and successful Web presence, your Web development has to have three specific attributes: it must be Strategic, Comprehensive, and Integrated.

Strategic means that the reason you are building your Web presence is based in your organization's strategic vision. An organization's strategic vision answers questions like, "What does my organization want to accomplish? Who does it serve? How is it different from other organizations? If it ceased to exist today, what would the world lose? What does success look like, and what is the roadmap for success?" Once you've answered these questions, and know where you want to go, you can then proceed online with clear ideas about what you want to achieve. If your organization does not have a strategic vision, you are not alone, and Panther is poised to help you identify it and write it down clearly.

The next step is for Panther to help develop your Web marketing plan, which lists all the strategies and tactics you have for achieving the goals in your strategic vision. Many organizations blindly put up Web sites and Web applications without doing market research or writing a Web marketing plan, and this often results in ineffective and costly dead ends. The main purpose of the Web marketing plan is to identify specific reasons for every online expenditure and effort. You can read a lot more about Web marketing plans on our Web site.

That takes us into the second aspect of our program, Comprehensive Web development. Comprehensive Web development entails the three most important areas for success online: Web design, Web applications development, and Web marketing. Web design starts where market research left off: we now know who our users are and what information they need, but how do we now slice it up and make it available to them? How do we communicate effectively about our organization through text and graphics? You can learn more about our user-focused Web design philosophy on our site. Web applications are simply Web sites that interact with their users, and allow users to interact with each other, in significant ways, such as online shopping malls, chat rooms, surveys, photo sharing, etc. Think YouTube and MySpace. Web marketing is basically about getting users to know your Web site exists, and to come back repeatedly.

The point is, that if you neglect any one of these three areas your Web development is not comprehensive and you will likely not succeed. If you build a great Web site but don't market it well, they will not come. If you market th heck out of a poorly organized Web site, they will not come back. If your Web site does not allow users to interact with your organization or other users in meaningful ways, they will have no reason to come back and you can't blame them.

The final part of the program is Integration. Integration means that each part of your Web property interacts seamlessly with every other part. Many organizations will see some neat technology online and want it to be a part of their Web site, so they buy it or hire a developer to tack it on. Often times the developer does not know how to gracefully integrate the new part with the existing parts, and the result is a very unprofessional looking Web site, and poor user experience. It also often means headaches for the organization's staff, who now have to deal with problems such as redundant data entry, broken administration tools, and confusing business rules.

The point I'm making with all this discussion is this: If you are listening to this podcast you are likely a business owner or head of an organization's marketing department. That means you probably have bigger and more interesting things to worry about than a poorly created or ineffectively cobbled together Web presence. I know many heads of organizations that think an awfully lot about technology when their training, experience, and value-added really lies in their ability to envision a better future for themselves and their clients. That's where Panther Internet frees you to focus on your vision. Because our program makes sure that our Web development works, because our Web development process leaves nothing to question, and because we provide Web design, Web applications development, and Web marketing in one firm, you can leave all the worrying about execution to us. You get to think creatively, and hand off implementation to a company that has the experience and structure to do it right. That's our primary value-added: freeing you up to focus on yours.

Well, I hope that helps you understand a bit more about what Panther can do for you. Please peruse our Web site and of course use our contact form if you have any questions or want more specifics about working with us. We're always game to talk with you about your vision for your online future.

Thanks, and Good Luck!

Contact Panther to discuss your dreams and vision for your Web presence.

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