miguelalas 's List: webdesign questions for prospects

• • What the site’s supposed to do for the client’s business.
   
  • What the site will look like.
• 3. Please describe your organization in a few sentences. Since this answer will be something like an elevator speech, it could be incorporated into the home page copy. (If you’re a copywriter – or work closely with one – take note!)

• 9. Please describe your potential customers. Pay special attention to their income, interests, gender, age, even type of computer they use, e.g., old with dialup account or newer with broadband. If your website is a business-to-business site, what sort of companies are you hoping to attract? This is the Demographic Question, and you may be surprised at the level of detail that your prospects include in their answers. I recently dealt with a prospect that defined his expectations right down to the target audience’s preferred monitor size. Other prospects may need some Ideal Client Profile coaching.

   

  10. What is your budget for this project? Don’t be surprised if this question goes unanswered. Some people have no idea of what to budget for a website project. Or maybe they’re being cagey. Whatever the reason, it’s time for you to take the initiative and give a fee range. Your range may turn out to be too high for the prospect, and that’s okay. Your job is to find those who have the desire to work with you – and the ability to pay what you charge.
• 13. What is your deadline for completing the site? You may be dealing with people who want a 10,000-page e-commerce site done by next Tuesday. Then again, you might not. This question, if handled carefully, can provide you with an opportunity to educate prospects on how long good design takes.
• 15. Have you researched your online competition so you have an idea of what you do and don’t want on your site? Here’s a little secret about competitors: Some of them can be real blabbermouths. Especially on their websites. Others have sites that say little and explain even less. It’s important for your prospect to decide on the right balance between openness and secrecy – and it’s a tough decision.
• 22. If you were using a search engine, what words or phrases would you use to find your site? Which of these words or phrases is most important? Second? Third?
• have a standard pricing model developed so that you can email the prospect back with a price range and a set of assumptions for that estimate.

• I normally ask just 3 things…

   

  1. What are your goals for the website?
   2. What’s your budget?
   3. What are your deadlines?
• Give the client what they NEED not just what they ask for

• An approach we’ve had some success with recently is to ask questions to determine what the client considers to be success of the project. This goes beyond technical success (ie. 50,000 hits a month or 30 e-mail forms submitted) and directly to their business goals (ie. attracting 2 new customers a month, or reducing support calls by 50%)

   

  Combined with questions about the financial aspects of their business we’ve been able to put together killer proposals which project how much money they’ll save in the long run when investing in developing their website. For example, if their assistant’s time is worth $15 an hour and he spends 10 hours a week fielding 200 support calls, by adding a comprehensive FAQ to their site and reducing the support calls by 50% we can save the client $150/week or over $7,000 a year. Suddenly a $5,000 investment in a website doesn’t seem so large!
• What about the user?In my questionairre I ask only two big questions:
   A. What are the main things your customer will come looking for (name 5)
   B: What are the main things you want to get from this website (name 5)

9 more annotations...

• The online advertising is a very effective yet economic promotion tool which can help brand your business, products and services and attract visitors/customers via professionally crafted ads.

    We offer:
  
    Creating campaigns  Media buying  Pay Per Click (PPC)  Banner Ads  Email Marketing