If You Don't Know 'UX' You're Overdue to Learn About It

Brick-and-mortar businesses all have a distinct feel built around the customer experience. User experience is the same idea but for your website.

How to Launch a New York Times Bestselling Book

I’ve been talking about doing this for weeks and the time has finally come!

Here it is: the full behind-the-scenes breakdown of my entire book launch for The School of Greatness book.

I had been planning this book launch for years (no joke) and I was as excited as the next person to see how it would all go down.

Here are my original notes, in pre-planning mode a year ago, about how I was going to attack this book launch.

I put my heart and soul into it, plus countless hours, no sleep, and HUSTLE.

In the end, I fell one spot shy of my goal to hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List – the book came in at #2 for the entire month in the Business category (and #3 for the actual launch week). I’m pretty happy about it

It’s been a wild ride, full of ups and downs. I feel so much gratitude for every person who supported me and the message of greatness in spreading it to a bigger audience than ever before.

As one expression of my gratitude, I wanted to pull back the covers and give you the full rundown of how we put together this launch, what worked, what didn’t, and what I learned.

My hope is that you will set yourself a massive goal, like I did 8 years ago, and that these insights will support you in achieving that yourself.

Here we go:

TOP WAYS WE MARKETED THE BOOK

1. BULK BOOK ORDERS

In exchange for my normal speaking fee, I accepted several requests to speak at events with the agreement that the host would order the value of my speaking fee in books. This was big since I was able to get thousands of orders from these events and the event attendees got to each receive a copy as part of their ticket price.

I also got multiple companies and individuals to buy large orders of books to give to their clients, employees, etc. which added up fast.

2. PODCAST TOUR

I lined up A LOT of podcasts to come on as a guest. A lot of these were friends of mine, like Michael Hyatt and Gary V, who are awesome and did it because we’re friends. Some were people I hadn’t heard of, but they offered to buy a bulk order of books in exchange for me coming on. In total, I did 29 podcast interviews. I know. It was a lot. But that got the word out to all of those podcast audiences. It pays to leverage other people’s audiences.

3. STREET TEAM

I did a call out a couple months before the book launch to all my followers to see who the superfans were. They showed up in a big way and I had over 1000 applicants who wanted to be on the street team. In the end, we took 500 (who got an advance copy of the book) and they all promoted the book big time on their own social channels. Big shout out to the street team for their support!

4. BONUS OFFERINGS LANDING PAGE

We made a huge list of book bonuses, giving a ton of extra value for those who purchased more than one book. You can see that full list of bonuses HERE.

5. PRESS

I started lining up major press opportunities in January of this year – 10 months ahead of time. I networked and leveraged every possible opportunity to get on major news shows like Fox, as well as local news stations in the cities I visited on the book tour. I ended up doing about 10 TV interviews, which was great for exposure to audiences I would not have gotten in front of otherwise. Influencers like Kimberly Guilfoyle have really loyal followings, and one shout out from them goes a long way.

Being featured on the cover of Experience Life Magazine was a highlight for sure.

6. GUEST POSTS

In addition to the TV and podcast interviews I did, I got a ton of requests and opportunities to do written interviews and guest posts on all sorts of blogs, news sites, and websites. There was literally no way I could have written all these on my own, so my team really supported me on this one and I looked over a lot of these without having to actually write them from scratch. Overall, I was either featured in or wrote original pieces for over 35 different publications.

7. AFFILIATE PROMOTION

I have the best friends in the world. But really. This took years of prep work, but it all paid off. Having my network promote the book to their audiences, for free, because they’re awesome, was huge. Chalene Johnson is just one amazing example of this.

In fact, I reached out, personally, to tons of past podcast guests to ask them to support getting the word out.

Also, I did some actual affiliate deals with companies like AppSumo, where we put together a great bonus package for anyone who bought the book from their list, with goodies that no one else got. This was huge since AppSumo has a massive list who loves them.

I taught a class with CreativeLive as well (on podcasting), which was another way to promote the book to a new audience.

8. BOOK TOUR

Then came the tour, starting with my book launch party in LA a few days before the actual release date and then a party in NYC on the actual launch date. I hit 15 cities over 6 weeks, and it was intense. But I LOVED IT. It was so amazing to see so many fans in person, hear their stories, give them hugs, and share my story with them. I’m still recovering physically from this part of the launch, but it was absolutely worth it.

One of the most fun events I did, pre-book tour, was hosting a one-day Master Class with my good friend Michael Port, in LA. Everyone who signed up through me got 10 copies of the book as well.

9. SCHOOL OF GREATNESS PODCAST

I started promoting the book on my podcast months before the launch. Episode after episode, I pitched the book, generated excitement, and reminded my listeners to sign up for book updates.

If you were listening to the podcast during the book launch, you know I did a book takeover during launch week and put up an episode almost every day that week. This was my game time mode. I was preaching inspiration and hustle from the rooftops and pouring my best out every day to my whole podcast audience.

This not only helped spread the word and pump up listeners to keep buying the book, but it kept me pumped up during a crazy week of no sleep.

10. BOOK TRAILER

I invested big time in this and got an amazing team to film this video. It was epic and was really popular on YouTube and Facebook.

11. SOCIAL MEDIA

I know this one is obvious, but it is what it is. I did a full out book marketing campaign on all my social media channels leading up to and during the book launch week. I was posting videos of me doing press, going into book stores, with my mom traveling between book events, etc.

I posted all the big updates when we hit rankings, like top 10 on Amazon, and of course, the NYT #3 spot after the first week. We also ran a Thunderclap campaign for followers to automatically post a shout out about the book on their Facebook and Twitter on the launch day of the book to create buzz.

I was on Periscope almost nightly for weeks leading up to the launch, talking all about how the launch was going and selling books straight from Periscope.

I Snapchatted the play by plays of every day of the book tour.

Instagram is my favorite right now, so of course I was posting there and responding to comments. I was engaged as humanly possible on all platforms, but there’s no way I could keep up with all of the buzz. My team scheduled most of the Facebook and Pinterest posts and I focused on Instagram and Snapchat.

12. ONLINE SUMMIT

I recorded 27 interviews with top minds before the book tour and presented a free online video summit 2 weeks after the book launch. While the content was awesome and lots of people watched, I didn’t feel like I was able to really promote and leverage this event right in the middle of the book tour.

13. BOOK LAUNCH MANAGER

Considering the massive amount of organization and operations all of the bulk book orders and affiliate relationships took, I hired someone to actually manage those aspects of the launch. He led the street team of 500 fans who got advance copies of the book so they could post reviews and shout outs on social media, as well as managed the logistics of the bulk book orders through big sellers like Books-A-Million. This was really helpful since it was my team’s first time doing any of this, but we still did a ton of this work as well.

This is just the outline of the process. Scroll down to listen to my full analysis in Episode 270 of the School of Greatness! And let me say, one more time, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for your support in making this book a success and spreading the message of greatness. If there’s one single piece of advice I could give to create this kind of success, it would be to give, give, give your best away for a long time, and then when it really matters to you, ask for support in return. Your tribe will be there for you if you’ve been there for them first.

Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio or TuneIn

The School of Greatness Podcast

“It’s going to take everything you’ve got.”

• HAVE YOU READ THE SCHOOL OF GREATNESS BOOK YET? ORDER A COPY AT HTTP://GREATNESSBOOK.COM

• Music Credit: Fly by Hoved

Did you enjoy the podcast?

What do you think? Ready to launch your own book now?

The post How to Launch a New York Times Bestselling Book appeared first on Lewis Howes.

How to Earn Free Press for Your Business When You Have No Connections

"Is that guy wearing leggings?"

"We should start a business selling male leggings."

That's all it took. One week later my business partners and I stood freezing in London's Brick Lane Market with 22 pairs of female leggings "branded" with our male leggings brand.

But after eight hours in the cold, we saw zero sales.

Fast forward two years, and sTitch Leggings was being prominently featured on the Daily Mail -- an article from which we're still converting traffic.

So how do you build press for a startup when you have no connections?

I'll walk you through some tips and examples below to help you learn how to get started and earn some recognition for your product or service.

How To Get Free Press For Your Startup When You Have No Connections

1) Be remarkable.

We've all heard people use the word "remarkable" before, but what does it really mean? According to Merriam-Webster, being remarkable means being "unusual or surprising" or "likely to be noticed."

In modern day society, male leggings are remarkable.

The man who sold his life on eBay is remarkable:

The Ryanair CEO announcing that they will introduce standing seats to charge for toilets is remarkable:

"But what if my startup is inherently unremarkable?"

Great question. And a question that we were forced to ask ourselves in preparation for the upcoming launch of a startup that we are working on.

While preparing for the launch of Virtual Valley, software that connects entrepreneurs with virtual team members such as assistants, we found ourselves struggling to differentiate it from Upwork -- a freelancing platform that operates very similarly.

Considering sources such as TechCrunch are unlikely to cover your startup launch if you don't have some new, exciting technology (or one million dollars in funding), the odds that Virtual Valley would get featured were slim.

Sometimes, being remarkable doesn't mean your product or service has to be truly unique. You can leverage remarkability to receive press by doing something remarkable.

This could mean experimenting with a bold design on your website, developing a witty personality for your brand on Twitter, taking risks with your website copy, etc. These "outside-of-the-box" efforts might be received really well ... or they might not. Either way, you're getting people talking about your product or service.

So what approach did I take to help Virtual Valley stand out? Well, that takes us to our next tip.

2) Piggyback on popular trends.

Trends emerge is every industry that can help propel your search for free press without connections. Trouble is, you have to jump on them at the right time.

Fortunately for us, men wearing leggings had actually been covered by a number of popular sites -- The Telegraph, Fashionista, etc. -- prior to the launch of our company.

When it came time to pitch journalists, we could reinforce the fact that "men wearing leggings" was newsworthy, as the topic had already been covered by other reputable sources.

So when deciding on an angle to pitch the press for our new startup Virtual Valley, we spent some time reviewing popular blogs in the startup world to spot any current trends.

One of which that really stood out was transparency:

• SumAll was publishing their salaries.
• Hubstaff was sharing their financial stats on a live dashboard.
• Buffer was publishing brutally honest blog posts.

During this time, we were also defining our company goals for the next two years, one of which being a seven-figure exit.

Would announcing this to the press be remarkable and connected to a recent trend? Would this story have a better chance of being published in TechCrunch than just writing a dull press release on the features of our product?

I guess we'll find out ...

3) Consider different perspectives.

When approaching anyone that has something you want -- in this case, a potential audience -- you need to understand their perspective and incentives. This will help increase your chances of them actually taking the action that you want them to take.

In the two sections above we have already been thinking from the perspective of the reporter. (Reporters are interested in remarkable stories connected to a relevant industry trend, right?) Now, you need to communicate your story in a way that speaks directly to the incentives of the reporter.

Here's an example of an email I sent to The Daily Express, which ultimately lead to the Daily Mail article referenced above:

Why did this approach work?

• It mentions a recent trend: "Meggings into the Mainstream"
• It provides social proof by mentioning the publications that had already covered the topic, as well as the number of times the Daily Mail article had been shared.
• It adds a personal touch by noting that the other articles touch on a Chicago-based male leggings company, and suggests they feature a brand "a little closer to home."
• It states that I'm happy to do the heavy lifting/content creation at the end.

With all of that in mind, it is not surprising that the reporter took on the story.

A relevant model on human behaviour which supports this theory is the Fogg Behavioural Model:

Image Source: Behavior Model

In order to increase the chances of a reporter taking on your story, we must consider the following three factors:

• Motivation. What is the reason that a reporter would publish your story? Will make them look good in front of their boss? Will it help them get promoted? Will it perform well in terms of views, comments, and shares? Once you understand their potential motivation, you will find it easier to communicate this to them.
• Trigger. Triggers aim to capture a person's attention. For example, Facebook uses notifications that trigger us to come back to the platform -- whether it be to see that picture we have just been tagged in or what our friend just posted. In this case, the email being sent to the reporter serves as a trigger to incite action.
• Ability. People are less likely to complete an action if the ability to take that action has been placed behind a barrier. In other words, you need to lower the effort barrier as much as possible to increase your chances of receiving press. (This is why I offered to create the content at the end of my email.)

4) Target specific publications.

Remember the motivation trigger above?

Well, there are certain journalists that will be more motivated to cover your story than others. This often falls back on their personal interests or responsibility for their media organisation. And these are the people to want to target.

To find them, head to Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn to conduct some research. The key is to become more aware of each and every publication and journalist that covers your niche.

Record every potential publication and reporter in a Google Sheet that includes their average article social share counts and followers on Twitter, as this will help you prioritise.

Once you have a list of 20 potential reporters, follow each one on Twitter and engage with their content to get on their radar.

5) Prepare necessary press assets in advance.

When your targeted reporter opens your pitch and scans your email you have one chance, as this is probably the 50th pitch he/she has read that day.

This reporter needs to access all the information they require to make a decision ... or they may just move on to the next email.

To increase the reporters ability to make a decision in your favor, consider attaching these assets in an email or creating a dedicated press page on your website.

Regardless of which option you choose, you will need to include the following:

• Contact information
• Company overview
• Media mentions
• New and existing press releases
• Media assets -- logos, screenshots, headshots, etc.

For more on how to put together an effective press page, check out this post. And to help you get started with creating an actual press release, use this template.

6) Be persistent.

Here's the thing about hunting for free press: you are going to get ignored, and you are going to get rejected.

What you do not see in the section above is the list of emails to every fashion reporter for national publications in the UK in my sent items that got rejected or no response:

Rather than let it discourage you, set realistic expectations. You might only get one response for every 20 emails you send. That's okay. Keep hustling.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, uses a concept called "the Flywheel Effect" to describe the effort it takes to build momentum for something. While the wheel is heavy and difficult to push, once you get it going, it will begin to turn itself.

In terms of press, each feature that you receive will build the likelihood that you will receive more features in the future.

At sTitch Leggings, we would not have been featured in the Daily Mail if we did not land the feature in the Daily Express. And it's likely that we wouldn't have appeared on the UK television series, Dragons' Den, unless we had been featured in the Daily Mail. And after being featured on the Dragons' Den, we decided it was time to try to earn a spot on the HubSpot blog. And here we are.

Every press opportunity must be sought out through hustle, and celebrated once achieved. As the more press you receive, the more likely you will be to receive additional press, etc.

Still feeling unsure of how to get started with building free press for your business? Tell me about your product or service in the comments section below and I'll see if I can help.

5 Digital-Marketing Tactics to Ditch in 2016

Planning to never update your desktop-only accessible website and continue to avoid Facebook for fear of negative comments in 2016? Really?

6 Essential Nurturing Workflows For Every B2B Company

Not everyone is ready to buy your product or service the first time they come to your site and that’s okay. With the right amount of time and information they will warm up to your brand, assuming they’re the right persona for your product or service, of course.

Nurturing campaigns are essential for keeping these people who visit your site but aren't ready to immediately buy engaged with your brand. Essentially these campaigns are a series of emails aimed at keeping you top of mind while building trust and moving your lead further along in the buyer's journey.

There are various types of nurturing workflows based on who you are targeting and the length of each work flow (both in terms of numbers of emails and total days in between sends). Regardless of who you are targeting or the length of your workflow, there are four basic goals you want to accomplish with each nurturing campaign:

• Create brand awareness and establish a sense of trust through helpful content.
• Address one of their pain points and offer content that may help them solve this problem either through blog posts or an ungated piece of content.
• Offer a longer, gated piece of content, like an ebook or a guide, that relates specifically to you and your brand
• Get the lead to contact you to inquire more about your services/product or make the purchase online.

For companies in the B2B space, there 6 workflows that are essential for them to be using.

1) Subscriber Workflows

A subscriber workflow is when recent subscribers to your blog/newsletter recieve an emails which provides additional information about your brand or shares recent updates with them. This type of workflow is important because it makes subscribers feel welcomed to your brand, defines what to expect from you, and may even contain a piece of content that converts them to a lead.

This workflow is typically just one email, the 'welcome email' which should include a number of different components. First and foremost, it should thank subscribers for their interest and show them that they're valued. It should also let them know what to expect from your company such as how many times will you email them? Will they be emailed every time your company publishes a new blog, or will it be in a weekly or monthly roundup? Let them know so they can update their preferences if they'd like.

Including a relevant CTA is useful- just make sure it's subtle and not salesy. You already got them to subscribe to your blog where they'll see plenty of your content; you don't want to them to feel like the email is too promotional.

2) Lead Nurturing Workflows

A lead nurturing workflow functions with the end goal of converting leads into marketing qualified leads (or MQLs), which in turn brings them further down the sales funnel, and one step closer to becoming a customer. It's important to have this be an automated email string because people want to know more about you and build trust before making a decision to purchase. You can set this workflow up to look something like the following once a website visitor becomes a lead:

• Email 1, TOFU Offer: Delay 3 days. Promote an offer that relates to the one that they became a lead from. Maybe they downloaded an infographic on Growth-Driven Design, so you would then want to send them another TOFU offer, such as a blog post. This should be a more high-level offer for someone just at the beginning stages of the buyer's journey.
• Email 2, MOFU Offer: Delay 3 days. You should promote an, such as an ebook or case study, related to what they originally downloaded. This offer can get more specific as to the products and services you offer.
• Email 3, BOFU Offer: Delay 3 days. The last email to the workflow would be a BOFU offer such as a free Growth-Driven Design Consultation, or something that gets them talking to sales.

This simple workflow will help leads move naturally through the sales cycle without looking to salesy or pushy on your end and leading to the dreaded "unsubscribe".

3) Hot Leads Workflows

A 'hot lead' is someone who is frequently visiting your website, opening your emails and engaging with you on social media which indicates that you’ve clearly got their interest. Hold onto that interset by keeping them engaged with your company.

A workflow for someone who is actively viewing and sharing your content could be:

• Email 1: BOFU offer like a case study. This is a great offer to send someone who is almost-ready to make a sale and should be related to the topics they've been viewing most on your site
• Email 2: Offer your lead a free service, such as a consultation, demo or review for what they need help with.
• Email 3: If they took advantage of the free service, the next and final email should aim to get the lead on a call with your sales team.

4) Cold Leads Workflows

So, maybe your lead fell asleep on you… wake them up with a workflow! Maybe earlier in the process they weren’t in the condition to buy, but things have changed and now they’re ready but you haven't followed up with them in a while.

Creating a workflow to remind them you’re still there and on their side is a great way to engage them again. To respark their interest you can send them some company updates or special offers, as listed below.

• Option 1: What's new with your business? Is there an exclusive offer you can send them that'll get them excited about your brand?
• Option 2: Email them a survey. What kind of experience did they have with your company the last time they interacted?
• Option 3: We're thinking abot you.. are you thinking about us? You can get fun with this email. Talk to your leads like they're people- believe me, they'll respond better to this. Tell them about a product/service they may be interested in based off of their prior page views and downloads.

5) Customer Workflows

They've become a customer, but you're not done with them yet! You want to encourage them to continue to interact with your brand. It's an important workflow to use because it keeps customers thinking about your brand in hopes that they become repeat customers and evangelists. A simple customer workflow could resemble the following:

• Email 1: Delay one day after becoming customer. The first email in the workflow should thank customers for making their purchase. Be sure to include company news to keep readers in the loop about what's going on. Invite them to add your company on social media. This will also encourage engagement.
• Email 2: Delay three weeks. In this email, you can ask your customer how their product/service they purchased from you is going. This makes sure you're delighting them and keeping customers happy. If they aren't happy, this allows you to fix it and make it right. Your customers will really feel taken care of if you include an email or phone number they can send questions or concerns to.
• Email 3: Delay 2-3 months. Use this as an opportunity to promote making an upgrade or another purchase. You can push this through promo specials and discounts.

6) Industry/specific Topics Workflows

If you know what industry one of your prospects is from- that's a golden piece of information. By knowing this, you can send them content specifically for them. By sending the right content to the right people, you're more likely to convert. Check out where this lead came from. Was it for an offer specific to a certain industry? What kind of tradeshow did you meet them at? Answer these questions to segment them for this workflow.

After discovering what industry a prospect is in, send them workflows in this progression:

• Email 1: Send them relevant blogs.
• Email 2: White papers, videos, checklists, guides, etc.
• Email 3: Webinars, case studies, ebooks, how-to videos, etc.
• Email 4: Demo, assessments, consultation, reviews, etc.

By basing these emails off of industry or specific topics of interest, you will provide your leads with valuable and relevant information.

The Key Takeaway

You know they’re interested in you; now it’s time to capitalize on it. By sending your contacts workflows based on their buyer persona and life cycle stage, you’ll decrease your sales cycle by 23% according to Market2Lead. That’s right-- 23%! So start segmenting your contacts into lists and target them with those workflows!

Want to learn from BluLeadz? Download their guide on Email Marketing.

'Shark Tank' Update: The Mensch Is Off the Bench

A Hanukkah doll has grown with the help of two very different sharks.

12 Warning Signs Your Website Redesign Could End In Catastrophe

When the time finally comes to tackle a website redesign, it's difficult to contain the excitement. There are so many things you just can't wait to have put into place! Then come the first steps to making it all happen.

Excitement turns to fear and trepidation as you try to craft a plan and put together the resources to turn all of your lofty ideas into reality. Suddenly it begins to seem more and more like a home construction project: lots of advice from many sources; warnings about rip-offs, scams and slick tactics; choices for things that could go into, on and throughout your new website; decisions about who should do what, how long it should take, and how much it should cost. Finally, you're lost in so many details that you're not sure where to start.

Here are the most common red flags that your website redesign is not on the path to providing value and what you can do to avoid them.

1) Lack of strategic direction

Just like a home construction project, getting the blueprint wrong throws the final outcome into question. The worst part is you might not even realize anything is wrong until the construction team is long gone. In order for a website to have business value, it must be designed based on your business goals.

The high level goal is always the general notion of “getting more business”. Unfortunately, if that’s all that comes to the planning table, you could go live with a beautiful website that really does nothing toward meeting your business goals even though the site looks exactly the way you pictured it.

Providing strategic direction for your website should not be an easy step, so the first indication of trouble is trotting out a quick laundry list of all the bells and whistles you've dreamed of having on your website to stand as your plan. Instead, you should start with putting your business goals at the heart of your planning.

Your new website should be firmly rooted in driving business objectives. A good approach for this is to take your list of wants and incorporate them in a way that aligns with your business goals, the needs of the ideal site visitors and the technical realm of SEO. You'll need a workhorse vision where your website is built to play an active role in your sales and marketing efforts rather than operating as an elaborate, fancy brochure.

You should encourage a lot of questioning from those who are helping you. Why do you want the items on your wish list? You should have valid business reasons for them before you make the decision to incorporate them. Set a firm deadline for this exercise to make sure your project stays on track. Don't end up stalled due to avoiding making some tough calls. You'll likely have to cut some things you have on your wish list in order to add others that offer more value.

2) A narrow focus of ranking on page one of search engines

For many businesses, the most basic notion of having a website in the first place can be rooted in the idea of popping up on page one of Google and other search engines. The latest best practices in the SEO arena are very important and will definitely play a role in your website redesign, but it will involve more than a narrow view of whether or not your website appears on page one for a few keyword search terms.

Currently, more than 200 factors determine whether a web page will be served up in search results. No one can promise a rose garden of page one ranking for particular search terms and those that do are more interested in cashing your check and dashing out of the picture before you realize you aren't getting any value.

Instead, focus on using the specific language your marketing personas will use to research a problem that you can solve. Work to build content on your website that clearly conveys what you offer and how you can help them. Your website content should be tailor-made to attract your perfect customer by addressing problems, demonstrating your knowledge of how to solve them and providing useful resources.

3) Lack of understanding of how websites are created

Typically, there is a web designer and a web developer involved in creating a website. A designer makes things look beautiful and a developer makes sure things work like they’re supposed to. Often, when this distinction isn’t understood, it leads to a less than stellar website because a vendor is hired who is good in one area and not the other.

You should consider a team of professionals for the delivery of your project so you have the expertise to provide maximum value from both aspects within your project budget. You should also expect guidance for situations when a compromise is needed to align function, beauty and budget.

4) Unrealistic timelines

Getting it done fast may mean cutting some hefty corners. Someone who is overly eager to please you by promising your website in a very tight window of time is likely going to lead you to a poor outcome.

You’ll either get a website in short order that is a complete waste of money – since there really wasn’t time to build anything other than that – or you’ll be caught in a stall where the super low price vendor said yes to all your unrealistic demands, took your check and then took his time getting around to your job.

The ideal person for handling your project examines your wants and needs for the website before there is any commitment to a specific timeline. You should aim for an up front discussion about how much time it will take – whether you’ll like the answer or not – and the option of rolling your project out in phases. This approach allows you to get what you really need in a realistic time frame, test the value of your ideas along the way, and make adjustments according to outcomes.

5) Poorly considering who will be involved in the web design process

Having only a few people within an organization involved in guiding how the website will be done can be a path to disappointment, but on the other hand too many people can bring a project to a halt when everyone can't come together on the decisions.

Modern websites should speak to the needs of customers and prospects in a way that inspires them to want to do business with you. Like with so many other things in life, moderation is the key. It's important to have those on your staff who are directly in touch with the needs of your business involved in some of the planning discussions or you could miss out on some very obvious content for your website.

Ideally, the person in charge of crafting your new website will use your business goals, input from each department (marketing, sales, customer services) as well as your best customers to uncover functionality and messaging that needs to be on your website.

6) Not having a contract or clear Scope of Work (SOW)

Avoiding having a formal contract in place may seem like a win with the notion of allowing for unbridled creativity and endless revisions. However, simply "letting things evolve" as you work through the process without defining expectations, pricing and timelines in writing is a big mistake with website projects. Since each side can have completely different visions for the outcome, a lot of disappointment can be avoided by putting some things down on paper before any work takes place.

Reputable firms will bring paperwork to the table that provides a reasonable amount of definition but still allows the flexibility required for such a creative process. This becomes especially important when work is going to be divided between your in-house staff and an outside vendor. You'll need clear definition for who is doing what to avoid confusion and unnecessary delays.

7) Failing to examine data from your current website before designing the new one

Many people aren’t well informed of the mechanisms to gather analytics for their websites much less actively pay attention to them. Scrapping your old site without taking a close look at its shortcomings reflected in this type of data could lead to a repeat of the same failures.

Find someone who can guide you in how to get this information and what to look for in the data. You'll want to know some average figures that show how many visitors come to your website each month and some general information about how long they stay, new versus repeat visitors, etc. Examining past performance is key to having your redesign attempt to fix problems and lead to future success.

8) Going for WOW

We all want people to come to our website and be captured by the sheer awesomeness of it. But "going for wow" can leave you going broke when skipping over the consideration for the user expectations and experience.

It might look really flashy to have things whizzing around the homepage and popping up to surprise people but such tactics can have the opposite impact on the site visitor when it slows them down from accessing the content they expect to see. The priority should be providing the most efficient path for your target audience to gain access to what they need when they land on your site.

9) Not using a CMS

Sometimes simply leaving it up to the vendor for how a website will be built can lead to a site that cannot be edited or updated by anyone on your staff. A CMS (content management system) is a platform that can be used to build your website and often allow those with no knowledge of programming to make some simple updates to website pages.

When a vendor has complete control over updates even small changes can take forever – if they’re done at all - and lead to a lot of extra fees to make them. Choose a system that offers flexibility for you and your staff to make some simple adjustments to page copy or switch out pictures, calls to action etc. without having to wait in line, pay another fee or both.

10) Website limited to being updated every few years

The common method most businesses take with the company website is to invest a lot of time, attention and money once every few years to give it a nice, big facelift. The next few years are spent sweating out the time it takes to make it to the next update.

Modern methods for website projects include a detailed plan for growth that incorporates the fluid, rapidly changing landscape and a website that is a living part of your marketing efforts. No more once and done website projects that take forever to launch and end up partially out of date almost as soon as they're published. Instead, aim for a website that operates as a marketing vehicle that receives constant attention, aligns with your budget and changes with you as you grow.

11) A free website from a friend or family member

The free website doesn’t make much of a brother-in-law deal when it ends up doing harm to your business. Avoiding the price tag of calling in a professional seems to save you money today, but costs you a fortune in the long run in missed opportunities. By failing to invest in a website that drives leads you can nurture to become customers, the money you saved today won’t compare to the cost of lost time.

12) No comprehensive, scalable strategy for lead generation

Historically, the approach to website creation has been a loose configuration of ideas brought to the table by everyone involved in the project. The goal is simply a final consensus as to whether all involved liked the finished product. The range of complexity can be as simple as an online brochure to a giant website full of pages but neither delivers any measurable ROI.

These days the trend is to build a website that is an inbound marketing hub for your business. Every page built for a purpose with a clear call to action guiding site visitors through the buyer’s journey. The pages working in a synchronized effort to generate marketing and sales qualified leads. A definable, scalable process that can be measured and adjusted to influence the return on investment.

According to the 2015 State of Inbound Report, “inbound campaigns achieve higher ROI than outbound” regardless of company size and budget. To find success these days, a website must operate as command central for a total inbound marketing effort instead of being limited to a little more than an Internet billboard that only gets attention once every few years.

To make sure that yours does this, carefully review the 12 points outlined here. Use them to give you a new perspective. Identify your business goals, gather up the right people, resources, and processes needed to build your website to function as a more integral part of your business. Just like electricity to power lights and office equipment, think of your website as the source to generate leads and sales on a daily basis.

With this approach, instead of feeling anxiety, dread and disappointment you'll be happy with a website that is an asset delivering measurable, and much more visible return on investment.