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the power of comparison

Apples and Ferraris are often red–and SWEEEEEET!–but there the comparison ends. Is your digital strategy ready for a Ferrari?

Images Coterie Photography, Theresa Saxon, Photographer :: Reflection on the hood of a Ferrari http://www.imagescoterie.com
Images Coterie Photography, Theresa Saxon, Photographer :: Reflection on the hood of a Ferrari http://www.imagescoterie.com

In a recent visit back to my HQ office in Tennessee (I’m still on contract with OppenheimerFunds in New York City), I met my business partner‘s twin sister. They live on separate coasts and look so much alike they fooled my mother–who has known Theresa for years! Theresa Saxon, my business partner, is a very talented photographer–and so is her twin sister. However, the comparison ends once you start looking at their images. They have quite different specialties and their creative impulses flow in different directions.

It started me to thinking about what SheTech and Company does and how we compare to other providers. We might look like a great many other providers out there, and offer some of the same services–on the surface. Yes, we have a low-cost do it yourself option, and so do many other providers. Where the comparison does and must end is when we start talking about custom work.

With access to top-notch designers and developers all over the country, as well as literally decades of experience in both technology and marketing, we offer a unique blend of expertise resulting in unique web properties designed specifically to meet strategic business needs.

red appleThat means that, no, we can’t do a custom web site for $500–often not even for $5,000 (we’re what I like to call “overkill” for that sort of service). But for small, medium and large businesses that have both a marketing budget and the vision of a digital strategy (or need a digital strategy), we are poised to make a web property go from merely good to truly great.

This is because in addition to web production expertise, we are consultants: we sit and work with our client companies to deliver far above and beyond the “cookie cutter” web site that many other, lower cost, providers offer. We ask questions: who is your target audience? What message are you trying to convey? What tone? Will you be including social media in your digital strategy? How? What’s the overarching purpose of your web properties: sales and marketing, information or support (it can be some combination of all three, but one really must dominate)? We research competitors; we research search engine optimization techniques; and so on…

By the way, when you start thinking about a web strategy, remember to focus on the differences between sales strategy and marketing strategy. It’s not always clear which is which, but your direction will be vastly different when you choose one or the other.

SheTech and a Ferrari
SheTech and a Ferrari -- are you ready?

In the end, comparing other web hosting companies with SheTech and Company is a bit like comparing apples with Ferraris. They’re both usually red, and SWEET, but do very different things.

Vrooooooom!

By Rebekkah Hilgraves

*RadHaus Solutions*: ActiveCampaign Certified Consultant. Marketo Certified Expert. Solutions Architect. Marketing automation implementation, integration, best practices, governance. Marketing automation, with a heavy dose of nerd. http://radhaus.solutions

*RadHaus Studio*: Broadcast and recording engineer, media production manager, cable monkey, marketing dork, project manager, chief cook and bottle-washer. http://radhaus.studio

A seasoned trainer, marketer, web producer and front-end developer, solutions architect, writer, consultant, broadcaster, recording engineer, and public speaker, I've worked in eLearning, Instructional Design, CMS, Marketing Automation and CRM (especially Marketo, ActiveCampaign, and SimplyCast), content delivery and management, taxonomy, SEO, media production and technical support. I bring a unique blend of experience and expertise.

Through RadHaus (formerly SheTech and Company), and in partnership with ELK // Obscura Media, and Prove digital marketing agencies, I have supported enterprise clients in marketing automation implementation and operations, digital marketing and data strategies. I help design and operationalize custom integrated marketing programs for businesses, working with audience/user group segmentation, SEO, web analytics, design and UX best practices, multimedia, social media and other strategic web design and delivery mechanisms. I also do hands-on media production and arts marketing, allowing me to remain involved in the arts.

As part of Marketo's education team, I managed the production and publication of eLearning modules, and was a key member of the LMS implementation and certification development teams.

A consultant on the Web Operations team for OppenheimerFunds in New York, I offered technical, production, and strategy support on a major web site redesign project.

As Managing Editor for an online news magazine published by NetQoS, I supervised and managed the migration of the site from a legacy content management system to a .NET-based commercial system. I maintained the site and the content, updating the magazine with new content from industry analysts and technical experts on a weekly basis.

My earliest foray into both technology and training was as a software trainer for logistics company Cheetah Software Systems, helping create an implementation and training practice standard for the company, and building their user documentation.