greg smart

We have recently been going through the development process on one of our larger projects this year and seem to have hit the content delivery wall. As I have finished off the css, graphics, PHP framework, 3-tiered navigation (etc…) I began to look toward content delivery from my client. We have been talking about this for months, have repeatedly gone over how and where to start with the content development and have been following up consistently via telephone, email and in-person meetings. Still, no content.

First of all, this is not an issue limited to any single client. Content creation and delivery is always a difficult task. Here at Pleth, LLC we do not develop content in-house. We either leave this to the client or will bring in content writers from outside firms. The problems reside with the former. Clients often say they want to develop their own content, but rarely deliver on this in a complete and timely manner.

As I searched for resources on this topic I did come across an interesting article that spoke to effectively tackling these issues: The Cure for Content-Delay Syndrome, by Pepi Ronalds.

Most writers enjoy researching their topics and crafting their prose, and for this reason, many writers are less than enthusiastic about shaping someone else’s words… Editors are taught to weave disparate voices into something more professional, and they can quickly identify and prevent common errors—particularly on multi-writer projects. They are taught the fine art of helping writers improve their work and have a strong eye for detail. Where writers often like to start with nothing, editors expect to start with a pre-existing body of work, and generally enjoy shaping it into something stronger.

As I reviewed the article above I realized that what is required is a role player with strong editorial skills. Someone that can take content, provided in-part and haphazardly, and shape it into a finished product. Although the addition of this roleplayer does increase the bottom line for clients the necessity becomes apparent with an empty site and launch deadlines looming.

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I was recently reading a Josh Jones blog post about web hosting and the challenges of providing free email services. This is an issue we know all too well here at Pleth, LLC. He states:

Just over HALF of all the support requests we get are about email. Everything else we offer, combined, doesn’t add up to the amount of trouble, expense, use, and effort that goes into “simple” old email.

And that’s kind of funny, because as far as I can tell, almost nobody CHOOSES a web host based on their email features.

They’ve been conditioned by Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, and Gmail to give email no value. I mean, everybody gives it away for free… nobody gives (real) web hosting away for free.

And yet, in the end, the only thing (sadly?) that actually ends up getting used, is that “no-value” email! If a web server with maybe 750 customer sites on it were to go down for even as long as five hours, we’d probably get two angry messages about it. But if email goes down for the same number of customers for just five minutes we’ll have already received 50!

As I write this post I am listening to my partner in the other room supporting an email customer via telephone. There is nothing wrong with her email, just her Outlook client and/or her network. But customers do not appreciate the differences in things like Plethware, Business Class Email Services and third party email clients (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc…). We definitely can’t tell them to call Microsoft.

First of all I want to state that there is no such thing as free email service. Just the costs of servers, security and support are weighty. Hosting companies typically absorb these costs elsewhere, but they are not insignificant. Most large, free email services support their free services through activities like ad sales. At Pleth, LLC we do not believe that this is appropriate for most small to mid-level businesses. So, what’s a web hosting company to do?

Plethware

You find a solution. One that makes good business sense and one that makes sense to any customer willing to listen.

For Pleth, LLC that solution is Plethware. Not 2 years ago we faced the same issue that Josh Jones is describing at Dreamhost. Are we going to tell our customers to go to a free email service? No. That doesn’t make sense, especially for the businesses we deal with on a day to day basis.

The problem with pushing customers to a third-party, free email service is that there is no quality control on our side. There is literally, no control at all. You, quite simply, are at the mercy of the email provider. They are free to advertise as they see fit and have no motivation to provide timely, human assistance to help you work through your email-related issues. And why should your shouts for assistance have any preference to them? After all, it’s a free service.

Serious businesses should not trust a priority function like email to a free service. These people deserve a stable email platform coupled with attentive support on the part of their web host. It has been our experience that companies who have experienced the rocky road of email service appreciate Business Class Email Hosting even though it does have an associated cost. At Pleth, LLC we have found our solution: Plethware.

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One of the more frustrating development topics I regularly encounter is ecommerce, specifically when and for whom it’s an appropriate venture.

Let me start by saying that given the right set of factors an ecommerce solution can undeniably reap benefits for a business. Over the past few years I have seen some online ecommerce businesses thrive and have seen quite a number fail. There are definitely commonalities for each scenario.

The Good

Most successful ecommerce ventures, that we have dealt with at Pleth, LLC, are businesses that either manufacture their own products, have their products manufactured specifically for them, or are able to rely on a keystone markup for the bulk of their product lines. Essentially what these businesses are able to create is a margin great enough to overcome the costs of delivering their products. For an ecommerce business these costs include:

• the actual cost of site hosting and maintenance
• shipping charges (on both sides of the transaction)
• marketing costs (such as traditional media, pay per clicks, paid inclusions, etc…)
• credit card processing fees (including chargebacks and fraud).

Another positive ingredient in this ecommerce stew is a site that exists as a compliment to an existing business. I see this as an especially important point since this allows a client to devote the extra time and resources that are necessary for a site to mature alongside the internal logistical components required to support a healthy ecommerce site. In this type of situation the site is not asked to generate an unrealistic revenue stream immediately in an effort to support the client’s external financial needs.

The Bad

When I begin a conversation with a perspecitve ecommerce client I often find myself monitoring the dialogue for these ecommerce red flags:

• the client is in a reseller situation (typically 20-30% margin before any product is sold, shipped, or marketed)
• the client is paying full shipping on individual products on each end of the transaction
• an integrated credit card processor is not desired (usually to control costs)
• outside marketing efforts are deemed unnecessary or too costly

Although none of these characteristics will leave me fleeing a meeting, none of these exist in a vacuum either. They usually come bundled together and tend to leave us a little hesitant about initiating a project when these flags are thrown.

The Ugly

As I mentioned above, we often find ourselves in situations where our comfort levels begin to go south. Then there are projects that cause us to start looking for the nearest exit. These tend to posess the following:

• expectations for revenue generation are unrealistic, especially in the short-term
• unrealistic about the amount of client-side work and logistics necessary to support an ecommerce project
• urgency at any project phase (this is a big one)
• multiple failed project attempts (often with subsequent data migration from those failed attempts)

Anyone who comes to us expecting to get rich quick with little to no effort is in for the long hard fall back to reality. It simply doesn’t happen.

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