No $$$ for the web? How about dumping print?
Late on a fabulous Friday afternoon here in Michigan. I've just read an article by Sean Carton prepared especially for non-profit organizations that know what they should be doing on their website but often don't have the money to do it. Or think they don't have the money.
Years ago in Baltimore at an AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, Sean gave a refreshingly different keynote talk using nothing but a few notes on cards, a lot of insight, and quite a bit of charm. Since then he's done a stint as a communications dean at Philadelphia University and now he's back in the consulting world. And he's still refreshing.
In an April ClickZ article, Sean repeats "Seven Ways to Get the Most Out of the Web on a Budget" from a presentation communicators at non-profit organizations with limited budgets.
Two of the points are especially noteworthy:
- "Your Website is your most important communications vehicle, Period."
- "If you have a dollar to spend on communications, spend it online."
- "Stop printing. Just stop."
To move in this direction of course takes Courage and Fortitude. And also a basic awareness of what's happening in the communications world today. Let's not argue about whether or not print is dead. It isn't. But let's also not argue about the consequences of clinging too closely to old print communication patterns and then not having resources to create website capabilities expected by people today. If you don't have the resources for both, then you have to cut back on print budgets to help build the web communications budget you need. And just maybe, that reduction will be drastic.
Sean's other 4 points are worth reading about as well, along with his further comments on each of the points above. Find them at http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625576