Dear Visitor,

Thank you for visiting our website!

We hope that it gives you a true sense of who we are and how work to deliver a high quality of service and product to our clients.

To share a few thoughts, we have been running across a particular type of scenario on a nearly weekly occurance now that we thought you may be interested to hear some insight on.

CONSIDER THIS: A distributor of personal care products recently called us to discuss their marketing problems with their relatively new website. The owner of the company explained to us that they had used a highly recommended and expensive web design agency from Toronto. They had spent in excess of $30,000 to develop the site.

She went on to explain that it just wasn't generating any traffic, it was very prohibitive requesting any changes and asked if we could meet with them and provide some solutions to their dilemma. An examination of the website quickly revealed that it was built in a way that was not "search engine friendly" and actually discouraged placing in the rankings. Besides being built with "search engine inhibitors" which guaranteed they would not receive visitors and new business inquiries, the website was cold looking, sterile and difficult to navigate. In all not only did it not provide a rewarding, informative experience for visitors, it didn't even provide a true image of the company which, with its in-house boutique, is warm, appealing and inviting to customers.

After a few probing questions, it became very clear that the design agency that designed this client's website did not understand "the client" and the marketing aspects involved to deliver the functionality the website needed to achieve any of the client's business objectives. Perhaps, the design agency knew how to develop a website but they were way off the mark in understanding how to make it work for their client company and its customers.

CONCLUSION: For $30,000, the client received a "me too" website that offered very little return for their investment. It's called a "me too" website because when people are talking about having a company website, you can say "me too".

Further with some of these on-going recent client scenarios, another company called just a few weeks ago with the same problem… website was not "marketable" / meeting objectives / getting them business and/or "providing a website experience to their clients and new vistors". They explained to us all the various issues they had with their website and online marketing but ultimately, they were even afraid to call their website developer/host because each conversation was painful and expensive and in the end they never received what they asked for. This client in the IT sector was very focused on their marketing and excited about their new programs - but were completely struggling to "get their marketing/website partner on-board". These are just a few of the calls we have received detailing the same problem plaguing our industry.

How does this happen? A tough question, but after experiencing this occurance many times and hearing these stories from clients, some of the answers as to why this happens and why it will continue to happen include:

1. First, many companies looking for a website developer / online marketing partner / interactive marketing agency etc… are seemingly quite new to the industry and in being unaware of many of the details, including what is involved, what should be involved, the "Do's and Don'ts of a Good Marketing Presence Online", setting online goals to match the production objectives etc, they therefore cannot and do not ask the right questions.

This is an honest mistake we can all be susceptible to making when we go outside our own area of expertise. If we made widgets, we could tell you everything about them. Ask us about quantum physics for example and we would be lost.

2. Second, on the supplier side, many website development agencies know how to design and build a website. They are technically competent and good at it. They don't however know how to design a website that achieves or enhances a company's marketing strategies and objectives. They're good technical providers, but very poor marketers.

We have seen students within a couple of years of coming out of college starting up their own web or online marketing companies or going to work for communications agency as their in-house web specialist. Or, another example is when a graphic designer has learned programming and promotes his website design services. At school, the student has learned how to program a site, spent a couple of weeks on content development, a little time learning the elements of design and maybe a few hours studying marketing. Our graphic designer friend on the other hand only brings two key elements to his projects. See the pitfalls yet?

HERE'S THE PROBLEM: Putting together a website is a project that requires several disciplines coming together to produce the desired result. The student in our example comes to the project as a "Jack of All Trades….Master of None", while the designer doesn't have all the tools needed to handle all the specifications required by the job.

NOW LET'S DO SOME MATH: Look at it this way: would you settle for a website that delivers only 20% design + 20% content + 20% html programming + 20% Search Engine Optimization + 20% hosting expertise? Sure it adds up to 100%...but shouldn't you demand... and receive -- 100% expertise in each discipline?

On each project, we pull together the in-house team of specialists that are needed to complete each specific phase of the job.

Whether it's a website development project or a multi-media marketing campaign, we gather the professionals that are needed. Our designers …design. Our programmers and online systems developer take care of their specialty. The marketers develop the strategies that set out the objectives. And the writers write the content and copy in a manner that reflects the tone and image of the client company and talks in the language their target audience understands.

Each TL Services team member is a specialist and professional in their own discipline. This ensures that our clients receive 100% of the experience and expertise each of our marketing communications specialists brings to the project. It's really that simple when you have the full complement of talent and resources needed to handle the specific tasks of each part of a project.

It is this professional, team oriented approach that ensures all TL Services projects are on strategy, on target and provide our clients with a return on their marketing investment.

We invite you to call TL Services now, or respond online. We would be pleased to discuss your marketing and online needs… and deliver a solution that's custom-tailored for you business plan and customers.

Signed,

Your TL Media Team