EXTREME MAKEOVER:
Web site edition
We’ve always had this crazy idea - what if we remade someone’s e-commerce Web site from the ground up, the way they remodel those houses on that TV show?
Well, we put out the word and the response was truly overwhelming - we received requests from roughly 50 Maine businesses who were looking for a makeover. We want to thank them all for their interest. We feel lucky to have had so many worthy candidates to choose from!
We’ve made a selection, and we expect to launch the site in late spring. We’ll be receiving input from students of an e-commerce and marketing class at the University of Southern Maine.
In selecting our Makeover candidate, our first stop was the existing Web site. Then we spoke with some of the business owners to get a sense of their online sales goals. Other things we considered in finding the best fit:
Variety of products. Some candidates sell only one product, and while it’s great to do one thing well, we were looking for a Maine business with several different products in a number of different categories.
Well-defined brand. With our Extreme Makeover, we wanted to focus squarely on the Web site redesign; we didn’t want to spend a lot of time remaking a small business’ image. The brand had to be clearly defined - our job will be to execute the brand strategy through the Web site design.
Existing e-commerce system. Some businesses we considered were locked into an existing e-commerce framework that would have been expensive or time-consuming to rework. The ideal candidate would have more flexibility in terms of the e-commerce systems we wanted to deploy.
We want to tip our cap to the Maine Products Marketing Program for helping put out the word to the hundreds of small Maine businesses who are members of their program.
So who’s the lucky winner of Extreme Makeover? Sorry to keep you in suspense, but we’re going to keep that under wraps for now. Stay tuned to this space for more details as the project unfolds.
