05/18/2001- Business West
Having a Web site is
one thing. Having an effective site is something else altogether. The
Northampton Web design firm Gravity Switch is enjoying steady growth
while helping clients to take control of their sites and maximize their
potential.
Jason Mark says that while many companies want to have a presence on the Internet, not nearly as many know how to do it right.
Mark,
co-founder of Gravity Switch, a Northampton Web site design company,
used some raw numbers to emphasize his point. Say that a company knows
it can make a sale 80% of the time once it has a customer on the phone,
he said. Now say that only 20% percent of visitors to that company's
Internet site, for whatever reason, eventually call the company's phone
number, and the rest leave the site after seeing only the front page.
By
redesigning the site, making it less confusing, easier to follow, more
enticing - the percentage of those who make the phone call could rise
from 20% to 40%. Sales would pick up in a heartbeat - or, more
accurately, a mouse click.
While merely being on the Internet
may have been good enough at one time, it's not anymore, Mark told
BusinessWest. Companies need to have a clear vision of what their site
will do - for example, whether customers will purchase goods and services
online or simply be drawn to a phone number - and implement that strategy
with effective graphics and a user-friendly interface.
That kind of effective Web marketing cannot be found in a software box, Mark said. That's where Gravity Switch comes in.
Five
years ago, Mark was studying and teaching at the University of
Massachusetts, and his girlfriend - now his wife - Christine Henriques was
returning to the Bay State after a stint developing software for
Microsoft in Seattle. Although that was "an incredible experience," she
said, she didn't have a passion for it.
"Our goals at that time
were basically to be able to do the type of work that really made us
tick ... that we enjoyed," she said. 'For me, that was graphic design."
Mark
had been studying and teaching Internet application since 1990, and the
two of them teamed up with another UMass student, Gabe Linden, and
launched Gravity Switch in 1996. At the time, they focused mainly on
CD-ROM development.
The Web was still in its infancy, and CD-ROM
was very much a booming industry," Henriques said. But the World Wide
Web would soon grow exponentially, shifting the entire economy with it.
Doing It Right
When
Gravity Switch started moving toward Web site design, companies had
already started rushing to get online. But many soon found hopping on
board the Net wasn't enough. They learned that their sites also needed
to be effective and user-friendly.
Gravity Switch, which has
worked with small, local companies and corporations like Polaroid,
Compaq, and Honda, charges about $5,000 for the least complex site and
up to $170,000 and more for major accounts.
Mark said several
clients have come to his firm as a result of dissatisfaction with their
previous Web developers. Some weren't even aware that they could check
Web logs to discover who was coming to their site and what they were
doing there. A company's site might have taken 50,000 hits, but without
the logs, it was impossible to tell if 45,000 of them had left without
delving past the front page.
The logs, Henriques said, are
"great fuel to help us make informed decisions about what direction to
take in redesigning the site. "
Carol Devine, vice president of
sales and marketing, said the company is seeing more and more clients
who want to have control over their sites instead of leaving changes in
the hands of Web developers.
"There are tools they can use now to easily update their own content," she said. "In fact, they should have control."
Gravity
Switch helps clients plan Web sites, implement ideas, and run quality
control to debug the sites and determine how they will work with
various browsers. Mark scoffs at the 'Web in a box" software that can
be purchased for a few hundred dollars, saying those programs don't
really work, because they offer only implemented on�not planning or
quality control.
If you have the technical know-how to put ink
on paper, that doesn't make you a printer," he said. As another
comparison he said anyone could scribble a message on a piece of paper,
photocopy it, and package the copies. "If I sold this in a box and
called it a marketing kit, would it be a marketing kit? No, it would be
a box of paper."
Jumping onto the Web without proper planning is a waste of money, Henriques added.
"Some
people think planning is extra work that has a cost to it, and they
don't want to incur that cost. They want to go right to the product,
because they feel that's where the real work is. But if you don't plan
ahead, you won't reach your goals."
She said many businesses
have learned a hard lesson, spending money on something that wasn't
helpful to their needs and having to go back and start over. Gravity
Switch's role, she added, is to minimize the hassle and help clients
get the most from their Web budgets.
The basic usability of a
site is sometimes an afterthought - but a costly one, Mark said. He cited
the example of a page where users were asked, "Do you want to cancel
your order?" The two listed options were "0K" and "Cancel," the latter
of which is common computer parlance to negate a command. But in this
case, it caused major confusion.
As companies began to see the
need for outside consultants to help them through these minefields,
Gravity Switch grew and now employs seven people. Its founders began to
realize they were spending time on sales that took them away from their
creative roles, so they hired Devine, a 20-year sales veteran, only
four months ago. Coming from a traditional marketing background, Devine
was in the mood for something new.
"I wanted to join a business
doing something cutting-edge and really creative," she said. "But we
don't apply new technologies just because they're new. We're not going
to sacrifice quality in any way."
A Changing Industry
Indeed, a key to remember in such a rapidly changing technological world is that not every development has merit.
"The
Web is constantly growing, and it's really important to stay on the
pulse of the industry," Henriques said. "The Web is here to stay, and
it's going to evolve. With something new coming out every day, not
everything is going to be standard. We're careful about what we put our
name on."
Gravity Switch makes recommendations to its clients to
give them a strong foundation in what has been successfully implemented
in E-commerce. Meanwhile, the firm rigorously tests any new technology
before introducing it as an option for clients.
Mark sees Web
designers eventually becoming as mainstream as marketing or graphic
design companies are today, each serving a certain niche as the Web
continues to widen its influence. And expand it will, he said, because
despite the well-documented stories of dot-com collapses, the future of
E-commerce remains bright.
Indeed, while one online pet supply
site is a good idea, many such competing sites, all launching at once,
cannot survive. The market will nurture the successes as it weeds out
less successful attempts, he said.
Another problem is that, in
the past, Internet users tended to believe that everything should be
free. But that is changing, as evidenced by situations like the legal
struggles of Napster and the fact that the Yahoo! auction service now
charges by the listing, not just by the sale.
"People are starting to realize that just because it's on the Web doesn't mean it has to be free," Mark said.
Fun and Profit
Mark
said he and Henriques expect the company to grow with the rest of the
Internet industry, but they want that growth to be controlled. The
partners felt five years ago that Gravity Switch could be a way to make
a living doing something they enjoyed, and they haven't changed their
tune.
"I just love to be part of a collaboration, part of the
creative process," Henriques said. "We have a lot of fun doing what we
do. We laugh a lot, and we make friends with our clients, but there's
also a professional purpose at hand. It was exciting to me to see this
nebulous concept turn into reality."
Part of the small-scale,
relationship-oriented style they project means that Gravity Switch is
honest with customers about what will and what won't work. Mark said
they send away about three potential customers each month who simply
aren't ready to be on the Internet or do not have a clear goal in mind
for entering cyberspace.
"We want to make sure they have realistic expectations," he said. "Otherwise, it's not a good experience."
Gravity
Switch has always drawn much of its business from outside Northampton
because the kinds of businesses in that city - restaurants and stores
with curbside appeal and solid word-of-mouth reputations - don't
necessarily need complicated Web sites.
Many businesses,
however, do need to look closely at the Internet. For example Mark
said, a company with significant catalog sales might spend $300,000
four times a year to mail the catalogs. If that company puts the
catalog online and sends it out physically only twice, it saves
$600,000. Perhaps the firm then mails postcards eight times a year at a
cost of $100,000, directing its customers to the Web site. That creates
a savings of $500,000, part of which will fund the site and part of
which is profit - and, hopefully, more people than ever before can peruse
the catalog in some form.
"We can customize a solution that's suited to your needs, and that's very powerful," Mark said.
More
companies will look at the Internet as the cost of building and
maintaining a Web site continues to fall, Mark said, adding that a site
which costs $40,000 now might have cost $200,000 several years ago.
But
even though the Web-design field is serious business, Mark and
Henriques are trying to keep it light. The Gravity Switch name came
from a Shel Silverstein poem and doesn't necessarily mean anything
specific.
"To us it means creativity, it means vitality, it
means technical expertise," Henriques said. "It's a great name to catch
people's attention."
Once that attention has been grabbed, it's
time to sell clients on the value of a Web site launch or redesign.
Henriques said while some companies are enthusiastic about the Internet
and others are tentative all should understand that the decisions they
make will resonate in a big way - both financially and from an image
perspective.
Without a plan or direction, Mark said, the Internet is nothing but a giant blender.
"You throw money into it, and sometimes you get whole bills back out of it," he said. "And sometimes you just get shreds."
Gravity
Switch is an experienced web/multimedia design firm with a
knowledgeable and friendly staff. For information about working with
Gravity Switch please call [413] 586-9596.