Welcome to the Escape Blog

It used to be that a client would come in with a brief for a brochure and a flat budget, “I have £5,000 and I need 3000 brochures.”. Easy.

An effective website is different and boy do a lot of people waste a lot of money on the wrong things. Many times  in a pitch for a website I have advised someone not to spend their entire budget building a website, slashing their estimates and crushing their dreams. In fact, a prospect in a pitch meeting last week had to ask me how we make our money, because I wouldn’t sell a quick fix solution.

So how do you budget for your website?

A budget for a website isn’t a fixed thing. It doesn’t start and then stop - like a printed brochure.

It starts - goes live - and then really starts. Like driving a car, it’s only when you have passed your test that you really begin to learn to ‘drive’.

The answer: Take your maximum web budget and slice a third off. Spend that on building your website. Then, spend the other third on marketing and content generation and commit to a monthly spend.

You may even just need a Blog. You may be better off generating some case studies or buying a camcorder and producing a Youtube Video.

Do not be fooled into thinking you need something big and clever with the latest web 2.0 features. You don’t. You are simply looking to engage. Some of the fancy tools can help, but many are used out of context. Don’t fall into the trap. Make your marketing budget work harder.