I went to my local car dealer the other day. “Make me the fastest chick in town!” I cried, pointing to the ridiculously shiny beast of a car, growling at me from the corner of the yard. “Certainly,” said the dealer, “that will be £25,000.”

“Well,” I said, “I have £10,000.” The dealer’s face began to darken. “No, wait!” I said cheerily, “you haven’t heard all of it yet! I want to add a few things. Now – let’s see. I want some nice new alloys on it. And a new paint job – metallic pink obviously. And a satnav system. Thing is I don’t want to pay any more for any of that, but I would like it all done this afternoon. Oh and I’m sure I’ll add a few more bits and pieces later on. I take it that’s all OK?”

I left the dealership rapidly and not by my own propulsion.

It’s a fanciful tale but a familiar one. Every day we cope with projects that grow and grow, budgets that stay rock tight, and timescales that are to say the least demanding. Every business wants to be the fastest chick in town, and some have the insight to see what exceptional marketing can do for them. But when it comes to the reckoning, do businesses really value marketing? Or, and it’s hard to believe we are still having this debate, is it still seen as an overhead, a place to cut costs, a place to scrimp rather than invest?

Perhaps we marketers ourselves are to blame. It’s a troubled profession, famed for its bullshit and rightly so in many cases. Marketing has been raised to a religion, the true path to bottom line bliss, and like many religions can be taken over by the wily, the loquacious and worst of all, the incompetent. With most companies having been the victim of some bad marketing at some time or other, it puts us in a difficult position. The real bottom line is, it’s difficult for a marketer to gain trust. Difficult to convince people that a decent, strategic marketing approach takes a bit of time – time you’d pay your mechanic for, time you’d pay your lawyer for, but time you’re somehow loathed to pay your marketing agency for.

And so – a constant need to justify ourselves. No harm in accountability mind. I’m a great fan of Peter Doyle and his value-based marketing philosophy. Marketers, he argues, are increasingly marginalised in business because of their abject failure to measure, or even produce, financial results. But inspired marketing really can bring results – just ask clients like Menu Shop, Audience Systems and 3Sphere.

Smaller companies are often scared of spending their marketing budgets. After all,  the smaller the marketing budget, the more every penny spent has to count. But those pennies do have to be spent. A website for instance may look like a bunch of words and pictures on a page but leading up to that point are hours and days of planning, design, copywriting, image manipulation, coding, checking, changing, changing, and inevitably, changing again. And every change sparks off more planning, more redesign, a tweak to the copywriting, a change to the image, more coding and – well you see where I’m going.

With web projects in particular, there’s usually a point sometime in the development of a project when the client sees its true potential. Of course, they saw potential from the start, or they never would have commissioned it. But suddenly the imagination goes wild. “We could do this! And this! And maybe even…. could you….. is there any chance of…. [hushed tones] that?” This we blame ourselves for, and we’re proud to have ignited the spark that fired the imagination. But this takes an hour. And that – a day. And sometimes, just sometimes, we just can’t squeeze it all into your budget.

Look, I know we marketers are a strange species. We say “brand” a lot, we like lining things up and we get weird thrills from your web stats. But please just try to understand us. Just as you understood the car dealer who gave me the boot earlier in our tale. We can double the number of products on your website half way through its development. We can help you exploit a crazy new opportunity by totally rewording your brochure a day before it’s due to print. And we KNOW it will give you the results you crave (else we’d tell you not to do it). But please don’t make us apologise for billing you just a little bit more for it. After all there can only be one fastest chick on this block – and we love it to be you.

If I had a pound for every individual I have met since I started Impress who wanted to pack in their day job and form their own business... Most of them never do of course. The stark reality of pursuing a dream, a passion or even a calling often dissolves in the face of the practical realities of a guaranteed income, the mythical comfort of a job for life or the sheer fear of taking the ultimate risk.

This is by no means a criticism of those who ultimately decide to stay within the comfort zone. From experience, I can tell you that working for yourself is far harder than taking the fixed monthly dollar from an employer. The hours are longer, the responsibilities greater and the fear of failure all the more acute. And if you do initially succeed, the nightmare of actually employing people can make even the most inspired, passionate and visionary entrepreneur question their sanity.  

The Impress client list is dominated by such free thinking entrepreneurs and their biggest gripe is always the frustrations caused by staffing issues. The topic dominates the Impress meeting room as some of the most inspiring business people I have ever met curse their employees, recruitment agencies and the restrictions of employment law. So anyone that truly takes the plunge and jacks in the day job in favour of following their heart has my absolute admiration.

One such individual is Sue Kingston who has just realised the first phase of her dream. Sue is a mum, wife and an employee of Nationwide in Swindon. She is a keen tri-athlete and this is where her vision initially took shape. Like many women, Sue wanted to buy stylish fitness clothing to enable her to work out and compete without feeling like her appearance or femininity was being compromised. Frustrated at the lack of retail outlets stocking a range of suitable apparel, she decided to form her own online store targeting women like her.

Being the woman she is, Sue wanted to do things properly and she was recommended to Impress via Andy Poulton at Business Link. Determined not to cut corners, Sue accepted the brand approach we presented and allowed the agency to develop an appropriate corporate identity that soon wove its way into logo, stationary, initial website design, posters, emailers and even stickers. The uniformity of the designs presented a strong, confident and professional image long before the company even started trading this week.

www.fit2bseen. co.uk was launched on May 9th and the reaction from friends and initial customers has already been positive in the extreme. The site itself is a dream: contemporary, stylish, user-friendly and equipped with full ecommerce facility and a content management system that enables Sue to upload new products, pictures and other content. She is in total control.

The site was launched via a promotional emailer and web traffic is already high. In less than 24 hours she has received her first wave of online purchases and we are about to promote the site via Google Adwords. Impress is a recognised Google agency and we are formulating an adword strategy directly with the search engine gods to maximise commercial returns on the campaign. PR and traditional advertising will follow shortly and word of mouth will undoubtedly do the rest.

Sue has now handed in her notice at Nationwide and is committed to Fit2bseen on a full time basis. All at Impress take off our metaphorical hats to her spirit, ambition and attention to detail. She now has an online business that has evolved in just three months since we sat down together for the first time with a blank sheet of paper.

It can be done and Sue's excitement, determination and desire to embrace proven, top-level marketing principles almost guarantees the success of her business. Impress is delighted to have helped make her dream a reality and remains committed to helping it succeed.

Congratulations Sue, enjoy the ride and I look forward to future meetings when we can both enjoy a moan about the joys of running our respective businesses. You are joining an elite club of 'Impress entrepreneurs'!!!!!

So the new year dawns and Impress kicks off it's third year proper in a blaze of activity, pitch wins (ironically) and a mountain of work to crash through in the coming months. Perhaps it is just my imagination, but the word seems to be spreading organically. The referral network that envelopes the agency is becoming a vibrant, commercially dynamic and positive environment for not just us, but our clients too. Wonderfully, many Impress clients are starting to do business with each other and we seem to be acting as something of a central hub for a group of like-minded and inspirational entrepreneurs. The atmosphere is electric when two or more of them are in the same room.

Similar themes predominate with the web the catalyst for so much agency activity. Despite the cynics, Alan Yentob's BBC Imagine documentary on the Internet captured the spirit of the age and broadcast concepts and (cyber) media trends to the biggest possible UK audience. Like tor loathe it, and most of the geeks scribbling on forum's and blogs seem to loathe it, but the fact is most of the British population is still oblivious to the potential of the web and have virtually no concept of Web 2.0, Blogging, Flickr, My Space, You Tube, let alone You Porn!!!!!

The very fact that Yentob secured a large wedge of Auntie's dosh to make the programme in the first place and get it broadcast at what was effectively a peak viewing slot, highlights the growing power and influence of the net over the common man (or woman - "thanks Reg" - Life of Brian!!!!). Yentob is a pillar of the broadcasting establishment and he is one of that rare breed of TV-types who's opinion actually carry some weight. No coincidence that many Impress clients' are now requesting Blogs to be added to their sites, asking about their web stats and even submitting comments to Forum's. This was not happening even a year ago.

Many of the sites we manage are experiencing a phenomenal increase in traffic levels, enquiries and sales. The fear of cyberspace is dissolving and the dot com pioneers were right all along; it just took the western world a while to catch up with the vision. Bless you Martha Lane-Fox; you can look back at that interview with another BBC heavyweight, Jeremy Paxman, and have the last laugh. Nothing blinder than the man that does not want to see.....

The web is liberating all areas areas of business and the world of the soul trader or SME is catching on fast. Many a corporate is way behind the eight ball and even numerous oh so cool media companies are stripped bare by their lack of Internet understanding. Of the UK's foremost Bloggers' (and yes, it is now a job title) was writing recently about her work with a trendy London PR agency and her comments would have "shamed a politician" (to quote Echo & the Bunnymen).

So, the land of opportunity beckons and 2007 really will be the year when the Internet's potential comes of age. It really has very little to do with the geeks, but more to do with consumer demand, public awareness and a burning desire for the population to "educate, entertain and inform", which just happens to be the phrase by which Lord Reith, the first Director General of the BBC, is most commonly remembered. So you see, the technology may change, but it is human nature that is the heart and soul of any media revolution.

As with TV, the Internet is just about to go colour!

Blogging is the new journalism and offers a liberated and self-publishing medium for individuals and companies alike. However, the B2B world has been slow to catch on especially in the dog-eat-dog world of the SME. Blogs also have phenomenal influence on the search engines and can provide a quick method for bolstering site position, traffic levels and site awareness.

Many Impress clients seem reluctant to embrace blogging. Perhaps it is just due to ignorance of a medium that can have profound benefits for their company sites. Clients are rightly obsessed by search engine optimisation and seem to be willing to spend a small fortune on adding keywords, links and new content in a forlorn hope of getting a first page listing on Google. The SEO freaks will no doubt be throwing their arms in the air with rage when I state that, in my experience, adding a Blog to a company site has far more instant benefits than any of the established SEO techniques.

Justification for this statement is only borne out of experience. Impress manage countless websites and all our clients want a primary position on key terms. By their very nature, the most popular terms are inevitably the most generic and this is where a reality check is needed. With the volume of sites competing for front page position, not every company can achieve this goal no matter how much effort or money is spent on keywords or links. I Wish this were not true as I could make many of my clients very happy if adding a few keywords and links could put them near the top of the natural listings.

Switch back to the power of the blog. My last entry featured Kevin Roberts 'Lovemarks' phenomena and I was contacted by Kevin's PR within 24 hours of posting the blog. Remember that Kevin is the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi and probably one of the most controversial marketing figures on the planet. No marketing  medium in the world enables me to establish direct contact with such an individual in such a short timescale; I would never get through to him by phone, but the Blog prompted an instant response. The complimentary copy of his latest book duly arrived from the US a few weeks later and an email interview has been agreed once I have finished reading the book.

Cut to an Impress pitch for a new website on behalf of Bodyline Books, the world's leading supplier of Wisden's. Those who know me will be aware that I love cricket with a passion so I really do want to win this pitch more than most. On a visit to Bodyline's premises in Farnham, I was like a child in a sweet shop confronted by literally hundreds of Wisden's including a copy of the very first edition. The guys that run Bodyline Books are looking to rebuild their site and secure a front page listing on Google for the niche areas they specialise in. Without doubt, these guys are the worldwide authorities on Wisden's, cricket books and other areas of sports memorabilia. They have expert knowledge and information unique to their company and clientele. I have strongly advocated the introduction of a Blog to their new website and hope to the cricketing gods in the sky that I win this pitch.

The case is the same for many Impress clients who possess unique and inspirational information that will find resonance with key target markets. At no point am I suggesting that established SEO techniques should not be embraced, but if you really want to communicate online, join the Blogging revolution that represents yet another level in the evolution of the Internet.

Mark Cadbury, my co-Director at Impress, mentioned in his last Blog entry a site that we have built and managed for a local double glazing company. Many of you will need no convincing that the Internet provides an essential marketing or information sharing tool, but perhaps a belief in the absolute power of the Net needs a little reinforcing for some. Double glazing is not the most glamorous of sectors and yet, www.thermaglaze.com, proves beyond all doubt just how influential a website can be.

The site is interactive in every sense and enables users to find an online quote for double glazing products without even having to submit an email address or phone number. The site mirrors the transparent pricing structure of Thermaglaze which flys in the face of the stereotypical image of the double glazing business. No hard sell here and barely even a soft sell. The site simply tells you how much the company's products cost, allowing the user to make their own consumer choices without fear of a cold call or intrusive visit from a salesman.

Of course, thermaglaze.com took a long time to develop and the hand-coded technology that enables a user to get an instant price for any number of doors (with or without a door knocker or brass numerals!!!) is sophisticated. However, the Thermaglaze website now attracts 50+ unique visitors per day and a significant stream of online leads. The company's superb conversion rate ensure that the site is an essential profit centre for the business and now forms a integral element of the group's marketing strategy.

I recently pitched to another double glazing company who were interested in the same system. They had never seen anything like it online and are in the process of deliberating whether to change their business model to accommodate this wonderful online tool. I hope they do as Impress want to further refine the technology prior to marketing the system more widely.

Feedback from Thermaglaze customers has been very positive and the site continues to generate significant revenues. If you are a double glazing company and wish to discuss how this website can transform your lead generation strategy, then get in touch.

In my experience at Impress and before that in the corporate world, what people want from their website, is for it to be a lead generator.

Now, what that means, is someone showing an interest in the product or service that you offer and a willingness to give their details for information in return, or to be contacted for further information. What is doesn’t mean is providing sales. That is another process which demands commitment and securing the sale.

However E-commerce sites can generate the lead, then the sale, there and then, leading to a low cost of sales and a good profit margin.

The psychology of today’s internet browsing consumer or business customer is such that, generally speaking, they do not want to commit to a sale there and then and the use of Froogle to find the best deal is testament to the fact that people want to find out the price first and then commit to giving their hard-earned cash for a service or product later.

Impress have spent a great deal of time and energy putting into place a website for a double-glazing company that allows consumers to go into the website, put in the details of their requirements and get an online quote there and then with no commitment. The prices are guaranteed, they include VAT and installation. When customers find out that the cost is transparent and that they don’t have to be called by a salesperson, they are delighted.

When they submit the details and then talk to a salesperson, they are committed, they have printed off the quote and the conversion rate is approaching 100%.

Now, have a think about your website offering. People may or may not be able to find out what you do – make is simple, then put yourself in their shoes and allow them the opportunity to get a good idea of the costs without commitment and then you will see the benefits of being open and transparent.