Wikipedia defines “brochureware” as
“a business website that has very infrequently updated content. Often the site has been developed as a direct translation of existing printed promotional materials, hence the name.”
Brochureware sites take little advantage of the capabilities of communication online, because they are rooted in the static world of printed paper. They’re were just never expected to be an interactive, more engaging experience for the visitor.
Brochureware sites are commonly used by small businesses that need a web presence to provide contact and location information and some limited information about products and services available.
It’s not just the website anymore…
When I network at face to face small business events to offer my mentoring skills, inevitably, the room is full of small businesses, limping along with brochureware sites, disappointed that their initial investment in the site is doing more harm than good.
Seldom do I meet a small business owner who has realized how to use their website to promote their business in the age of “Web 2.0″ and really engage with customers and clients online.
In the past, it was simple for web design companies to offer, small, simple, static HTML sites, often little more than scanned in versions of the brochure with a tiny bit of interactivity added on, in the form of a menu bar with familiar words, ”home, products, about us, contact us” as site sections.
Now things are changing, and the small business site owner needs to seek help from a range of specialists, not just a basic web design company. Usability testing, user-centered design, user experience and copywriters have become much more important factors in determining a strategy for businesses, skills that few traditional web design companies possess in house. Small business owners feel like they have to assemble their own specialist teams, just to keep in the game.
It’s clear to me, online operations are no longer about “just the website”, it’s all the back-end support for the online processes that ensure your business goals and those of your users are met, that determine online success or failure. Then there’s traffic generation, adding fresh content, adding interactive features that help users find a visit to your site more rewarding and so on. Solving all these issues can make managing your internet strategy feel like a daunting, additional, full-time job, with a steep learning curve too. 
The real-time interaction with online customers also means there need to be some automation procedures in place to reduce the administrative overhead that web 2.0 sites incur. Customers expect a timely response and few small businesses operate 24 hours a day.
Tips to solve the problem of “brochureware”
Automating replies, newsletter mailings, twitter posts (tweets) to support 24/7 becomes a necessity, not an option. Fortunately, there are tools to make this easier, like http://www.aweber.com to manage mailing lists, and http://www.tweetdeck.com and http://www.tweetspinner.com make looking after your twitter stream much easier. (More twitter and tweeting tips)
Take advantage of open source websites
Open source software available at http://www.joomla.org, and http://www.wordpress.org, solves a lot of problems as you can get a fully functioning website free. Not only that, but there are lots of free applications (extensions and plugins) you can add with a small amount of skill.
You can use also pick from free themes, and install them in a few clicks, which means if no-one in your business is a graphic designer, you can still have a professional looking site. All you may need to do is to pay for some minor tweaking.(Check out some free Joomla and Wordpress themes to see what I mean).
Companies like http://www.justhost.com use hosting with cPanel enabled, which means all you need to do to add Joomla or Wordpress to your site is to click on an icon. (This cPanel tutorial shows you what’s involved).
Like anything new in business, you have to spend some time planning your strategy. If you dread relying on computers, then of course, there will be anxious times ahead. However, the online world is changing, and small businessess need to adapt to survive online, because if your business sticks with the brochureware approach, your more web-savvy competitors are going to steal your business.
It’s time to “seize the day”.
If you are a small business webmaster and would like to ask a question about any issues you’re facing with your website’s long term future, just fill in the comment box below.
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I know this post is a few months old but I found it in my searching. I could use a little help!
I am the sole programmer currently working for a small business. We make a form of medical software. I have been thrown in to kinda bring our code and website into the modern generation. Our source code for our products is over 10 years old and is in desperate need of updating. Our website is nearly as bad.
My boss has placed the project of updating our website in my hands. Currently its a extremely basic Brochure type website. He has told me a few times that this is all he wants. His excuse is that our products tend to sell to a very small group of people for more money. He thinks everything needs to be face to face in this industry. I am not really ready to fight him on this, but I do believe that we need a kick into the new generation.
One of the old programmers here created a very rudimentary content management program for our website and I was able to convince my boss that this is such a stupid way to handle our website. I am now on the search for a better alternative. Both Drupal and Joomla seems to be viable options, if not overkill.
I am a pretty fresh programmer (mainly compiled languages) just a year out of School. Would it be possible to get a few pointers forward? I know we need a basic “Brochureware” type site, but what else should I look into? Our clients are all medical institutions (which are even farther behind the times). I like the idea of doing newsletters to keep our clients informed, but with only 5 people in the office it becomes hard to write this content. My boss is planning an old school snail mail mailing to everyone we know and he wants a website that they can go to. In your opinion what should this site consist of? And what technology would you suggest I use?
Sorry for the life story. I am really new, and have been giving too much responsibilities! HELP!
Hi Ian – sorry to hear you’ve been thrown in at the deep end!
I’m on a webinar right now so I can only send a quick reply, but I can write a full reply tomorrow, if that’s ok.
I’ve got quite a few ideas that can help you – take a breath and keep calm
Speak tomorrow.
Cheers, Colette
Hi Ian,
OK. Some thoughts.
1) Selling to a few people for more money is fine providing there isn’t another entrant to the market who’s going to undercut you.
If there is another entrant to the market, your website needs to justify why your product’s additional benefits justify the higher price, along with some testimonials from customers about how great your product is.
If you don’t do that, sales can quickly dry up!
2) “Design for 1″ is always bad – especially when it’s the boss doing the deciding. In my experience, they are not good at putting their “customer hats” on and working out what the visitor wants to read.
Check out some other medical equipment websites and see what they have published, perhaps some other sellers of specialist equipment as well, just to see how they go about it. Make a lst of what works for your circumstances – and what doesn’t
It might be worth having a look at the website stats – if there are any – and checking for a high bounce rate or only viewing one page per visit – these are indicators that the content isn’t rewarding for the visitors to engage with.
Demonstrating that no-one is using the current content is a good bargaining point for suggesting it’s time for a change
3) Go to the google keywords tool, https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type in some keywords that describe your product and see how many searches there are. The health niche is a massive, massive, massive online niche and medical equipment is a subset of that, so I would imagine there is enough global interest to make it worth revamping the site and making it more customer focused.
Face to Face networking suggests to me the business is limiting itself to a regional market, where as it could be national or global with a bit of extra work on the website.
Check out the traffic. Let’s assume everyone searching for your search term comes to your site, and 1 in 100 of those people makes a purchase. That information could start to put a figure on the financial gain your company would get by engaging with more online customers.
You can use video as an excellent way of demonstrating products, and doing well with search engines. This way there’s still the personal touch, but it translates well online.
4) Platform: I use joomla for a couple of my other (hobby) websites and it does the job. The additional plugins make it very easy to extend the website without having to waste time coding – you can change it very rapidly to suit circumstances. I have not used Drupal. but I have heard it said that it lends itself well to inhouse extensions.
Another advantage of joomla is the number of skins/themes available – with health being a popular niche, there are bags of free, professional looking joomla templates out there, like these: http://www.themelayouts.com/ – which can get you up and running in minutes.
5) Content: You can get writers at places like http://www.textbroker.com to write content for you for a few dollars for a basic piece – and tens of dollars for a very skilled writer to help you. You just come up with the brief – you could write about industry news, or a success story for your product etc. I use textbroker.com quite a lot, as well as elance.com for help with web research and writing.
You might want to pick up a great book, Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, it’s on Amazon – I think you would really enjoy reading it if you’re thinking about usability.
I hope this information helps Ian – my basic rule is “if your going to spend time and money on building a website, you might as well build something people want to use and buy stuff from” – otherwise what’s the point?
Let me know if you’ve got any more questions, and good luck with your project!
Cheers,
Colette
Thanks a ton for the feedback! Just a few more things, if that is ok.
My boss has told me, on many occasions, that we are an extremely niche market. We only have one competitor and they are not much competition. But the idea of Testimonials sounds great. I will make sure that ends up in the final website.
Its hard to check traffic against the current site. It is at least 5 years out of date. (The top news story is about a new version that has not been the new version in over 4 years). But I am going to see about adding in a Google Analytics into the new site to help. I may have to end up being the usability guy at the company, but there are worst things that I could be doing.
We have a pretty broad market actually. All over the US. We just finished a deal with a province in Canada as well as some in Ireland. Most of this has been over the phone or flying to meet in person. A modern website might alleviate a lot of that stress.
We have a few dvds that we mail out to clients. I told my boss I would like to rip them and embed them, via flash, into the new site. Is Youtube still the best way to go with this? Or are there better alternatives for Professional video embedding? (cheep/free)
I think Joomla sounds like the best option. Drupal’s main issue is its steap learning curve, or so I have read. So Joomla might be a perfect step down, with plenty of usability still there.
I have the same mindset. If you are going to do it, might as well do it right! The Boss just wants something.. and now. Though, I imagine, that is a common thing
Thanks again
-Ian
Sony Vegas is a cheapo editing tool – I use it for my 2 minute reviews and it works well. I did try some free editors and converters but had a bit of grief with malware, so I decided to pay the $120 for Vegas in the end.
If you put the vids on youtube, it helps with SEO
so do that anyway, and embed the flash ones to your site.
Bosses always want something now – I try and say, look it’s been badly broken for ages, so another week to do some planning and get it right this time isn’t going to hurt in the big scheme of things
I would ditch that dated news as a priority – it’s a massive crediblity killer.
Quickest way to learn joomla is to try out the test data installation. The books I have checked in the bookshops are for older versions of joomla, and the menus/steps are a bit different, so if you’re a techie, you can quickly learn from the sample data.
Cheers,
Colette