Wednesday 30 September 2009

Click Refresh

Time to step off the roller coaster to tell you what has been happening! I was all set for a London launch of Mothers of Innovation when the PR that I was working with had a series of calamities and head to pull out.

Panic! But as every knock back is an opportunity I have trebled my budget and recruited a new PR who should be in the top league. Let's just see what she can deliver.

The first thing that she said was how annoying my site is. A year ago I would have been upset and staged a military defensive. But, one year older and feeling many years wiser, this was fascinating to hear!

I had assumed that everyone would navigate the site in one way by looking at the six main pictures and using this as a starting point. Instead the standard route into the site seems to be along a top navigation bar.

Okay, so far, so dull as blog entries go. However, what IS pertinent is that sometimes you get so close to things that you loose all perspective. I had a niggle that the search on the site was not really working but it took someone saying it quite forcibly to make me overhaul it.

I have now set up new categories based on what I really stock - as oppose to what I thought I would ahead of launch. I have also had to recognise that, while many of the products are useful, most visitors seem to be looking for gifts. I have set up a whole new column along the navigation bar for gifts for different age groups, so it is easy now to search for gifts sets / gifts for babies / gifts for Mums etc.

My mantra for the day - I must always put myself in my customer's shoes and remember that the site is about them!

So if you have a business - get someone to be really critical as a mystery shopper and remember to listen first, and fight the urge to defend your baby. If you are a customer - I hope that I am getting it right for you; if not let me know and I will try harder. As for Mums - we all know that we need ME time, but so often our needs loose out to family priorities; lets all try to take time out and being a Mum will seem even more fun again! xx