I’m a creative getting into web design a bit late in the game (ya think?) and have to quickly develop a site for my favorite client. I’m learning Joomla and Wordpress while doing a hundred other things, but my question here isn’t about web design or development. I’ll save that one for later. I am now in hot water by agreeing to take on some marketing for them, and it’s turning into a huge deal that some people would charge tens of thousands of dollars for. I am feeling ill-equipped and incompetent, and I simply must come through for them. After a couple weeks of intense research and bookmarking, my time is running out and I need help about what kind of ‘package’ or set of integrated solutions I should use. Here’s the story:
They provide unique software for a niche medical market. Their potential customers range from nu-skool to ‘what’s the twitters for?’. They use the free version of Zoho for a CRM, they don’t have any social site presence (yet), and their sole marketing so far is reliant on emailing everyone in their non-permissions-based niche (compliant with CAN-SPAM, opt-in/out). My question to everyone is - should I get them to sign up for Google Business Apps with an added Social CRM like Batchbook or BantamLive, and then do the email marketing and tracking/reporting separately with a service that accepts non-permissions-based lists (Topica, Mimi, etc)? Ideally I want everything marketing-related to be in ONE PLACE, easily manageable, while I spend every waking minute developing content and design (you don’t even know…). I heard Amazon’s EC2 servers are totally blocked or marked as spam, so forget that cloud option. Oh yeah, the cloud - is it just for big companies that need to disperse their large processes? Anyway, no time for discussion - just a big magical solution while I do all the grunt work. They need email marketing, CRM, and social site management all in one perfect place, at least technically. Google Apps? Which add-ons? And lastly, how does everything relate back to (or even spring forth from) their website (CMS)? Should I do everything from WP or Joomla? Though they do loves their Zohos. Any ideas welcome. Who knows, I may just need your help in some way, especially if you’re a PHP peep that charges fairly. Or a marketing god(dess). Much love.