Marketing website to market a marketing expert

	Riedel Marketing Group website

This is the story of two people with problems and how they found each other—and solved their problems.

A.J. Riedel is an expert in housewares and home trends marketing. She's worked with major companies, including Norelco, World Kitchen, and Revereware. She provides consulting services and expertise to the International Housewares Association.

As the senior partner and owner of Riedel Marketing Group, A.J. is the first to agree she needs to market herself effectively in order to generate business selling her services and expertise to others.

But in early 2006, she recognized that her website was doing more harm than good. It had an antiquated look. It was crammed with information but not as well organized as she desired. And the design was implemented inconsistently.

Most of all, it simply had too many words. A.J. knew people weren't reading everything on her website; knew that it was intimidating those who looked at the site before coming to her. She realized a thorough re-write, perhaps a deep editing, might be necessary.

Brother/sister act

As A.J.'s brother, I had always wanted to tell her she could do better for herself. But I was afraid our family connection might be viewed as meddling. I admit I came in with some overhanging emotional baggage.

And I needed some cash. I'd been struggling with the new paradigms of job hunting after the Tally/Genicom "shotgun marriage" left me without full-time employment. I didn't exactly come out and ask my family for help but they knew there was trouble in my life.

A.J. finally broke the ice. The conversation was something like this:

A.J. "Would you re-write it?"

Me "I don't want to say anything that might hurt your feelings. I can, but do you want me to?"

A.J. "Yes. It needs to be done, doesn't it?"

Me "Well … yes."

A.J. "Fine. How much do you want me to pay you?"

Me "Let me do the work and you pay what you think it's worth."

A.J. "I don't want you to discount your abilities just because we're family. I have to pay someone to do this—it makes sense for it to be you."

Delayed reaction

A.J. mentioned that she had a fixed deadline; that she was speaking at the IHA's annual convention and wanted the website to be ready by March 1, 2006.

I spent the first month reading everything on A.J.'s website. Whew! She has a ton of terrific material, some was a little dated but could be brought current with a little work. But most of it belonged in a blog, not a commercial website.

I created a flow chart of what I thought the website should look like. I moved things around and re-arranged. A.J. didn't exactly agree with my organization, so she sent back her modifications, and I redid the flow chart.

Before I sent the copy revisions to A.J., back when we were discussing how the website should look when the content was finished, I'd written a set of "instructions" that I apply when I create websites. My hope was that the Riedel Marketing Group site would meet my expectation—so I did what my friend Jerry calls "brain surgery by long distance telephone."

Along the way, I realized some things about not only her website, but websites in general. I took time to jot down my epiphany, which is on my website. Though we're still in the exploratory process of implementation, A.J. liked what my white paper said.

Brilliant weekend

I made some preliminary suggestions, actually more like feeling her out for her comfort level, and she charged back at me that it was time to crank up the heat.

I started my re-write on Thursday. By mid-day Friday, I had the whole cosmic strategy mapped out in my head. I kept writing into Saturday and the final words of that first draft echoed into print late Sunday night. I was exhausted.

The response was really welcome. A.J. posted her changes to the Microsoft Word files (even though she uses WordPerfect). I ran comparisons between my originals and her revisions, then I took the changes I agreed with and modified the ones I where I thought we could do better.

My biggest contribution as a writer was knowing what works on-screen and what needs to be shortened, sweetened, bulleted, subheaded, trimmed, and tweaked. What I turned over to her was punchy, to-the-point, and easy to grasp.

By the following weekend, I had the final draft in her hands and she handed off to her web designer. The results needed to be tweaked and I told the design firm what I thought was wrong. Within a day, the problems were fixed.

A.J.—logging in from on the road—wondered how I'd gotten such good response; apparently she'd mentioned the problems and they'd laughed her off.

A done deal

The results, for the most part, met my approval. I'm not sure I'd have used so much black, and some of the things I saw will only work in Microsoft Internet Explorer, but the site was up on deadline and it works.

People can now see how A.J.—and by extension, Riedel Marketing Group—thinks and operates. They can see that she's an expert in her field and a valuable asset to be on their marketing team. The website is positioned to sell her experience, knowledge, talent—and the white papers and studies she's done that are pertinent to a lot of her industry colleagues.

A.J. sent a check, a substantial one. I put the money in the credit union. When RASP (see literary website) didn't get the cash from our city grant in time to pay for trophies and the books with the young authors' writings, I borrowed from myself to fund the 2006 competition. But that's another story.

Note: The Riedel Marketing Group website is owned by Riedel Marketing Group of Phoenix, AZ. All inquiries about the site and its content should be directed to .