This fallacy has cost far too many organizations too much money. It’s based on misdirected thinking that says you should make marketing decisions based on cost, not on value, and focuses on the price tag, not the return on investment. If you buy into the fallacy of doing more with less, you may end up watching your marketing dollars slip down the drain with little to show for them in the end.
How does this philosophy play out practically? One way is with what I call “go-to geeks.” I was a go-to geek at one time, so I have nothing but love for them. But they’re not the right option for building your organization’s website.
A go-to geek could be anyone from a volunteer’s nephew to a paid staff member who happens to know how to code. Many organizations blindly trust someone like this to strategize and build their website because, let’s be honest, it’s cheap.
Go-to geeks may be affordable. But they also tend to be transient and lack the necessary skills to create a truly useful site for your audience. As much as I love them, they’re not your best option.
Another way I’ve seen the “do more with less” fallacy play out is with organizations that choose a free or low-cost platform that they hope will deliver big results. Wix, Weebly, WordPress and Squarespace are a few of those platforms, and granted, they look like great website solutions on the surface. But you ultimately end up with a website that has poor site structure, inadequate design, limited ability to update content and next to no functionality. These platforms are cheap or even free, but it’s difficult to attain a positive ROI with a negative solution.
One of the biggest problems with these platforms is this: If the functionality doesn’t work and it’s free, there’s no one you can hold accountable. You simply end up with a bad website that doesn’t accomplish anything—and there’s no one to either blame or consult with.
The bottom line is this: The “do more with less” fallacy just focuses on cost, which is a poor way to make a purchasing decision. The ultimate objective for your marketing dollars should be to impact your organization as much as possible. Therefore it’s time to start thinking of your website as an investment, not a cost.
The truth is, when it comes to websites, you can very rarely (as in, almost never) do more with less.
