It’s simple, really: the IT department exists to make sure that the technical operations within your company function smoothly, your network and your file servers never go down. They love computers, and they know code. And for that reason alone, many businesses pin the website redesign on the IT department.
While your IT department isn’t lacking in skills, when it comes to website design, they are lacking in expertise. Asking your IT department to take care of the company’s Internet presence can result in a website that doesn’t drive business or appeal to your prospective customers -- better known as a “dud.” Here’s why.
1. The IT Department Isn't Familiar With Your Target Audiences or Marketing Strategy
IT pros are not marketers. The two skills don't go hand-in-hand. Do you ask your IT department to meet with your clients and customers? Do they assist the account manager in building and shaping relationships and managing front-end customer service?
The same reasons you wouldn't have your IT department entertain a client out on the town are the same reasons they shouldn’t handle your web design project: it’s not about technical expertise, it’s about creating and maintaining a relationship with prospective clients by using marketing, analysis, and web design practices that work. And since your website is a client-facing sales and marketing tool, it needs to be created by client-facing marketing experts that know and understand your ideal customer.
Think about it this way: would you have your marketing team try to install new network hardware at your office?
2. Websites Aren’t Just Code
If it were a matter of who can code the best, then it’s possible that your IT department would win. The same code and technical knowledge needed to maintain a server or a network, though, won't get you anywhere when developing a modern website.
But a website redesign isn’t just coding. In fact, coding is just the final touch on a website that’s really built by your brand -- the words you use to sell and educate, and your services and the images that you choose to represent your company.
Assign your website design to IT-focused coders and you’re stripping a website of its fundamental value -- leaving your company with a cold structure that doesn’t deliver to prospective clients.
3. IT Has Bigger Fish to Fry
IT is a vital piece of your business: they’re charged with keeping the technological infrastructure of all you do humming, and supporting and enabling the organization to take advantage of the most current technologies available.
Adding a web design project to the to-do list of a group of IT professionals isn’t an appropriate use of their time because they’re concerned with projects of their own. It takes all they’ve got to monitor, manage, and meet their own goals, and a website redesign project isn’t the right fit for their time.
The purpose of your website is to drive leads and to close business while showing the world exactly who you are and what you do. Putting your website exclusively in the hands of the IT department may get it checked off the to-do list, but it won’t bring a return on your investment or build your brand.
Have you ever been tempted to pass a web design project to your IT department?
