Promoting the Business Web Sites of Technical Communication Companies, Consultants, and Independent Contractors

John B. Killoran

Abstract

Purpose: This article explores how marketing communication in traditional media and new media leads people to the Web sites of technical communication companies, consultants, and independent contractors, and to what extent these Web sites then contribute to recruiting clientele.

Method: The study surveyed an international sample of 240 technical communicators who maintain Web sites to market their services, and then interviewed half of these survey respondents.

Results: Aside from drawing in a moderate portion of clientele directly, these Web sites also helped recruit clientele who originated through such traditional marketing communication as referrals and networking. Yet such traditional communication tended not to be as useful in leading people to these sites as new-media communication, such as search engines and e-mail. Marketing communication’s usefulness in leading people to a Web site is associated with that Web site’s levels of success in recruiting clientele.

Conclusion: A Web site’s efficacy may thereby depend in part on the support of other communication, especially communication sharing a similar medium.

Keywords: technical communication companies, consultants and independent contractors, marketing, Web sites, genre systems

Practitioner’s Takeaway

• The business Web sites of technical communication companies, consultants, and independent contractors recruit a moderate portion of their clientele directly.
• Business Web sites also help recruit clients who originate through referrals and networking.
• Technical communicators report how search engines, Web links, e-mail, print marketing materials, networking, and referrals successfully directed traffic to their Web sites.

Marketing Practices of Independent Technical Communicators

For the quarter of STC’s membership who are consultants or independent contractors (STC, 2000, 2002, 2004), a significant part of work is finding new work. Marketing one’s self or one’s business, always an ongoing preoccupation for independent technical communicators, can be even more critical in a challenging economic climate, when established clients might be cutting back on new projects and few new prospects are available to be courted. To understand how independent technical communicators reach out to prospects and how they might do so more effectively, this article investigates one part of their marketing repertoire: their business Web site. As a legacy of the 1990s’ dot-com boom and bust, we can now take for granted that such a Web site, no matter how well written and designed, typically cannot market technical communication services on its own. This study instead approaches such Web sites by following other marketing channels, such as referrals and networking, that would lead prospects to visit these Web sites as one step among others in technical communicators’ overall marketing strategy.

It is clear from the discourse circulating within the technical communication community that marketing is among the main concerns of independent practitioners (hereafter “independents”). Marketing issues are regularly raised on the listserv of the STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG (mailman.stc.org/mailman/listinfo/stccicsig-l). Tellingly, in 2006, some of these SIG members founded a separate discussion board devoted exclusively to marketing (finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/cic-stc_marketing/). The SIG also published an online book featuring several chapters that discuss marketing (STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG, 2007).

As well, marketing has been the subject of presentations at STC conferences and of advice articles in Technical Communication and Intercom. For instance, Poe (2002) observed that many large-business marketing practices would not apply to independents and instead reviewed marketing advice that independents could apply to reach specialized prospects, including building relationships with prospects and communicating with prospects through proposals and presentations (pp. 178–179). Walsh (2004) advised those providing technical communication services on how to network and develop contacts, especially within organizations. Broach, Gallagher, and Lockwood (2006) interviewed a panel of three independents about their marketing practices, which collectively included networking, cross-functional networking with professional peers, referrals, business phone listings, cold calls, direct mail, promotional gifts, Web advertising, publishing in print and Web venues, and, yes, maintaining a business Web site. The authors concluded that networking was the most worthwhile of these methods, and the panel estimated that networking alone occupied two to four days’ worth of their time per month.

A question about marketing methods was regularly asked in the periodic salary surveys of STC member consultants, independent contractors, and temp agency employees (STC, 2000, 2002, 2004). These surveys found that referrals (overwhelmingly) and reputation had generated clientele for majorities of respondents. Each of the remaining marketing methods—which included, roughly in descending order of popularity, networking, temp agencies, advertisements, cold calls, and brokers—had generated clientele for minorities of respondents. Web sites were not included among these response options, though perhaps they were understood to be a type of advertisement. By contrast, a 2005 survey of members of STC’s Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG did ask about business Web sites along with ten other marketing methods and found Web sites to be among the more useful (STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG, 2005a, p. 7). The two most useful methods were referrals (again overwhelmingly) and then networking. These were followed by three methods all rated within close range of each other: attending meetings and conferences, handing out business cards, and publishing a Web site. In particular, 41% of respondents rated publishing a Web site as “very valuable” or “extremely valuable,” a percentage that jumped above the 50% level when excluding the 22% of respondents who apparently did not have a Web site (STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG, 2005b, p. 10). Among the remaining, less useful methods were distributing print promotional materials, such as brochures, flyers, and resumes; publishing print or electronic newsletters; and four other lower-rated methods.

Collectively, these publications underscore marketing’s importance among independents and shed light on independents’ actual practices, yet the breadth and brevity of these publications has left them unable to investigate any one marketing practice in depth or in conjunction with other practices. For instance, surveys asking respondents to separately rate each of several marketing methods can inadvertently suggest that each method works in isolation, whereas in practice a prospect might become a client as a result of varied and repeated marketing communication. This article takes a different approach by investigating how independents’ Web sites work in conjunction with other marketing communication.

This article builds on a previous article that focused on the role of search engines in particular as a promotional resource for independents’ Web sites (Killoran, 2009). That article demonstrated that Web sites do indeed serve as a source of some technical communication clientele: Almost half the independents surveyed received at least 10% of their clientele primarily through their sites. That article also reported that search engines are among the most important means by which people are led to these sites, and it discussed the role of search engines as an intermediary Web site audience that would lead to the primary audience of prospective clients.

Looking beyond just search engines, this article considers a broad range of marketing communication, including referrals, networking, and other communication reviewed above. It investigates how such communication can lead prospects to business Web sites and to what extent those Web sites then contribute to winning prospects over. First, I introduce a theoretical framework, genre systems, to help conceptualize how the seemingly distinct communication acts that lead one unto another during marketing “courtship” may be thought of as a cohesive sequence of communication. Using this framework, I review research on how various kinds of communication lead people to visit business Web sites. Turning to independents’ business Web sites, I describe how I surveyed 240 independents who maintain Web sites to market their technical communication services, and as well conducted follow-up interviews with 126 of these survey respondents. The survey results show the extent to which their Web sites not only served as a source of some clientele but also helped recruit clientele who originated through other means. The survey results also show that some marketing channels are more helpful than others in leading people to these Web sites, and drawing on the follow-up interviews, I illustrate how each of these channels does so. The article concludes by emphasizing how independents can draw on these experiences of their professional peers to expand their own repertoire of marketing practices.

Accomplishing Employment Goals Through Genre Systems

Many work-related goals that require the participation of various people get accomplished not through single types of communication, or genres, but through systems of different genres that the various participants might contribute. Bazerman (1994) characterized genre systems as “interrelated genres that interact with each other in specific settings” (p. 97) and noted that the genre systems ascribe order to the collection of genres (p. 98). Yates and Orlikowski (2002) characterized genre systems as “organizing structures…that provide expectations about the purpose, content, participants, form, time, and place of communicative interaction. In other words, both genres and genre systems carry expectations about why, what, whom, how, when, and where” (p. 16). For instance, receiving a business card suggests different situations, participants, purposes, and follow-up genres than does receiving a menu or a speeding ticket or a love letter. In each of these situations, cultural expectations of the genre system guide most recipients in how to respond with an appropriate follow-up genre—what Freadman (1994) calls “uptake” (p. 46)—and thereby enable a goal to be accomplished.

The iconic example of a genre system, mentioned by several researchers (Bazerman, 1994; Killoran, 2006; Yates & Orlikowski, 2002; Yates, Orlikowski, & Rennecker, 1997), is the sequence of genres used to bring employers together with prospective employees: job ads leading to job application letters and resumes, which in turn lead either to rejection letters or phone requests for interviews, which in turn lead to interviews, and then to job offers or more rejection letters, and so forth. This system is familiar enough that it functions reasonably well even though its participants are typically strangers to each other. Indeed, the system is familiar enough that it has migrated from paper to various Internet media with only moderate changes to its systemic character (Korkki, 2009).

An analogous situation exists among the strangers who, in their roles as independent technical communicators and prospective clients, seek to bring themselves together so that technical communication work gets done. Though the communication between independents and prospective clients may appear less systemic than the relatively formal communication between employers and prospective employees, independents and prospects do not usually act aimlessly. Rather, they draw on their repertoire of appropriate genres and genre systems. An independent might start by networking at professional events, cold calling local companies, or participating in online industry-specific forums. A prospective client might start by asking industry colleagues for referrals, contacting a local STC chapter, or placing an ad on an Internet job board. No doubt, just as many resumes within the employment genre system lead no further than a rejection letter, so too do many such initial communication ventures lead to dead ends. Despite a sometimes frustratingly low level of uptake, when enough such initial ventures lead, through intervening genres, to a genre like a signed work contract, the successful genre system is perpetuated. Somewhere amid these genres can be an independent’s business Web site. It can therefore be insightful to apply the genre system framework to understand what genres and what corresponding genre systems might lead prospects to an independent’s Web site and what levels of success can be gained by doing so.

Genre Systems Leading to Web Sites

Among the Web’s achievements over its first two decades are not just millions of Web sites but also growing expectations of where to find Web sites, when and why we should find them, what they will enable us to do, and how we will do it—collectively, the components of emerging genre systems. In principle, the Internet’s hypertext architecture underpins Web-based genre systems—one genre literally links to another—though in practice not all links convey clear expectations of why they are taking us from genre A to genre B and what we can expect when we get there, a deficiency whose remedies are a main objective of Web navigation guidelines (Farkas & Farkas, 2000). Search engines are likewise predicated on genre systems: Users visit search portals not to linger there but with the expectation that they will then be taken to search engine results pages and then to their sought-for Web page. Search engines almost always return a myriad of ranked links that match users’ search queries, but do not always foreground the specific genre users had sought, thereby sometimes frustrating users’ expectations of the genre system. To increase the genre system’s reliability, researchers have proposed that search engines specify the genres of the pages they return (Kennedy & Shepherd, 2005). Beyond the Internet, communication across various media now points us to Web sites, whether explicitly (e.g., “For more information, visit www…”) or implicitly (e.g., simply listing a Web address), and expectations have been increasing for the kinds of genres we should find when we follow such leads. Apart from cases in which we have already bookmarked a Web address or intuitively guess a Web address, Web users must follow some such leads in order to find a Web site appropriate for their situation, and success could reinforce the genre system that led them there.

Within the technical communication community, some practitioners and researchers have offered advice on various kinds of Internet communication that would lead people to Web sites. For instance, Deschampes-Potter and Plant (2008), Fugate (2000), and Killoran (2009) addressed the role of search engines. In addition to search engines, Caldanaro and Pait (2001) and Leonard-Wilkinson (2002) discussed other Internet-based channels: links from related sites, signature blocks in e-mail postings, e-mailed newsletters and press releases, and postings to bulletin boards, newsgroups, and listservs.

Most research on the communication channels that lead people to visit business Web sites in particular, and the efficacy of these channels, comes from fields like marketing. Though marketing studies tend to focus on large business-to-consumer (B2C) sites, they can nevertheless be read for insights they might offer about the typically small business-to-business (B2B) sites of independents. While much attention is justifiably devoted to the role of search engines, one study found that the sites of small businesses in one industry seemed more accessible through links from other industry-related sites because the small business sites were often overlooked or poorly ranked by search engines (Fry, Tyrrall, Pugh, & Wyld, 2004), a condition shared by some technical communication business sites (Killoran, 2009). Most businesses tend to tap into more than one potential channel to lead people to their sites. For instance, in a survey of advertisers who had used some form of search engine marketing, majorities also used e-mail marketing and Web display ads, among other channels (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization [SEMPO], 2008, p. 84). Web designers have recommended that any communication that includes a company’s name should also include the company’s Web address, including print documentation such as business cards, letterhead, brochures, and print ads (Geissler, 2001, p. 494).

Among studies that have compared the efficacy of various communication channels, one found that Web users were more likely to recall hearing about specific sites through offline references (offline ads and news reports) than through online references (in descending order of importance: online ads, links from other sites, search engines, Web directories, online news reports, e-mail, newsgroups, and discussion groups); however, this study did not inquire into whether people “consummated” the genre systems by actually following up on such references and visiting the sites in question (Dr√®ze & Zufryden, 2004). Other studies have found that actual B2C site traffic is more strongly correlated with online advertising than with offline advertising (Graham & Havlena, 2007; Ilfeld & Winer, 2002). However, one study found that paid advertising of both kinds, online and offline, brought new customers who contributed less longer-term value to a firm than did an assortment of free references to the firm’s site derived from search engines, links from other sites, media coverage, and referrals (Villanueva, Yoo, & Hanssens, 2008). Such results suggest that genre systems that endure without financial support might attract more authentic participation than genre systems sustained only with such extraneous support. Among the free communication channels, links from other sites have been positively correlated with B2C site traffic (Ilfeld & Winer, 2002), and indirect measures of word of mouth have found it also to be positively correlated with B2C site traffic (Graham & Havlena, 2007; Ilfeld & Winer, 2002). However, another study of free online communication channels (in this case, search engines, newsgroups, listservs, bulletin boards, and chatrooms) found that, when factoring in a business’s likely labor costs of pursuing such free channels, they are not cost effective for selling low-priced consumer products; however, they might be cost effective for higher-priced products and services (Langford, 2000)—such as, perhaps, technical communication services.

These Web site promotional channels tap into a variety of genre systems, some drawing from the Web itself and the Internet, but some also from other media, such as print and broadcasting, and some from speech communication, such as referrals that might come through private conversations. For convenience, we can organize all the channels discussed above according to their medium of communication:

• New media, such as the Web outlets of traditional media, search engines, online ads, links from other sites, and links in e-mail postings and postings to listservs, bulletin boards, newsgroups, and more recently social networking and other Web 2.0 media
• Traditional media, including various kinds of promotional print documents such as direct mail letters, brochures, and business cards, as well as advertising and news coverage in mass media such as newspapers, radio, and television
• Speech communication, such as networking, presentations at conventions or conferences, cold calls, and referrals from friends and colleagues

Not all the media and channels pursued by large companies would apply with the same efficacy, or even apply at all, to the practices of small companies, let alone the practices of independent technical communicators, who typically work solo or run very small companies. For instance, a commercially sponsored survey of American small businesses found that, of those with a Web site, the majority spent less than three hours a week marketing their site (WebVisible and Nielsen Online, 2009, p. 2), suggesting that some of the more labor-intensive marketing practices would likely not be widely adopted by independents. Similarly, the survey of members of the STC’s Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG discussed above found that only 14% devoted more than $1,000 per year to marketing (STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG, 2005b, p. 10), suggesting that the more costly marketing practices of large businesses, such as mass media advertising, would also likely not be widely adopted by independents.

To gain insight into the channels independents do use to lead people to their business Web sites, and to assess the efficacy of these channels and of the Web sites themselves, I collected an international sample of Web sites marketing technical communication services. Previous studies of technical communicators’ marketing practices have tended to rely on surveys (STC, 2000, 2002, 2004; STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG, 2005a, 2005b), and accordingly, I surveyed the principals behind these services. As this study sought insight into potentially complex and subtle relationships among various marketing genres—relationships difficult to probe with a quantitative method like a survey—I thereby followed up by interviewing willing survey respondents by e-mail. In the next sections, I describe the sampling and recruitment procedures, the survey questionnaire, and the interview process.

Research Methods

Participants and Their Web Sites

To collect a sample of Web sites of independents offering technical communication services, I examined hundreds of potential sources that might list relevant links or URLs:

• Google, Yahoo, and MSN search engines
• Web directories, notably the various country-specific Yahoo directories and the Open Directory Project’s directory
• All STC chapter sites and sites of overseas professional communication organizations, notably a partial directory of members of the Independent Authors SIG (a group within the U.K.-based Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators)
• Various writing-related commercial, communal, and individuals’ sites, such as WritersUA (“UA” stands for “user assistance”), a technical writing Web ring, and a few independents’ sites that collegially link to their peers
• General online business sources, such as LinkedIn, online yellow pages, and commercial sites accepting postings by freelancers
• The listserv of STC’s Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG
• Articles discussing consulting and independent contracting, marketing, or Web sites in STC’s Intercom

Searches through such promising sources continued throughout the winter and spring of 2007 until most of the technical communication business sites found with each new source tended to duplicate those already found. A total of 65 sources can be credited for contributing to a sample that surpassed a thousand business sites, representing mainly solo consultants and independent contractors but also a number of partnerships and small companies with employees.

As further details about the sampling, pilot testing, and recruitment procedures have already been published (Killoran, 2009, 2010), here I present only a summary. After culling the sample of potentially abandoned sites, I e-mailed survey invitations to 638 independents, from whom I received a total of 240 usable questionnaires after two additional rounds of reminder e-mails. After accounting for 6 unusable questionnaires and 17 undeliverable e-mail addresses, the overall response rate was 39.6%.

Survey Questionnaire

The survey questionnaire asked nine questions, some with multiple parts. The first three questions are pertinent to this article and may be found in the appendix. The first of these three questions has already been alluded to above and is described more extensively in Killoran (2009). That question asked participants to identify the percentage of their technical communication clientele who originated primarily because of their business Web site. The follow-up question asked how much the Web site helped in getting clientele when other sources (such as referrals and networking) were primary, and not the Web site itself. Participants were offered response options ranging from 0 (helped “not at all”) to 3 (helped “a lot”), with an additional option indicating “don’t know.”

The third question asked participants how much various promotional channels helped in leading people to their Web site. Ratings for the helpfulness of various promotional channels could offer a rough proxy measure of the strengths of various genre systems. The marketing research discussed above revealed how a wide variety of Web and off-Web genres in channels across various media might lead people to a Web site, so to make responding more manageable, response options presented channels grouped into three kinds of media: new media, traditional media, and speech. For further discrimination, each of these was subdivided into distinct communication channels or sets of closely related channels.

In the case of new-media channels, the literature accorded search engines and links from other Web sites enough attention that each merited a response option of its own. Unlike these two, which are largely beyond the independents’ direct authorial control, other Internet channels are within their authorial control, and these were grouped together as one response option. Thus, respondents were presented with three response options based in new media, worded as follows:

• WEB: Search engines
• WEB: Links from other Web sites, not including search engines
• INTERNET: Web address included with your Internet-based communication (examples: e-mail and attachments, listserv postings, submissions to job boards)

In the case of traditional media, the literature makes no mention of independents’ widespread marketing use of such costly, consumer-oriented mass media as radio, television, and newspapers, so the response options focused on business-oriented print genres. Independents’ own print communication was divided into two response options: public materials, typically printed in bulk quantities and often distributed relatively indiscriminately; and private correspondence, usually composed for or addressed to a specific audience, sometimes in response to previous communication and hence already part of an ongoing genre system. These are both within independents’ authorial control, so as with the new-media channels, another option was added encompassing print genres beyond their authorial control. Thus, respondents were presented with three print-based response options, worded as follows:

• PRINT: Web address imprinted on your public promotional materials (examples: business card, brochure, advertisements)
• PRINT: Web address included in your private print correspondence (examples: prospecting letters, resume)
• PRINT: Web address in print documents of other organizations (examples: business directories, associates’ or clients’ documents, professional journals, newsletters)

In the case of the speech-based channels, the track record of referrals as independents’ top marketing method justified their receiving a response option of their own. Note that whereas independents often learn that a prospect was referred to them, they might not learn such minutiae as whether the particular channel that led the prospect to check out their Web site was a phone conversation, an e-mail posting, or a passed-on business card, so referrals to some degree resist being defined as just a speech channel and accordingly were not labeled as such. Included in the remaining speech channels was networking, which has a marketing track record among independents that is second only to referrals. Thus, respondents were presented with two final response options:

• SPEECH: Web site mentioned in your speech communication (examples: phone and face-to-face networking, professional presentations)
• REFERRALS: Web site mentioned by people outside your business

In sum, response options listed a total of eight distinct channels or sets of closely related channels, some accompanied by a parenthetical list of genre examples to cue recognition and recall. Respondents were asked to rate the helpfulness of each of these eight sets of channels in leading people to their site on the same 0–3 scale used in the previous question, with additional response options indicating “don’t know” and “not applicable.”

The survey concluded by asking respondents if they would be willing to participate in a brief e-mail interview; 154 initially consented, though only 126 went on to submit interview responses. Nonrespondents were e-mailed twice more at intervals of one to two weeks, and those who volunteered an explanation for their nonresponse or tardy response typically mentioned time constraints. As such time constraints had been expected from a population of busy professionals, I limited all interviews to a maximum of a half-dozen open-ended questions. These questions were based on each participant’s particular Web site features and survey responses and so varied from participant to participant. Questions that are pertinent to genre systems and the promotion of business Web sites could not always be squeezed into the brief interviews, but when they were, they typically singled out sets of channels in survey question 3 (see appendix) that had received relatively high ratings or, less commonly, low ratings, and asked for elaboration.

Survey Results

The survey results can reveal the degree to which both independents’ business Web sites and the channels (and genre systems) that lead to them are useful. As indicated above, a previous publication discussed the responses to the first survey question about the percentage of technical communication clientele who originated primarily because of these sites (Killoran, 2009). To explore the place of independents’ Web sites within marketing genre systems, I only summarize those responses here:

• A slight majority of participants (53%) reported that less than 10% of their technical communication clientele originated primarily because of their Web sites.
• A large minority of participants (43%) reported that at least 10% of such clientele originated this way, though this level of at least 10% often did not reach 20%, let alone 50%.
• A few participants (5%) did not know.

Thus, even though they maintained Web sites to market their services, most participants must have been getting most of their clientele primarily through other marketing methods.

These other marketing methods figure into the follow-up survey question, which asked how much their Web site helped recruit technical communication clientele who originated through these other methods. As shown in Table 1, few participants rated their site as not helping at all. Rather, ratings were fairly evenly distributed across the range from helping “a little” to helping “a lot.” Such ratings indicate that even such popular and successful marketing methods as referrals and networking can be meaningfully supported by a Web site playing a secondary marketing role.

Table 1: Helpfulness of business Web sites in recruiting technical communication clientele originating primarily through referrals, reputation, networking, and other offsite means

Web site helpfulness	Percentage of respondents
0 – Not at all	8
1 – A little	30
2 – Moderately	32
3 – A lot	25
Don’t know	6

Percentages do not add up to 100 because of rounding.

Of course, prospects would first have to find these Web sites, which was the object of the third survey question about how helpful each of the eight sets of channels was in leading people to these sites. As shown in Table 2, the traditionally popular marketing methods of referrals and networking (with networking understood to constitute a considerable portion of the “speech” channel here) do not appear to have been especially helpful in leading people to Web sites, each receiving a mode rating of only 1 on the 0–3 scale, signifying helping “a little.” Instead, participants tended to rate new-media channels as the most helpful: search engines were the only channel to receive a mode rating of 3, helping “a lot”; and participants’ own Internet communication, with the second highest percentage of “3” ratings, received a mode rating of 2, helping “moderately.”

Table 2: Ratings of the helpfulness of promotional channels in leading people to business Web sites, in percentages.^†

Web site promotional channels	A lot 3	Moderately 2	A little 1	Not at all 0	Don’t know	N/A	Blank
WEB: Search engines	35	24	19	10	9	2	2
WEB: Links from other Web sites, not including search engines	15	22	22	20	9	9	3
INTERNET: Web address included with technical communicator’s Internet-based communication	25	35	19	11	8	2	1
PRINT: Web address imprinted on technical communicator’s public promotional materials	16	27	26	14	9	6	2
PRINT: Web address included in technical communicator’s private print correspondence	10	26	26	20	9	7	3
PRINT: Web address in print documents of other organizations	4	14	23	28	14	15	2
SPEECH: Web site mentioned in technical communicator’s speech communication	13	20	30	21	7	8	2
REFERRALS: Web site mentioned by people outside the business	15	19	28	16	17	4	2

Note: Mode rating for each Web site promotional channel is shown in bold type.
^†Percentages may not add up to 100 because of rounding.

To analyze more precisely the relative efficacy of these eight sets of channels, each pair among the eight was contrasted using a sign test. For each pair, only the ratings of participants who provided two numerical responses could be contrasted, which in effect removed the ratings of participants who were less informed about the pair of channels (because they selected a “not applicable” or “don’t know” response). In a sign test, tied ratings are also typically removed, and the remaining pairs of ratings are contrasted to determine how many each side “won”; however, removing tied ratings increases the likelihood of type I errors (false positives) in declaring a clear “winner.” As some pairs of promotional channels received high proportions of tied ratings, a more conservative approach was followed in which tied ratings were distributed equally to each side of the pair being contrasted. Also, to compensate for the increased likelihood of type I errors when performing multiple comparisons with the same data, significance levels for the pairwise comparisons were adjusted by following a layered method proposed by Ryan (1960).

Table 3 shows the sign test results, with the eight sets of channels rearranged roughly from most helpful to least helpful and grouped into three clusters:

• A most-useful cluster of the two sets of new-media channels mentioned above—search engines and independents’ own Internet communication—which showed no significant difference in how participants rated one over the other
• An intermediately useful cluster encompassing most sets of traditional media channels, speech, and referrals, plus one new-media channel—links from other sites, not including search engines—which likewise showed no significant differences in how participants rated any one over any other
• A least-useful cluster representing a single set of channels, print documents of other organizations, which, with one exception, was rated as significantly less helpful than each of the other sets of channels

Table 3: Sign test z values and tallies of higher, lower, and tied ratings in pairwise contrasts of helpfulness ratings of Web site promotional channels^†

	Most-Useful Cluster		Intermediately Useful Cluster					Least-Useful Cluster
	WEB: Search engines	INTERNET	PRINT: Public	WEB: Links	REFERRALS	PRINT: Private	SPEECH	PRINT: Others’
WEB: Search engines	—	1.27 82+ 63– 56=	3.14* 94+ 50– 44=	4.16*** 86+ 29– 67=	3.78** 87+ 36– 52=	4.52*** 100+ 38– 45=	4.71*** 99+ 34– 52=	7.19*** 104+ 12– 45=
INTERNET		—	2.94* 68+ 26– 101=	2.91* 77+ 37– 66=	3.59** 80+ 31– 68=	4.43*** 83+ 21– 87=	5.15*** 98+ 26– 66=	6.48*** 99+ 15– 50=
PRINT: Public			—	0.38 56+ 50– 64=	0.62 50+ 41– 78=	1.69 42+ 18– 126=	1.86 60+ 34– 88=	4.38*** 69+ 13– 77=
WEB: Links				—	0.47 53+ 46– 64=	0.62 60+ 51– 59=	1.23 65+ 48– 56=	3.42** 66+ 23– 62=
REFERRALS					—	0.70 48+ 38– 79=	1.69 50+ 27– 94=	3.84** 65+ 17– 69=
PRINT: Private						—	1.13 53+ 37– 86=	3.21* 60+ 19– 77=
SPEECH							—	2.63 57+ 23– 78=
PRINT: Others’								—

Note: Each cell’s sequence of three numbers (x⁺, y^–, z⁼) shows the tallies of higher ratings (x⁺), lower ratings (y^–), and tied ratings (z⁼), respectively, attained by the promotional channel listed in the row heading in contrast to the channel list in the column heading. Within-subject pairs that include a non-numerical response (“not applicable,” “don’t know,” or a blank response) were not tallied, so n < 240 for each cell.
^† Computation of the sign test z values also incorporated tied ratings, which were distributed equally to the tallies of higher and lower ratings (and in cases of an odd number of tied ratings, one tied rating was removed so that each side received an equal number). To maintain a p < 0.05 significance level for the familywise comparison among eight categories, significance levels for the pairwise comparisons were adjusted by following a layered method proposed by Ryan (1960).
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p <0.001

Apart from that one exception, between any two sets of channels from different clusters is a statistically significant difference in ratings. Considering the conservative statistical procedure that was followed to accommodate tied ratings, such consistent differences underscore how independents’ long-established marketing methods, whether referrals, networking, or print communication, tend not to be as useful as some new-media marketing communication in leading people to another kind of new-media marketing communication, a business Web site.

Efficacy of Web Site Genre Systems in Recruiting Technical Communication Clientele

To assess the efficacy of marketing genre systems that lead to and through independents’ business Web sites, we can track the genre systems’ performance starting from the contributions of the genres of promotional channels leading people to these sites and ending with the contributions of the Web site genre itself recruiting technical communication clientele. This can be done by analyzing how responses to survey question 3 are associated with responses to questions 1 and 2. For the sake of clarity, each survey question’s range of numerical response options will be divided into just two options signifying a greater or lesser contribution to the Web site marketing genre system. Thus, for question 3, ratings of the helpfulness of each set of promotional channels in leading people to these sites will be divided into the more helpful (3 or 2 on the scale from 0 to 3) and the less helpful (1 or 0). Similarly, for questions 1 and 2, measures of Web sites’ primary and secondary marketing roles, respectively, will be divided according to their greater and lesser contributions in recruiting clientele:

• For the percentages of clientele recruited primarily through Web sites in question 1, the greater contribution of Web sites recruiting double-digit percentages of their owners’ clientele (10–100%; n = 103) and the lesser contribution of Web sites recruiting only single-digit percentages (0–9%; n = 117)
• For the helpfulness of Web sites recruiting clientele who originated offsite in question 2, the greater contribution of Web sites rated as more helpful playing such a secondary marketing role (3 or 2 on the scale from 0 to 3; n = 137) and the lesser contribution of Web sites rated as less helpful playing such a secondary marketing role (1 or 0; n = 89)

As can be seen in Table 4, chi-square tests tend to show statistically significant associations between the level of contributions made by sets of promotional genres leading people to these Web sites and the level of contributions made by the Web sites themselves in recruiting clientele. This tendency is widespread across all eight sets of promotional channels when Web sites are playing a secondary marketing role. In particular, when Web sites are playing such a secondary role, some other marketing communication must be playing a primary role: Typically, independents would already have been communicating with their prospects directly, perhaps through speech or independents’ own Internet postings or print marketing documents. Revealingly, it is these sets of direct communication channels that show some of the highest levels of statistical significance among helpfulness ratings in the “secondary recruiting” column in Table 4, especially when contrasted with the more modest levels shown among the corresponding helpfulness ratings in the “primary recruiting” column. By contrast, when Web sites are playing a primary marketing role, perhaps no other direct communication channels have yet been opened between independents and their prospects, and prospects would instead have had to find these Web sites through such indirect channels as Web searches, links from other sites, and referrals. Revealingly, it is these sets of indirect communication channels that show some of the highest levels of statistical significance among helpfulness ratings in the “primary recruiting” column, especially when contrasted with the slightly more modest levels shown among the corresponding helpfulness ratings in the “secondary recruiting” column.

These general associations between the marketing contributions of promotional genres and the Web site genre, together with the revealing patterns between corresponding levels of statistical significance in Web sites’ primary and secondary marketing contributions, reinforce the possibility that these promotional channels are contributing to the Web sites’ marketing successes: Promotional channels, when working more effectively to lead people to these Web sites, might be enabling these sites to recruit more clients. A business Web site’s success in recruiting clientele might thereby in part be a consequence of the success of its genre systems.

Table 4: Numbers of more-helpful and less-helpful ratings of Web site promotional channels by participants’ assessments of their Web sites’ greater and lesser contributions as primary and secondary recruiting tools, and chi-square values for the frequency distributions^a

Contribution of Web Site Promotional Channels		Contribution of Web Site
Promotional Channels	Helpfulness Leading People to Web Sites	Primary Recruitingb			Secondary Recruitingc
		More (10–100%)	Less (0–9%)	X2	More (3, 2)	Less (1, 0)	X2
WEB: Search engines	More (3, 2)	82	53	23.12***	97	42	9.82**
	Less (1, 0)	17	51		30	34
WEB: Links	More (3, 2)	50	37	8.94**	61	26	4.56*
	Less (1, 0)	34	62		52	43
INTERNET	More (3, 2)	68	68	2.09	102	38	22.26***
	Less (1, 0)	28	43		26	41
PRINT: Public	More (3, 2)	44	56	0.00	72	28	9.79**
	Less (1, 0)	41	52		46	46
PRINT: Private	More (3, 2)	40	44	0.20	62	22	8.98**
	Less (1, 0)	47	59		54	49
PRINT: Others’	More (3, 2)	26	13	6.93**	33	9	6.73**
	Less (1, 0)	50	68		66	52
SPEECH	More (3, 2)	43	30	8.21**	59	16	14.08***
	Less (1, 0)	44	73		60	56
REFERRALS	More (3, 2)	47	28	12.46***	57	20	8.28**
	Less (1, 0)	37	66		54	48

^aNot included are cases in which either of the analyzed pairs of survey responses (from questions 1 and 3 in the “primary recruiting” columns, and from questions 2 and 3 in the “secondary recruiting” columns) resulted in a non-numerical response (“not applicable,” “don’t know,” or a blank response). So n < 240 for each cell.
^b The columns headed “primary recruiting” list the numbers of participants who report greater (10–100%) or lesser (0–9%) percentages of their clientele originating primarily because of their Web site.
^c The columns headed “secondary recruiting” list the numbers of participants who rated their Web site’s helpfulness as relatively greater (3 or 2) or lesser (1 or 0) in recruiting clientele originating primarily offsite.
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

Independent Technical Communicators’ Experiences with Web Site Promotional Channels

More insight into how each of these sets of channels works to lead people to independents’ Web sites can be gleaned from participants’ interview responses. Here, I proceed roughly in chronological order by discussing first the long-established channels of speech communication and referrals, then the various kinds of print channels, and finally the new-media channels involving the Internet in general and the Web specifically.

Speech Communication

Speech communication’s rating only among the intermediately helpful cluster of channels, despite encompassing the ever-successful marketing method of networking, could suggest that a Web site may be somewhat redundant when one already has the ear of a prospect. Yet several participants mentioned a variety of networking occasions in which they would introduce their Web site into the conversation, such as chamber of commerce meetings and civic events, professional organization meetings, trade shows, conference presentations, workshops, and classes. Private occasions in which participants would introduce their Web site included cold calls to local businesses, prospects’ incoming calls to them, and client interviews.

Introducing their site into the conversation seemed to be a socially acceptable way to keep open the often tenuous contact established while networking, or to continue a sales pitch without seeming too pushy, or as a prelude to further conversation, such as in advance of a meeting with a prospect. For instance, one professional writer described how a brief reference to her site would enable her to subtly continue promoting her business while maintaining a more casual conversation:

I always mention my web site whenever I give my business card to anyone. If people are checking out my web site in the comfort of their office or home, they’ll probably learn more about my services [than] if I was bending their ear at a loud networking event when they wanted to work the crowd. (Though I do try to give a short 2 sentence explanation of my business in person too.) I’m not into hard selling, so when I do talk to people in person or on the phone, I’ll try to find out what they need, state that I can do it for them (if I can), and then direct them to my web site. Then I’ll follow up in a day or two via phone or email.

She rated speech communication such as this as helping moderately in leading people to her site.

Several participants reported that introducing their Web site during phone conversations was particularly helpful, such as by making cold calls a bit “warmer,” as one respondent put it. One participant described his usual cold-call procedure as involving a sequence of several genres, including his Web site:

The process usually goes something like this: I identify a new prospect and send one or two emails; I then follow up with phone calls; once I get the prospect on the phone and tell them about the services I offer, their second request is usually for samples of work I’ve done for other clients and I direct them to the web site (first question is always about pricing).

He rated both his Internet communication (the e-mails) and his speech communication (the phone calls) as helping a lot in leading people to his site, much more useful than most other channels, which were of little or no help.

This participant singled out samples of his work as the particular genres that prospects most wanted to see. Many other participants echoed this observation, some indicating that prospects’ questions about samples served as an opportunity enabling them to introduce their site, and some describing samples as an inducement they would raise to encourage visits to their site. For instance, one participant described how, at points in conversations when she introduced her Web site, often either she or her prospects would be mentioning samples of her work:

I almost always give out my site to any new prospect and tell them that they can find out more about my qualifications as well as look at my online sample portfolio…. If I am talking to someone on the phone I either tell them the site or I ask for their email so I can email the link to them. Clients always want to see samples, and this is a very easy way for them to do it on their own schedule. If someone asks me for samples I will direct them to the specific sample page.

She rated such speech communication as helping moderately in leading people to her site, more helpful than most other channels. For her and for several other participants, the Web site as a whole sometimes appeared to serve as an intermediate genre leading to the particular genres of samples it contained. In all these cases, participants relied on a genre system that would carry on their marketing pitch through their Web site, or through specific genres within their Web sites, after the conversation ended.

Referrals

Referrals, which previous surveys have found to be a top source of technical communication clientele, would seemingly not need backup support from a Web site to account for their success. For instance, a professional writer who characterized his clientele as “all…repeat and referral” downplayed his site’s importance in recruiting clientele:

Although a referral and my resume/experience [are] worth way more than the value of what’s on the site in terms of closing a new client, the site does at least as well as a brochure and portfolio…. Whether small biz or Fortune 500s and 100s, in every case such contracts came about by either by a referral, or in the early years through an agency, and the resume rules. These things usually go: referral (or agency), phone calls, a meeting, a breakfast or lunch, a detailed printed proposal from me if required, some more back-and-forth, and finally a signed contract. Somewhere in there if the client is interested enough they check out my site.

In this elaborate courtship-and-negotiation genre system, the referral and several other genres seem to overshadow this participant’s Web site to the extent that it seemed to emerge only tangentially.

By contrast, a technical writer who similarly characterized her clientele as “99% repeat and referral” explained that her site was very useful for her business because it “reinforces [her] credibility as a professional writer, particularly for new referrals.” She added: “I know some referrals have checked out my site before contacting me—I could tell by the conversation. They could have gotten the address from their reference, or searched the Web by my name or my company name.” She rated referrals as helping a lot in leading people to her site.

Other participants similarly described how their site built their credibility with a referral. For instance, an independent contractor whose site drew in no clients directly but helped moderately as a secondary marketing tool explained that “potential clients seem to use the web site to help establish my legitimacy. For example, someone is referred to me, goes to my web site, and then contacts me. People who refer me give my web site address when they do the referral.” She too rated such referrals as helping a lot in leading people to her site.

Likewise, a technical writer whose site similarly drew in no clients directly explained how his site was not intended to perform such a primary marketing function but instead to build trust within the more personal networks that characterize business in his region of the country:

I have never gotten leads or clients because they found my site via searches. I never intended it to work that way partly because I work mostly in the upper mid-west. It is also because most people searching for a tech writer ask other people they know for referrals to a writer. Most new clients come to me through word of mouth. My site allows prospective clients to learn more about me, my skills and to see samples of my work, without having to meet with me first. In a way, the site pre-qualifies me. They can determine if I might be a good fit for their projects.

He too rated his site as helping moderately as a secondary marketing tool. In many of these cases, despite the ethos endowed by the initial referrals, prospects nevertheless followed the genre system to the Web site, apparently seeking to supplement or to confirm officially that initial but insubstantial sense of ethos.

Independents’ Own Print Documents

Ratings for participants’ public print promotional materials and private print correspondence were frequently tied (126 ties out of 186 pairs of ratings), and so they will be discussed together here. Among the kinds of print genres participants identified as including their Web address were business cards, stationery, letters to clients, brochures, flyers, newsletters, profiles, resumes, cover letters, proposals, training materials, presentation handouts, invoices, compliment slips, and calendars; also mentioned were nonpaper-based promotional products, such as pens. Apart from the ubiquitous business card, which often worked in tandem with their networking communication, some participants indicated that their use of print was minimal or, when used at all, incidental to their promotional efforts. Indeed, several participants justified their Web site precisely as an alternative to print promotional material such as brochures, which can be expensive to produce, inconvenient to distribute, and quick to become outdated.

However, other participants continued to use print promotional materials, not to bypass their site but to direct prospects to their site. For instance, the president of one company described how the latest edition of her print newsletter sought to attract recipients to her site by responding to a newsworthy event that occurred a month prior to our interview:

We recently sent out a newsletter mailing to area colleges and universities, as a result of the Virginia Tech shootings. That was actually our first attempt to drive any traffic to the blog. The printed newsletter included our main blog entry on school security, which is a piece I did on lessons learned from Virginia Tech. It asked the reader to go to our web site to view other interesting blogs, including [a colleague’s blog entry on enhancing security with well-written policies and procedures].

She went on to explain how she saw such communication as only one part of a larger sequence of communication that would eventually convert some recipients into clients:

Most sales are not made on first contact, so if we can influence a recipient of a mailing to visit the web site, it would be a treasured second contact, even though the communication is not yet two-way. We will continue contacting these same prospects in an effort to establish a consistent presence that makes them reach out to us. Also, we sometimes meet the recipients through professional meetings or mutual acquaintances, and they may remember us or we may recall a name from the mailing list.

Even some independents serving clients in high-tech industries, who might presumably have long since been weaned off such traditional media as print, nevertheless reported that their print promotional materials retained value as a tool to guide industry specialists to their site. For instance, a participant who maintained three distinct Web sites all in support of his software documentation business drew prospective high-tech clients to these sites by using flyers:

Although the web site is important, I think it’s important also to use other forms of marketing. I send flyers to prospects. The ones I send now are designed for people who don’t know of the existence of freelance technical communicators…. These flyers are simple—address label goes on one side (no envelope), and a brief message on the other side directs people to the [the main business site and the two informational sites] for more information.

In his survey responses, he rated such public print promotional materials as moderately helpful.

Print Documents of Other Organizations

Print documents of other organizations were not only rated as the least helpful set of Web site promotional channels but also received the highest portion of “not applicable” responses (more than 15%). In an increasingly digital economy, it may be that fewer such documents are in circulation. On the other hand, the survey question suggested as examples business directories, associates’ or clients’ documents, professional journals, and newsletters, many of which still circulate in print form. The few references interview respondents made to such generic B2C directories as the yellow pages were not encouraging. However, some participants mentioned favorably some community-based business directories, such as those put out by their local chamber of commerce or those representing businesses owned by a specific demographic group. For instance, one participant described the kinds of community-based print documents that so successfully led people to her site:

In print, I’m listed in the Finnish American Chamber of Commerce national directory (the listing was free to members but I also paid for an ad). I’ve also participated in some local business/community events so my URL has appeared printed on fliers, etc.

She was one of only 10 participants to rate other organizations’ print documents as helping a lot in leading people to their site.

Another such participant, who rated the print documents of other organizations as the single most successful promotional channel leading people to her site, explained her unusually high rating:

I’ve gotten several clients through a local organization that I belong to called Freelance Forum. They encourage members to publish a business profile on their Web site. They publish this information in printed format annually and make it available to businesses that hire freelancers.

For technical communicators with specialized subject-matter knowledge, some authorial acknowledgement can also be earned by publishing in trade journals and newsletters; participants mentioned such publications as well as the accompanying biographical statements and even ads in such venues.

Independents’ Own Internet Communication

Among the variety of Internet communication channels, participants most frequently mentioned e-mail and more specifically the e-mail signature block, a subgenre in which contact information is expected. Surprisingly, however, though many of the e-mailed interview responses did not include a signature block at all (understandable, as participants knew that I already had their contact information), 12 of the 74 signature blocks (16%) that were appended to the interview responses did not include a Web address.

Though e-mail is obviously useful to communicate with current clients, several participants reported using e-mail to maintain a presence with former clients and develop a presence with prospects. For instance, several participants mentioned e-mailing periodic newsletters, which included links back to their Web site. E-mail postings and newsletters of course require that one first get recipients with whom to correspond. Some participants reported sending out prospecting e-mails to local companies, a less intrusive version of the cold call. One participant described how she relied almost entirely on this approach, in tandem with a follow-up phone call, both of which directed prospects to her Web site:

My ONLY marketing strategy right now (or ever, thus far) is sending “cold e-mails” out to prospective clients. I include a link to my web site in these brief, “Introduction-style” messages (a la “here’s what I do, here’s how to contact me”). Sometimes, I’ll direct them to a specific page (e.g. benefits, etc.). I typically follow-up with a friendly, casual (but always professional) phone call. I use my wonderful personality and sense of humour to make the call memorable and to “sell” more details on my web site.

A similar approach was used by another participant, who described how he was able to confirm that such “cold e-mails” actually led prospects to his site:

When I reach out to new prospects, through email, I usually include a link to the portfolio section of my web site in the body of the email message…. When I started looking at the web site logs to see who was visiting my site, I saw a noticeable boost in traffic and could see that it was coming from companies that I had emailed. I was surprised by how willing my email recipients were to click on a link in an email from someone unknown to them.

He rated such Internet communication as helping a lot in leading people to his Web site.

Apart from e-mail, some participants mentioned participating in various kinds of Internet forums, such as listservs and discussion boards, and receiving some visibility for their site through their posts, in particular when the topic of discussion permitted them to refer to a related page on their site. As well, some participants mentioned including their Web address in the resumes and profiles they posted to such employment sites as Monster, Dice, HotJobs, and Guru. Similarly, some mentioned including their Web address when bidding on projects posted on such sites as Guru, Elance, and Craigslist, and directing prospects to their Web portfolio. One participant who got much of her work from such sites described how her postings successfully directed prospects to visit her site:

I put my web site address in all correspondence. I also put a note in there to see my web site for writing samples. 99% of clients look at the samples (and some of the rest of the site) prior to calling me or sending an e-mail to initiate negotiations.

Links from Other Web Sites

Links from other Web sites were rated as significantly less useful than the other two sets of new-media channels and received a relatively high percentage of “not applicable” responses (9%), suggesting that links to small-business sites might not be plentiful or prominent. However, as described above in the methods section, 65 sources, most of which are Web sites with links to independents’ business sites, can be credited for contributing to this study’s sample, so relevant linking sites are available.

Among the more obvious linking sources are the sites of technical communication organizations with which prospects might be familiar. A few participants favorably singled out their local STC chapter sites, though unfortunately relatively few STC chapter sites feature links to their members’ sites. For instance, one participant explained the value of having her profile, along with a link to her site, posted in her STC chapter’s “Contractor’s Directory”:

While word of mouth provides me with my biggest contracts, the Contractor’s Directory provides me with the most leads. In the two years since our Directory began, I have received several phone calls or emails each month from people who have seen me there. All of them click through to my web site before they call me. These prospects offer projects—or ask me to interview for projects—of all sizes…. I do notice that STC directory clients are kind of pre-qualified, so the sales pitch doesn’t take as long.

Advanced searches using both Google and Yahoo showed that this STC link appeared to be the only inbound link to her site, yet in her survey responses, she nevertheless rated links from other sites as the only promotional channel that helped a lot in leading people to her site.

Apart from STC chapter sites, participants also mentioned receiving links from sites of other professional and business organizations with whom they have memberships, creating content for other sites with accompanying links back to their own sites, and posting informative content on their own sites that attracted inbound links. (See Killoran, 2010, for a more detailed list of such link sources.) Web content of different genres can be expected to attract inbound links from correspondingly different genres, and correspondingly different surfers. Consider, for instance, the different experiences of two participants, each of whom created content that generated large numbers of inbound links. One created a site that, along with pages devoted to promoting his business, featured several informative pages about one of his specialties, corporate governance, including more than 100 annotated outbound links to related government and business sites worldwide:

The part of my web site that gets BY FAR the most traffic are the pages on Corporate Governance…. This brought a lot of traffic and some good return links (the pages are footnote-reference in several government reports). Which illustrates the point about web sites needing real content.

Using advanced Web searches, I was able to tally 69 inbound links to his site.

The other participant was a very active blogger whose site, according to advanced Web searches, generated thousands of inbound links, mostly from other blogs:

I get links from other blog[s] via Blog Carnivals (blogcarnival.com), which are community-created blog posts linking to various articles on the Internet on a given subject…. I also get links from my large circle of online friends, mostly through the blogging community.

Each participant’s distinct Web genres elicited links from correspondingly different genres (e.g., government reports versus other blogs), though, alas, both participants added that such links had yet to generate any business for them. The contrast with the first participant quoted above, whose sole inbound link from her local STC chapter site generated considerable business for her, underscores how hyperlinks support various kinds of genre systems, only some of which would attract the participation of prospective technical communication clients.

Search Engines

In other articles, I have examined how and to what extent independents orient their Web sites to search engines, and in turn search engines’ importance as a source of that portion of their clientele who originate primarily because of their Web sites (Killoran, 2009, 2010). In this article, I single out a few practices that illustrate genre systems leading from search engines to independents’ sites.

Some participants were able to track the Web-based genre systems leading to their site using Web analytic tools, such as Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/). For instance, by monitoring the referring URLs that led to his site, a participant whose five-year site meter tally showed over 10,000 hits was able to estimate that only about a quarter of his site traffic was actually related to his business. The rest, he described, were from such incidental searches as a musician or an actor who happen to share his name:

Unfortunately, it appears that people are not finding my web site as a result of searches for writer, technical writer, tech writer or other related terms. I’m not sure whether this is because I haven’t done my SEO [search engine optimization] homework properly or that people just aren’t searching for those terms enough for me to bubble to the upper reaches of the search results for them.

He rated search engines as helping only a little in leading people to his site.

Similarly, another participant described how, by monitoring and analyzing traffic for individual files, he was able to account for their popularity and unpopularity:

Monitoring hits is highly valuable. It helps to see what visitors are doing and what pages are popular. [One set of related pages] mostly draw people looking for images and clipart. Even “junk” hits help with the search-engine rankings. One of the most popular pages on the web site is the links page, not because people like the links, but because they like the “cool sun” clipart. Experimenting with content is also valuable, for me at least. For a few weeks I had a page that explained why companies should hire a real tech writer and not a desktop publisher masquerading as a tech writer. Apparently, I offended people. Every single person who landed on that page left the web site immediately. On the other hand, maybe they were all looking for desktop publishers….

He rated search engines, along with links from other sites, as helping moderately in leading people to his site, the only two channels that helped at all. As is evident from these participants’ comments, search engines are not particularly discriminating judges of genre systems; they can generate many site visits, but many are those of surfers who are not pursuing genres related to technical communication services.

To gain more visibility for their sites, several participants mentioned advertising on search engines, singling out Yahoo Search Marketing and especially Google AdWords. In a process known as paid placement, businesses bid on specific search queries, such as “technical writer,” for which their ads appear along the margins of search engine results pages. One participant appeared to rely almost exclusively on paid placement, explaining that traffic generated through Google accounted for 95% of his clients: “I subscribe to Google Adwords and bid to be listed about 5th in the ‘sponsored links’ column for certain keyword searches. It costs me about 50$ a month on average. That’s all I do.” Compared with the time he devoted to “fiddling with [his] Google Adword bids,” he reported investing little time attempting to raise his site’s “organic” (natural) search engine rankings, having maintained the same site design for a decade and updated its content only once or twice a year. He nevertheless rated search engines as helping a lot in leading people to his site; he rated most other channels as not applicable.

His singular marketing strategy was usual, however, as most participants who mentioned paid placement seemed to use it as just one promotional channel among others, and some used it only intermittently, such as when business was low. One participant who used paid placement extensively, having run about 30 different Google Adword ads, maintained her business by relying primarily on such Web-based marketing channels. In her survey responses, this participant, whose company offered a wide variety of marketing communication and technical communication services, rated Web searches as well as links from other sites as helping a lot in leading people to her site, a rating much higher than those for the other channels. She described the traffic that such channels directed to her site:

[My company’s] Web site attracts 3,000 people a day through organic links, search engines, and pay per click. Of those people, approximately 5% spend more [than] 10 minutes on the site. Every week, an average of five new businesses contact us for help on projects of the size and scope we desire…. Web marketing is our primary means of attracting qualified new customers and in fact we undertake similar web marketing projects for other companies as part of our scope of service.

Despite her company’s evident success using paid placement and organic search marketing, her site’s success rate with such Web-marketing channels—roughly one new prospect per day out of 3,000 site visits per day—underscores the unreliable but prolific nature of search engine genre systems: Search engines are undiscriminating, though by directing huge numbers of surfers, they can be among a Web site’s most useful channels.

Implications for Technical Communications

This study has demonstrated that independents’ business Web sites, aside from recruiting a modest portion of clientele directly, are also helpful in recruiting clientele who originate through such traditional means as referrals and networking. Higher levels of such Web site efficacy are associated with higher levels of efficacy among communication channels that lead people to these sites, which suggests a possible causal connection in which the communication channels contribute to the Web sites’ efficacy. More generally, Web genres, such as business Web sites, may become effective not just on their own merits but also by being integrated into effective genre systems.

Among the variety of communication channels that could lead people to independents’ business Web sites, this study found that two sets were significantly more helpful than all others: those involving search engines and a business’s own Internet communication. Both of these, like the business Web sites themselves, are kinds of new media. By contrast, none of the less-helpful sets of channels, apart from links from other Web sites, are kinds of new media. Such a pattern raises the possibility that medium may be a factor in the integrity and efficacy of genre systems. The convenience of a shared medium might facilitate communication from one genre to the next, such as when an e-mail posting includes a hyperlinked Web address enabling ready access to the Web site with just a click. Correspondingly, the inconvenience of traversing different media might impede communication from one genre to the next, such as when a Web site can be accessed only after typing its long and unmemorable address. This media factor could thereby contribute to the systemic character of genre systems, reinforcing and thereby perpetuating genre systems that can operate efficiently but undermining and potentially diminishing genre systems that cannot. For instance, such a factor could have contributed to the relatively modest impact shown here by referrals and networking, which have traditionally been independents’ top marketing methods but were not rated as comparably helpful in leading people to independents’ marketing Web sites. Genres used when making referrals and networking might be impeded from developing systemic connections with new media genres as strong as those of genres sharing the same new-media foundation.

For independent technical communicators seeking to improve the efficacy of their own Web site or the Web sites of their clients—and by extension for technical communication employees responsible for their employer’s Web site—the results of this study can offer some practical guidance. The typical participant seemed invested heavily in some marketing methods and communication channels but lightly or not at all in others, and the particular repertoire of favored methods and channels varied somewhat from participant to participant. These extremes of investment and underinvestment may reflect not just the strengths or weaknesses of the methods and channels themselves but also participants’ own communication circumstances and preferences. Such an observation echoes results from earlier surveys of independents (STC, 2000, 2002, 2004; STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG 2005a, 2005b), in which respondents presented with a large assortment of marketing practices typically selected or highly rated only a few. Collectively, results from all these studies suggest that many independents have been pursuing a limited repertoire of marketing practices while neglecting or not fully engaging in other marketing practices that work well for their peers.

The interview responses described above illustrate how each set of channels, even the low-rated print documents of other organizations, had considerable successes in directing traffic to the Web sites of some participants. As well, the survey responses indicate that even brochure-like Web sites, typically overshadowed by more active marketing methods, had considerable successes as primary or secondary marketing tools in recruiting clientele for some participants. Independent technical communicators could draw on these experiences of their peers to expand their own marketing repertoire.

More generally, many technical communicators are no doubt familiar with the feeling that their work could benefit from better marketing, marketing not just in the narrow sense explored in this study but also in the broader sense of justifying their work and their professional contributions. This study, through both its genre systems theoretical framework and its empirical results, underscores how a genre’s success might rely on the success of its genre systems. When defending the efficacy of their work, such as its impact on audiences, technical communicators could expand the issue from the narrow focus on their work itself to advocate for their clients’ or employers’ greater commitment to the genre systems that bring audiences to their work. Such a shift to a more intertextual and systemic vision of technical communication work could better market technical communication, in both the narrow and broader senses.

APPENDIX: Survey Instrument

Below is an excerpt of the survey instrument used for participants based outside the United States. It includes minor changes from the instrument first used for U.S.-based participants.

References

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About the Author

John Killoran is an assistant professor in the English Department of Long Island University, Brooklyn campus. He researches Web communication and has published in such journals as IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, the Journal of Business and Technical Communication, and the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. He is a senior member of STC. Contact: john.killoran@liu.edu.

Manuscript received 12 August 2009; revised 4 February 2010; accepted 6 February 2010.