Employing a E-content person

[Whatever]

We have not so long ago launched our new office stationery website and a big part of this is updating it when the suppliers send new files. This is weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly. This can take up a fair amount of time but is very important due to the small margins on a lot of the items in the catalogue. If one pricing update is missed we can lose money. The updates are run by uploading the csv files and running a php script via SSH.

What we also miss is someone to work on Google Base (although that's not so much of an issue once it's up and running) and Adwords. Also someone who could do work on daily/weekly promotions and also help with mailshots etc.

So in a nutshell, what would peoples expectations be for a job that entailed:

Updating price/product files (via upload and script execution)
Small amount of server management (ideally just removing logs and tweaking)
Minor mods (ideally but outside developers used for most work)
Promotional work (on-site graphics, Googlebase, Google Adwords)
Email marketing (working with other members of staff to design and run promotions etc)

I realise some bits might have to be learnt and one person might not be able to do all things but just trying to see if it would be viable?

Cheers

[net-curtains]

We have not so long ago launched our new office stationery website and a big part of this is updating it when the suppliers send new files. This is weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly. This can take up a fair amount of time but is very important due to the small margins on a lot of the items in the catalogue. If one pricing update is missed we can lose money. The updates are run by uploading the csv files and running a php script via SSH.

What we also miss is someone to work on Google Base (although that's not so much of an issue once it's up and running) and Adwords. Also someone who could do work on daily/weekly promotions and also help with mailshots etc.

So in a nutshell, what would peoples expectations be for a job that entailed:

Updating price/product files (via upload and script execution)
Small amount of server management (ideally just removing logs and tweaking)
Minor mods (ideally but outside developers used for most work)
Promotional work (on-site graphics, Googlebase, Google Adwords)
Email marketing (working with other members of staff to design and run promotions etc)

I realise some bits might have to be learnt and one person might not be able to do all things but just trying to see if it would be viable?

Cheers

Sounds like a nice little job, I wouldn't mind doing that myself 

What system are you using to power the website? Might be more cost effective to hire a freelancer/web company on a fixed rate to do the updates when they're required, rather than taking on a full-time employee.

Just noticed your copyright info is pushed to the right, I'm guessing that's meant to appear as a footer.

[Whatever]

It runs Magento(!).

We did have a quote for a monthly retainer from the company who built it initially but it was too much to lay out each month. We'd still then have the issues of someone to do promotion on the site and email marketing on our other products. I'm the most technically minded here and I just don't have the time but we've spent good money developing the site for it to be sitting there. We do get organic sales but not many so really need to get onto it.

Yes, should be a footer but certian browsers render it OK and others not. Again I just haven't had time to sort it, along with the link colours at the bottom.

[Mike@TheWhippinpost]

When you say expectations, what do you mean?

[Whatever]

Salary. If we were to look at employing someone to do those jobs, what sort of salary do people feel we'd need to be offering?

[net-curtains]

It runs Magento(!).

Ew, bloaty. It looks a nice, clean site though.

We did have a quote for a monthly retainer from the company who built it initially but it was too much to lay out each month. We'd still then have the issues of someone to do promotion on the site and email marketing on our other products. I'm the most technically minded here and I just don't have the time but we've spent good money developing the site for it to be sitting there. We do get organic sales but not many so really need to get onto it.

Salary wise I don't think you'd get much change from 20k, after all you'd need someone with web and marketing skills. I guess you might get lucky and find someone straight from uni/college, someone wanting to start in web work who might do it for less, though they'd probably move on after a while.

Personally I'd approach a few smaller web companies or freelancers and get some quotes for the web updates. Regular update work is very attractive to smaller companies as it's a guaranteed income. Likewise with the marketing, I bet a lot of smaller companies would bite your hand off for this work.

You'd then have specialists working on each area, and as well as just taking on the tasks you provide them with, they might also make suggestions and offer other services to increase turnover that you hadn't though of.

[Whatever]

Cheers for the thoughts, something to chew over. I did think somewhere around the £20k mark.

[net-curtains]

Cheers for the thoughts, something to chew over. I did think somewhere around the £20k mark.

In that case for your budget you'd get a decent amount of work from a web and SEO company for £1000 a month each.

The drawback from employing someone is that unless they're the dynamic type they'll be happy to take your lead and just plough through the work you give them. Whereas a decent SEO/promotional company and a good web agency should provide an initial consultation, regular reviews and suggest marketing strategies and improvements to your website design to maximise it's performance. If they don't, then don't give them the work.