by Tiana Cameron, co-founder of a digital marketing fulfillment agency for mid to large size companies and a WordCamp Seattle 2016 Speaker
Extranet sounds super techie, doesn’t it?
Wikipedia’s definition is pretty techie:
“An extranet is a website that allows controlled access to partners, vendors and suppliers or anauthorized set of customers – normally to a subset of the information accessible from an organization’s intranet…it provides access to needed services for authorized parties….a private network organization.”
In plain talk, extranet is just a fancy term for “PORTAL” where you and your customers/clients can conduct business online.
Now, what is a WordPress powered extranet? The most amazing thing ever.
Think of it like a private, custom portal that you have complete control over. You get to choose and implement the features, set certain access for certain customers/clients and style the look of the extranet to your company’s visual brand.
A super awesome benefit is you get to keep your customers/clients in-house and not make them bounce around to different places to do things like:
- pay a deposit or invoice
- make an appointment
- sign a contract
- leave feedback on a document
Not to mention, you r own extranet keeps you from signing in to various websites to manage stuff for your business like:
- projects, tasks and teams
- prospects, leads and clients
- invoices and recurring payments
- email campaigns (for real!)
If you’re a frugal opportunist like me, the greatest advantage is ALL THE MONEY YOU SAVE when using it to substitute a lot of monthly subscriptions. Like, maybe enough money for a vacation!
Considering your own WordPress powered extranet? Learn all about my journey into how I created one for my freelance business, the unexpected bumps, wins and how much money I saved overall at WordCamp Seattle 2016! See you October 29th & 30th! 🙂