It's no secret that the web is crucial to your marketing efforts. It's the starting point for most customer relationships. It's where your customers find you, learn about you and form an opinion about your company. It's where your customers figure out what differentiates you from the competition. The web does all this and more, because that is where customers go to get their information.
Companies get it. That's why they have websites. I would be hard pressed to name a company that doesn't have one. Even startups have websites, and it's often their first marketing initiative to help give their company credibility. And that's the key reason for a website: credibility. The web is not simply a sales or marketing tool. It's your brand. It's your platform to differentiate your company, and establish credibility with your customers.
Consider your own behavior. Every time you surf the web, you are judging companies. What is your impression of a company that has an outdated or ugly website? What does that tell you about the organization and its products? Does it make you want to do business with them? Does it motivate you to look for other options? Your reaction, or even repulsion, is a clear sign of how you are evaluating companies online, and deciding if they are credible or not.
Perception is reality. If you don't have the time or the interest to thoroughly evaluate a company, you make assumptions. If a company's website is attractive and well organized, that's a sign. If the content clearly articulates what the company does and why, that's another sign. If the site has interesting articles and videos about their area of expertise, that's a sign too. In your mind you are forming an opinion on the company based on how well they are presenting themselves. The better the experience, the more credible they appear.
Check out a corporate website like Apple's. You get what you expect. They have a distinctive brand that people can easily identify with. Who doesn't love those Apple-PC commercials? Not only are they entertaining, they clearly speak to the Apple experience. The same is true for their website. It has a clean minimalist design, vibrant pictures and it's very easy to navigate. You can find ample product information to answer almost any question that comes to mind. It's just like a Mac.
Apple gets it, but they are an exception. Most companies' web strategies are abysmally shortsighted. They use the web simply as a marketing tool. Visit most corporate sites, and you will find the obligatory material: company profile, services, customer testimonials and contact information. Some companies go a step further and optimize their sites to generate sales leads, but still it is simply the same-old, same-old. Would you evaluate your website on par with Apple's? Would you suggest that your website clearly reflects your company's brand?
Building your brand online is difficult. It is time consuming, and hard work. You can't simply call a web development firm, and ask them to build a website that reflects your brand. But that is exactly what most companies are doing. They find a local web development firm, conduct some references, tell them what they want, and let the developer deliver an attractive site with pretty pictures. The company invests ten to twenty thousand dollars, and lets the site sit there until it feels old and tired. And then the process starts all over again.
Would you delegate the design and development of your products in such a haphazard way? Would you outsource your key intellectual property to a third party, simply because you can? No! You manage that process through and through, because that's how you make money. That's how you maintain competitive advantage. And that's how you build winning customer relationships. The same attention to detail you have for your products, needs to be applied online. Your website is your brand.
Take some time and study your website, and ask if it lives up to the brand. Start by judging it with your eyes. The web is a visual medium. We have to rely on our eyes to make judgments, because we can't use any of our other senses. We don't listen, smell, touch or taste on the web. We see.
When we visit an attractive site with relevant images, a clean design and is easy to navigate we are immediately drawn in. Our eyes confirm that this site has positive qualities, and we should investigate further. We then scan the site for information. We have expectations of where we will find the menus, the company bio and other pertinent details. If they all fit our expectations, we take another step into the site. The goal of a well crafted website is to continually draw the customer further-and-further into the site. We do that by pleasing the eye, and putting information where the audience expects it to be.
Does your website visually draw you in? Does it help you find the information you are looking for?
The next step is to evaluate your site at a cognitive level. Look at the content, the message structure, language and volume of information. Essentially your site has to do the work of a sales person. It should clearly articulate what you do, who you serve, why your company exists, and what others have to say about your services. Get into their minds, and clearly understand what they want and need from you.
To effectively deliver your brand promise, your website has to be able to sell without any human interaction – no matter how complex your products or services. You could be selling accounting services, capital equipment or cleaning supplies; it doesn't matter. The site has to be able to sell as well, if not better, than your best sales person. People are spending up-to an hour on your site assessing your products and services. They want to get the top level details, and then have an opportunity to go deep and find more detailed information.
The more complex your products or services, the more people use their cognitive faculties to evaluate your solution. That's why we have sales people. The human interaction plays to your customers' cognitive needs, and helps them clearly assess your capabilities. But as people become more comfortable with the web, their expectations for information are rising too. Customers aren't relying on sales people to fulfill their informational needs. They are using the web to gather this information. Help them. Anticipate your customers' questions. Give them straight up answers. And direct them to engage a sales person at the appropriate time, which is likely when they need a demonstration or pricing. Share as much information as you can on your site without giving away your trade secrets.
Can you confidently say your website sells as well as your best sales person?
Building a credible brand experience online is no easy task, but it's crucial. People are relying on what they find online more and more. It's where relationships start, and it's where expectations are set. You can't simply use the web as a tool. It's your brand. Treat it as such.
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