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What is your Web
site's intended purpose?
This should be the first question you ask yourself...long before
copywriting or design are even considered. A Web site without a purpose
is just so much cyberjunk. But a Web with a strong, focused purpose, is
a powerful weapon for profit or organization-building. So...what's your
Web site's purpose?
- Selling a Product or Service
- This is the most common intended purpose for a
Web site, and it's a good one. After all, what's a business for? But it's amazing to watch companies
that are otherwise effective
sellers of their product or service, fall into the "it's all about
us" trap when they crank up a Web site.
-
In marketing, it's never about you
or your company. It's always about your
prospects and customers. And developing a site that's customer
focused, clean, fast, clear, and effective at turning viewers into
buyers, takes copywriting, design, programming, and World Wide Web
promotional skills not generally
found on staff.
-
First
of all you have to get prospects to your site. That requires knowledge
of:
- Search
engine registration and positioning
- Internet
promotion and advertising
- Offline
promotion and advertising
Then
you have to keep them at your site. That requires a professionally
designed and coded site that:
- Downloads
fast
- Not
loaded up with pretty, but sluggish graphics
- Built
with lean, efficient HTML
- Works on a
broad spectrum of browsers
- Uses
latest programming techniques judiciously
- Avoids
bells and whistles only supported by newest browsers
- Works on a
broad spectrum of monitors
- Designed
with an understanding of the intended audience, and their likely
level of system sophistication
- Designed
using colors and dimensions aimed at the largest slice of the
current browser population
-
Then
you have to move them to the desired action you wish them to take. That
requires a site:
- Written with
copy that builds benefit upon benefit, always aiming at the desired
action goal. Each page is either designed to promote the desired action
or support the prospect's decision to take the action.
- Designed to
flow from initial impression to desired action in a logical,
friendly way.
- Designed
with straightforward navigation. No dead ends. No confusing or
ambiguous links.
- Designed to
keep them there. No links inviting them to leave. Plenty of useful,
easy-to-read information about your product or service.
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- Membership
Marketing
-
A
Web site is the perfect marketing vehicle for a non-profit organization
trying to build membership or better provide member services. It has the
benefits of low cost, immediate 24/7 member availability, and easy
updating.
As
with a business, it's critically important for a non-profit Web site
design to avoid the ego-stroking temptation to make the
site...especially the opening pages...all about the organization. Who we
are, where we came from, how many millennia we've been in operation,
etc. These
are all what we call "Your mother must be very proud of you"
elements. It's not that they have no place on the site. It's just that
we must keep in mind the site visitor, sitting there looking at the
screen. What's going through his or her head? What's
in it for me? That's
all they care about...what's in it for them. And if a site spends a lot
of space...especially initially viewed space, like the home page,
talking about the organization, the visitor can be gone in a
mouse-click. It's
not a benefit to them, so it has no ability to hold them. And it's
nearly useless in terms of moving them to the desired action of becoming
a member, or buying a member service. What
your non-profit needs is a site designed by someone...
-
- With
experience as Director of Membership Marketing for one of the
largest sportsman/conservation organizations in the U.S.
- Who knows
how to write benefit-rich copy. Words that will compel a site
visitor to extend their journey, from page to page, until they're
performing the desired action.
- Who
understands the parameters within which non-profit organizations
function.
-
Non-profit
organizations are a perfect fit for the Web, because they generally have
multiple channels of communications with their members. Each of these
channels can be effectively and profitably interwoven with the Web site,
in ways that increase their productivity and reduce their costs.
-
Cost
reduction is one of the Web's greatest strengths.
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- Customer/Member
Service
-
One
of the Web's most effective functions is customer or member servicing.
It can deliver a significantly improved level of services and a
substantial reduction in the cost of providing those services.
-
Just
something as simple as a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section can
significantly reduce phone and mail questions. Other useful Web site
service functions include:
-
- Online
troubleshooting guides
- Assembly
instructions
- Return
instructions
- Updates
- Software
- Drawings
- Instructions
- Policies
- New
product/service offerings
- Special
customer/member offers
-
It's
easy to see how these and other online service functions can reduce
human interaction...which, of course, reduces your overhead.
-
There
are even service providers who can link directly from your Web site,
acting as your customer service department in a way that's transparent
to your customer or member. These pay-per-service providers offer a
viable option to staffing up a customer service department to handle
heavy seasons or other non-continuous needs.
-
Content
and Design can build these functions into your site, and arrange the
service provider relationships for you.
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- There are many
other purposes
-
Useful
and profitable purposes for a Web site are only limited by your
imagination. The important point is that a Web site must have a specific
purpose, and there must be an intended, desired action you wish to have
the visitor take.
-
Armed
with these two pieces of information, Content and Design can build you a
powerful Web site that will actually accomplish something for your
business or non-profit organization. Something that'll show up on the
bottom line...whether or not that bottom line is called profit.
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