Fresh insights

 

 

 

Are you planning to build a web site?

 

A marketing communications plan will help you a lot when you are building or redesigning a web site.  Just like with other collaterals and programs, you need to know the purpose of the site, the audience(s), and the key messages. Whether you are developing your own site or working with a site designer, the following tips will help you to create a site that truly works for your business.

 

Purpose

Web sites can serve a variety of purposes, from simply providing the 5 W’s to actually doing business on line.

 

Many web sites serve as an informative on-line brochure for the organization.  If this is your purpose, you will want to promote this ‘brochure’ by featuring the web site address often – on your business cards, letterhead, print brochures, advertisements and any other collaterals you produce.

 

If you want visitors to bookmark your site and to revisit it, consider offering incentives such as a newsletter, excellent links to other sites, tools they can use, or new information that you continually update.

 

In the end, you want visitors to your site to do something – either contact you or purchase your product.  Everything on your site should be directed toward your desired outcome.  That means that everything else should be edited out.

 

Audience(s)

While anyone will be able to view your site, you need to decide who you specifically want to inform or persuade. Then you need to develop the site with that audience in mind.

 

A site for teens will likely look different than a site for seniors, for example…and a site for human resources professionals will look different than a site for chartered accountants.

 

Once you’ve decided who your target audience is, you should then consider:

·         what interests your target audience,

·         how much they are likely to already know about your product,

·         what information they need in order to do what you want them to do,

·         how much information is too much, and

·         what kind of language you should be using with them. For example…

o        is the audience primarily English speaking,

o        will they understand technical terms related to your work,

o        what age and income range do they fall into,

o        what would be appealing to them,

o        how should you be ‘speaking’ to them on your site,

o        are there images or language that they would find offensive

 

Key messages

The look of your web site – its colours, images and text – all communicate messages about you and your business.

  • Your site does not need to convey everything there is to know about you. You need to decide on the focus of your site and the key messages you want to convey about yourself in this manner.
  • The site should have a look and feel that harmonizes with your business cards and other collaterals you produce.
  • The text, graphics, and colours should reflect the nature of your business and should cause viewers to feel good about you.
  • Text should be simple and clear – less is better than more.
  • Navigation should also be clear and simple – people need to be able to find their way around the site and back to the beginning with ease – or they will give up.
  • Just as with most other documents and presentations, how you begin is critical.  Your first page will help many people to decide whether or not they want to go further.  Careful thought about what you say and how this page looks is important.
  • Do not have pages on your site under construction – ever!  If a page is being built, it should not be available. Going to a page with no content is frustrating to visitors and will lose business for you.

 

Evaluation

Get feedback. Once your site is up and running, ask people you trust to tell you from time to time what else you can do to help your site communicate effectively to your target audience. 

 

 

inlsight communications can develop a marketing communications plan for your web site. Contact us for more information at insight@insightcomm.ca.

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