Tell your story quickly, update it regularly, collect contact information – all with an eye to the ultimate online marketing tool - sending email

Back in the late 20th century, web designers coined the term "brochure-ware" to describe corporate marketing websites. It suggested something that was boring, lifeless and essentially served no real purpose. The words "brochure-ware" meant the website "didn't do anything."

But the truth is corporate marketing websites serve an extremely important role in your company's marketing and sales efforts – they can be the most effective way of telling your company's story and establishing your brand. The problem is that unless your company does online transactions of some sort (ecommerce) or is a web-based service, chances are your website is "brochure-ware" and doesn't really "do something."

But your marketing website can "do something" for your company – increase the value of your company's brand and gather sales leads. Here are the three things you must do with your website:
1. Tell your story quickly.
2. Update it regularly.
3. Collect contact information.

This article is the first of a three-part series that describes how to do it. The first is:

#1 TELL YOUR STORY QUICKLY

People have very short attention spans. On the web, it is estimated that you have less than 2 seconds to grab a viewer's attention. And nothing causes a viewer to lose interest faster than confusion. So, your company's homepage must instantly show what you do, or viewers will not understand why they should learn more.

Technique A – Be Obvious

It is hard to be too obvious on a website. If your company's offering is straightforward enough, like a law firm, put "law offices" or "law firm" on your homepage. If you repair bicycles, put those words on. However, for many companies, that isn't enough. The need to quickly differentiate themselves from other companies that do that same thing or something very similar.

One trick is to list your products and/or services directly on the homepage. Very often this can be done in the main navigation. For example, San Francisco law firm Haas & Najarian (www.haasnaja.com) lists all of their practice areas in the main navigation.

This has two effects. First, it simply shows viewers exactly what Haas & Najarian does. Second, it promotes cross-selling.

"Our site shows current and potential clients the breadth of our practice. So, people who worked with us primarily in commercial real estate, for example, are quickly reminded that we also handle hospitality or litigation matters," said Louis N. Haas, Haas & Najarian's managing partner.

Technique B – Tell Stories

Case studies, client success stories, news – these are all great ways to show, rather than tell, what your company really does.

Here's an example: which do you think more effectively tells your company's story?

a) An "About Us" page which says: "We're a fantastic company. We're client focused and deliver results."

b) A homepage with a "news" item on it reading: "Our client saved $1 million using our services. Date: last month."

Answer b) of course. It shows that your company is both dynamic (because the headline is recent) and provides a real benefit to its clients (you saved your client money). Answer a) could be from any company, on any site in the world.

FIRE Solutions, which sells and customizes online classes for the financial industry, uses both techniques to tell visitors what they do and why they should care (www.FIRESolutions.com). In the left column, they have news items that describe new offerings relating to recent business events (money laundering can be related to terrorism). In the center, they list their products. Both of these techniques help viewers immediately understand what FIRE does and why their products matter to the viewer's business.

"By combining a news item that ties our products in with current events and a specific listing of our products, we've found that viewers understand our offering better than ever," said Drew Noone, FIRE's COO.

Technique C - Look Appropriate

Viewers need to be able to tell that your website represents a company that will take care of their needs. It must look appropriate to your market. If your business is a super-contemporary shoe store, it should look groovy. If it is a bank, it should look solid and reliable. It's all a matter of appropriateness.

This appropriateness is a matter of design and brand, and is too broad a topic to cover here in any real detail. However, the easiest way to accomplish this is by researching what viewers will expect from your kind of company.

Other businesses that do what your business does may have already created a kind of design language that applies to your business. They probably use colors and shapes that viewers expect to see, and the more conservative your business is, the closer it should stay to these visual clues.

As an example, Alpine Investors (www.alpine-investors.com), a young private equity firm, recently launched their website. Their design and colors stay close to the look and feel of other companies in the same category.

"Although our team has a great deal of experience, the firm itself is new, so it is important that we have a highly polished and solid look to our website," said Chris Workman, an associate at Alpine Investors.

Their site uses dark blues and has a boxy, linear design that implies solidity and strength, and has very simple, easy to read text. This type of design is typical of Alpine's industry.

Conclusion

If your site shows viewers exactly what you do and why they should care, you're accomplished the first step to transcending "brochure-ware" and creating a great online marketing tool.

NEXT:
3 Things Your Marketing Site Must Do:
#2 – Update Regularly