Value of a website?

The world-wide-web [www] is an immensely powerful engine. And your website is one of many tools that can be effectively applied in harnessing its value. Should someone interpret this to mean a corporate website is not entirely necessary I offer this advice...

Neglect your website and you become the architect of your own demise.

Now that's a pretty strong assertion deserving of an explanation. There are many models describing the various stages a consumer experiences, and marketers target, throughout the purchase process. I like to keep it simple and focus on three 1.awareness 2.conviction, and 3.conversion. The following is my breakdown of the associated value and function of your website at each of these three stages.

Creating awareness: poor
Given a website is a destination, so to speak, it doesn't make sense to say it is a tool for creating awareness. After all how can you consciously decide to go some where, when you are unaware of its existence. Now of course one can argue a corporate site is an effective vehicle for building awareness of new products, line extensions, etc that exist under a corporate or brand umbrella. To an extent this is true. We can expect a small lift in awareness resulting from piggy-back or switch-and-bait tactics where a visitor navigates to our site to view 'A' and, via good creative, be positively exposed to 'B'. The problem with any reliance on this, is the lift in awareness is a residual outcome; based on something of a 'wish-and-a-prayer' strategy. Perhaps I am being a little harsh, but I want to bring home the point to small and medium sized business in particular, entities with precious few marketing dollars, your website should never be thought of as the primary tool for creating consumer awareness. The world-wide-web however, can be a spectacular tool. That's an entirely different topic I'll leave to future posts.

Creating conviction: excellent
As producers we have to earn buyers' trust or conviction that 'purchasing our solution is their best investment'. This holds true whether we produce goods or services for purchase by integrators, value-added resellers, or end-consumers. Think about the last purchase you made that involved what you considered to be an important investment. Now by investment I don't just mean monetary; more often than not the sticker price is just a filter. Perhaps your career advancement, the safety of your family, or even just the best holiday experience rested on the decision. Did you visit a few websites to do a little fact finding before deciding on your vendor? Odds are extremely good your answer is yes. Today, few purchase decisions of any importance are made without at least one key stakeholder investigating our competence via the web. Do you really want to leave the critical job of building trust in your solutions entirely up to the social web, or is the appropriate strategy to invest in developing your own content on your own site?

Conversion: it depends
Some products/services require much more consideration and interaction than others before a purchase decision is finalized. In this case conversion is typically the result of some form of one-on-one communication. This said repeat sales may be most efficiently served by some form of e-commerce on your site. For producers of products/services in the low-to-moderate risk category, all we have to do is look at companies such as EBay and Amazon to see the power of a carefully crafted site for conversion.
Regardless of the sales cycle one important conversion tool should be common to virtually all sites - your readily accessible contact information. Unless you're a household name, with a stellar brand reputation, you can't hide behind automated contact forms. Prospects need to feel confident you really exist and there is a means of contacting you, including some form of real-time conversation. If you don't trust your customers with your contact information, why should they trust you with their money?

Don't let the prospect of building a productive website overwhelm you. Given the markets we sell in to are dynamic, so too should our websites continually evolve. Providing you 1. partner with a talented [a.k.a. proven] web development company, and 2. ensure you have great web analytics in place, you should be able to quickly evolve your site into a really valuable tool that assists your prospects in selecting you as their solution of choice.

Understanding the strategic role and subsequent value of your website is the first step in building an effective web presence. With a little nurturing and solid commitment to performance, your site can be the catalyst for success beyond your wildest dreams.