Websites have become the hub of most clients marketing activity and rightly so .
However, when the site is done and it has awesome functionality, great navigation, all the connections to social networks, a whizzy visual device to hold attention, a contact on every page twice! and more key words than you can throw a stick , ask yourself this…
Does it help position and differentiate your brand? Does it provide a platform for you to us the same visuals and messages on your other marketing vehicles, so you have a cohesive campaign across all your marketing activity and have you planned a campaign of activity to market your new site?
I ask this because designing a website is not simply a graphic exercise demonstrating this years fashions in type and the latest web tools. It is potentially a platform for your whole marketing campaign. Consequently the brand values should be clearly differentiated and the whole website considered in the context of your total ‘marketing mix’.
The marketing mix helps you define the marketing elements to succssfully p0sition your market offering. Essentially, delivering the right product in the right place at the right price at the right time. To determine the optimum mix, consider the 4 P’s as they are commonly referred to;
Product (or service) Place, Price, Ppromotion.
The Product decisions involves establishing exactly what the customer wants, which need your product or service fulfills. Place is researching exactly where your ‘target’ looks to find your product or service. Price is determining the value the customer is prepared to pay for your product and Promotion is where and when can you get your marketing message across ie via Direct mail, TV, press advertising PR, Web or a combination of all of the above. Get this formula bang on and you have major success on your hands. Get one element woefully wrong and you can miss the boat entirely.
So when you consider the redesign of your website think about differentiating your brand, think about creating a cohesive marketing platform that will work cumulatively, giving your target audience greater opportunity to recall your brand values and buy into your positioning. Think about all the ingredients in your marketing mix and most of all think about using a Big Stick!!
