Company Website – Is it a glorified brochure or a revenue-generating tool?
Today almost, every company big/small has a website which gives information about the company profile, their product/service, contact information, office locations, management profile, mission and vision statements, career, partnership, CSR, success stories, event photos, office culture and the About Us page leadership team profiles with photos. Additionally, most of the websites do showcase the plethora of stock photos in a carousel on the home page. This is the typical theme of the content across most of the corporate websites.
Well, one could argue –
What is wrong with projecting these information on the website?
I myself have been pondering over this question for a while.
I analyzed many corporate websites and I found that most websites – which showcase this stapled information’s is just like marketing brochure in the digital format. The reason, I call it marketing brochure is because - the emphasis is given on big stock images, Management Profile, About Us, Career, Office Locations, Client list. Product/Service information is also given prominence in most cases, but the visual treatment given is similar to the About Us page.
I guess, website development and maintenance is primarily considered as an expense from the business and accounting point of view. Thus, most of the information displayed on the company website is very similar to an advertisement billboard – glorifying the company.
But, if one merely considers a website as a revenue-generating platform – the focus immediately changes from About Us to Customer Expectations. Thus, the obvious questions one will ask in the design stage of the website is –
What is the information which website visitor is looking for?
Anticipating the customer needs and expectations on the website should be the primary focus.
Primary information displayed on leading brands website
To justify this hypothesis, I analyzed the website of some of the leading and well-known companies and the result was:
The common theme is to showcase product/services and support information – which is of prime importance to most of the website visitors. All the ancillary information like About Us, Management Profiles, Leadership Team, Office Location, Investor Relationship, Corporate News, CSR, etc. are given secondary treatment and thus have links to these information at the bottom of the page.
Conclusion
Thus, I say that the website of the company should not be a glorified brochure in a digital format. But it should be considered as a revenue-generating platform to give precise information to the visitors of the website – who are primarily the existing or potential customers. Additionally, similar to how a salesperson has a business target to achieve, the website should also have tangible KPI set to analyze the lead generated, time-spend on the website, feedback from the customer, and if possible tie it back to the revenue generation.
Do you agree?