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What Is Your Company’s Value Proposition, and How Do You Represent It On Your Web Site?

Topic: Marketing | Comments (1)

Posted on December 10, 2009 by admin

wp_websiteOn my last blog post I mentioned that every small business has an opportunity to better get the word out (facilitate the marketing process, acquire customers, and communicate with them) by creating a web presence.  For many of you, that is something you thought about and addressed long ago.  Again, if you have not yet, there are simple ways to address the need and opportunity.  WorkingPoint offers you one of the simplest with our one page Online Company Profile feature.

Today I’ll discuss another very basic but important topic, and that is what you put on your web page or web site.    When you create a home page for your company web site or a one-page profile on the web, you are representing your company, your brand, your business.  It is like putting your company up on a bill-board for many people to see.  So what do want to tell them?

This is not an insignificant topic for most small businesses.  My wife creates web sites for small businesses.  She can create them and get them up fairly efficiently.  She often tells me that the most challenging aspect of creating these web sites is working with her clients to create the content that should go on them.  Typically that is not a technical issue; it is a marketing or communications issue.  So, what do you want to say about your business?

IMHO, your one page profile or home page of your web site should state several things:

  • What – The most fundamental and obvious topic you should cover on your web site is to simply state what your value proposition is.  What products and / or services do you offer?  Briefly describe them in as few words as possible.
  • Who – Communicate who you are providing your product or service for.  You want viewers of your web site to very easily be able to determine whether you have something for them.  Make it easy for them.  Tell them.
  • How – How do you provide the high-level value proposition?  Here, you offer one level of detail that enables your viewers to quickly get the complete picture of what your product or service consists of.  This one level of detail also enables you to set up much more detail about your products and services further down on the page or on other pages of your site.

5 Second Rule –  One of the things that is very special about the internet is that there is a ton of information available.  If your web site does not efficiently communicate what you do for whom and how within a very few seconds, these viewers will go somewhere else.  In short, a viewer of your home page needs to be able to comprehend the what, who, and how within 5 seconds.  If they can’t, you will probably lose them.  The home page of your web site needs to be similar to your elevator pitch for your business.  If you are cold-calling someone to make a sale, you need to tell them in much less than a minute what you do and why they should buy from you.  The home page of your web site should do the same.

Other things you may want to do on your home page:

  1. Give the viewer the opportunity to become a customer or subscriber. A call to action to sign-up, buy or subscribe for your product or service is ideal.  Calling you or sending you an email works too.  Answer the question of how you want the viewer to become a customer.  Make it easy for them.
  2. State what your business or brand represents. Answer the question of what you want to always be known for, how you are special, and what principles you will always operate by.  This is about your brand.
  3. Provide some customer testimonials. They are compelling.  They allow your viewers to see that you are meeting the needs of clients and pleasing them.  That helps them buy from you.

WorkingPoint follows this model.  At the top of our home page, within a very few seconds, a viewer can capture <what> we provide – an online management solution for small businesses <who>.  On the right side of the top portion of the page, you see what features that management solution includes – online invoicing, expense management, double entry bookkeeping, contact management, inventory management, etc.   This is the <how> one level of detail I described.  Below that, we state what makes us special and we want to be known for:  that our solution is comprehensive, simple and very high quality.  Below that we offer some customer testimonials.  And of course, we very prominently place a button that enables a viewer to sign-up.

What do you want to communicate about your company to viewers?