Digital Strategist – by Silu Modi

It’s easy to forget the second word when talking about Digital Marketing. The word ‘digital’ just describes the channel being used. It’s actually all about ‘marketing’. Without a thorough understanding of the basics of marketing, the next new shiny toy won’t help reap any rewards.

My clients often ask me what the next new technology or channel is for their digital marketing efforts. I can often sense the frustration when I tell them to first work on their website, write some compelling thought-leadership pieces and send excerpts out to their audience using an email campaign tool. Then measure, adjust, refocus, lather, rinse and repeat. Only when you’ve exhausted the basics should we consider adding a new channel to your marketing.

Learning the basics of marketing is easy. Executing the basics of marketing is hard. Not difficult, but it takes time, labour and consistent persistence. It takes some time (months, usually) to see measurable results from basic marketing. But once you have the basics right and firing on all cylinders, adding a new technology or channel into the mix is much easier.

As my old boss used to say… “Don’t worry about the tricks of the trade until you’ve actually learned the trade!”

It seems more and more of my blog posts have the obligatory Seth Godin reference. It didn’t take long to find a post from Seth that (again) summed this up better than I could:

Fledgling sushi chefs spend months (sometimes years) doing nothing but making the rice for the head chef.

If the rice isn’t right, it really doesn’t matter what else you do, you’re not going to be able to serve great sushi.

Most of the blogging and writing that goes on about marketing assumes that you already know how to make the rice. It assumes you understand copywriting and graphic design, that you’ve got experience in measuring direct response rates, that you’ve made hundreds of sales calls, have an innate empathy for what your customers want and think and that you know how to make a compelling case for what you believe.

Too often, we quickly jump ahead to the new thing, failing to get good enough at the important thing.

This one’s an oldie, but a goodie. Seth Godin (Marketing Guru Extraordinaire) gives a simple 10 point plan on how to create a great website. I can’t argue with any one of his points. Some of my favourite points:

1. Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. I completely agree. I’ve found that the more people involved in creating (or strategizing) a website, the more watered-down the ideas become and the more ‘standard’ the website looks and feels. If you’re trying to generate interest, buzz or Google Juice, you’re not going to do it by taking a consensus of dozens of different opinions.
2. Get the best people possible. He makes a great point that’s been made over and over again. Ten mediocre people can’t do the job of one great ‘rock-star’.
3. One Voice. One Vision. Similar to point 1. One person needs to lead it with their vision, and have final say.
4. Don’t Settle. You get one chance. Every details matters. Every detail.

See also: How to create a Good Enough website.

Previously, I started talking about the basics your corporate site has to have to provide the information your customers will be looking for on your site. The list continues here:

Contact information
This is an easy one, but there are so many corporate websites that overlook it. The basics to provide on this page are:

1. A real street address for your head office and all regional offices
2. Real contact email addresses for Sales, Support, Questions, Press, General. By real, I mean an email address that is monitored and responded to by a human being within 48 hours. And that response needs to be human, relevant to the question or comment, with a real person’s name and response address attached to it.
3. A job board that is current. No old and filled jobs. All current openings posted. An email address to contact for each position (please don’t use one of those generic recruiting services that make the applicant fill out generic questionnaires. Instead, provide an email address to reply.
4. A phone number for each office and for general inquiries that is staffed by a human.

If someone is going to your Contact Information, they obviously want to contact you. Make it as easy as possible.

Frequently Asked Questions
This could be an offshoot of your Contact Page, but the FAQ needs to be questions that are… er… Frequently Asked. This is not the place to include puffery or sales/marketing speak. Answer the questions here and you’ll save yourself having to respond to dozens or hundreds of the same requests. Give the answers a human voice. Written by a real person. A mild sense of humour here doesn’t hurt if the questions are not serious.

Latest News
If you’re big enough, you’ve been in the news lately. This is the place to link to all the articles in the newspapers and top blogs. If it’s positive, you can thank them. If it’s critical, it’s a great place to respond to it. This is the toughest one, as many companies have a deep-seated fear of drawing attention to criticism, let alone responding to it publicly.

If you want your corporate website to be viewed as anything other than biased marketing fluffery, these are the basic things it needs to include. If you want to take it to the next level and actually interact with your customers, the company needs to take a deep breath, cast aside some basic corporate fears, and dip the corporate toe into this thing called Social Networking.

I posted earlier about what users are (or will be) looking for when they visit your company’s site. First let’s talk about the basics. What do you need to have on your site that just get you in the game (the table stakes, to use poker terminology).

Brand information
Obviously, the brand comes front and centre. The main landing page has to reflect your brand properly. All brand attributes need to be reflected, not only in the look and feel, but also in the experience. That means that, unless you want your brand associated with “wasting my time,” or “making me do unnecessary things,” don’t have a splash page. Your URL leads directly to the message you want to get in front of your audience right away.

(Side Note: It seems that most web developers realize this intuitively. Most splash pages have the “Skip Intro” link, leading me to believe that most developers understand that people don’t want to see it. I’d love to see the stats to see how many people watch the splash intro in its entirety.)

Company information
Who are you? What do you stand for? Who are your leaders? What’s coming up for the company, including any major press releases, trade show presentations and public financial information. This is where people doing research into the company are going to gravitate. It’s a great opportunity to put your best foot forward.

Major product and/or service information
You have products or services you want to promote, right? Keep this section updated, relevant and with all of the information your customers will want to know about the products or services, including specifications, limitations, updates, notices and, if applicable, where and how to purchase them. If you don’t already have eCommerce capabilities, link to the resellers that have your products, preferably directly to the product purchase page. Make this interaction as Low Friction as possible.

Search engine (that works!)
Invest in a search engine for your site that actually works and delivers the results users are expecting. This is not just good user experience, but also a great way for you to get insight into what your customers relate to your brand. Don’t make them hunt. Again, Low Friction interaction on your site.

… Continued

The biggest challenge most companies have with their corporate website is making it relevant. The tough questions to ask when your corporate site is being built (or, more likely) redesigned are:

1. With billions of sites one could type into the address bar, why would they type in the name of my company? What would they be looking for?
2. Are we going to provide that?

For the first question, if you have a well known brand, you may think you know why the user is coming to your site. They want product sales information. Right?

Maybe not.

Recent studies have shown that for the web savvy users, product decisions are not made at the product’s website. Instead, those decisions are made from review sites, from shopping sites, or more often recently, through social networks. Going to your brand’s site is generally the last step in making a product decision. Looking for a final reason not to part with their hard earned money.

So, what is the user looking for? It can be several things:

• Locations to purchase
• Specifications
• Competitive information (why ours is better then theirs)
• Support
• Community

Therefore, question 2 is a difficult question. Are you really willing to provide any or all of the above on your company or brand site?

Over the next several posts, we’ll dive into some of the above reasons to discuss the pros and cons of providing what your users may want.