How Does a Business Dominate a Niche Online?
Corporate web projects are usually more technical than content-driven, although a good content balance is still necessary to make the jump from “blah blah corporate website” to “Wow… this is a cool company!”
Sometimes corporate websites exist just because they are expected to be there, and it’s usually obvious. When that’s the case, the opportunities that are being missed to set your business leagues apart from your competition are enormous.
Imagine being the undisputed King of the Hill.
Imagine informative reports or white papers on every aspect of your products and services, and what makes them better, available for instant download on your website. How would your retention rate and your revenue increase if you implemented follow-up sequences from those reports that connect the expertise of your people to other live, potential clients on the other end?
If you already think you are the 800 lb. gorilla in your market, but you are not communicating effectively with your potential new customers… you won’t be undisputed for long. And, if you aren’t maintaining a real conversation with your current clients, you will continually have high client acquisition costs because your attrition rates will be higher than if you had an ongoing dialogue.
In the classic The Art of War it says that to defeat your opponent, or in this case take his market share, you must attack the weakest point in his strongest strength. Never in the history of the world has it been possible to do this with such leverage as the internet allows when the muscle of a real online marketing plan is channeled effectively.
Corporate web design without a marketing plan and search engine optimization is just an overgrown business card. You might as well just print bumper stickers and save some expense. If you cannot come up with any unique reason or benefit to promote for someone to do business with you instead of a competitor then you are just another “me too” company in a sea of brochure websites sprinkled with zombie corporate-speak.