Visual Identity

More important to look good or feel good?

When was the last time you engaged a service provider without first checking out their website? The question is almost laughable these days. Before we even pick up a phone, often basing our decision to call or not to call, to engage or not to engage, we make a judgement based on the look of the website.

We live in a visual world.

Facebook posts get more attention if there’s a video or picture attached. Pinterest has taken off beyond anyone’s imagination. Your get a poor score from LinkedIn if your photo isn’t part of your profile.

We judge every day, all the time, based on how things look. (Just ask the folks at Homeland Security.)

It’s crucial to not only have a website, upon which you will surely be judged, but to have one that speaks to the audiences you are trying to reach. And once the look of the site is right, incorporating inbound marketing to make the site work is crucial.

Not sure where to start? Here are a few tips to get the process rolling.

Find a company you trust.

Back in my corporate days, when we needed to outsource a project, as we did when we built our first corporate website, we started where anyone should – with people we trusted. We asked around, looked at sites we liked, and chose a company based mostly on referrals from colleagues.

A visual identity doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. I hate to say it, but when people need a website, they often don’t know the right questions to ask and can get caught up in paying far too much for something they may not fully understand. Sure, some are more complex than others, but a trustworthy company with the right team in place will get you what you need – nothing more and nothing less.

Identify your target audiences.

This is crucial.

Who are you trying to reach? Men or women? Consumers or businesses? Boomers or millennials? White collar or blue collar? What industries?

The nicest looking site in the world to me may be a turnoff to you. So who is it you need to reach?

My own website is the best case study for this. I left my corporate job seven years ago to start my own firm. Along the way I met many new people – new clients, new partners, new prospects. One day someone I was partnering with told me that my website didn’t speak to me or the kind of work I did. He felt it was too feminine (I wasn’t offended) and looked as if I only served non-profits. It was a real wake-up call. I liked the site, but I wasn’t the prospective client.

The site we have now is 4.0. Sites evolve, work evolves, and clients change. Plan your visual identity – your logo and your website – based on what your potential clients want to see. It’s all about fresh ideas, right?

Invest in Inbound Marketing

A well-designed site and logo that speak to your audience is terrific, but is the site working for you? How do you know? The name of the game today is content. The more content you have on your site and the more it is refreshed, the better you’ll be for a search engine. It’s also important today to incorporate something that will help capture the email addresses of those who come to your site, allowing you to them market directly to them.

As with most unknowns, “inbound marketing” may sound scary, but with the right partner to guide you through, you can have your site actually working for you. It’s an investment that has strong analytics to accompany the work, clearly showing the “solid results” that are a part of our brand promise.

As Billy Crystal made famous as Fernando Lamas on Saturday Night Live many years ago, “It’s more important to look good than to feel good.”

If you have questions about websites, inbound marketing, or your visual identity, ask us. We’ve done some “mah-velous” work!