Cultivating Great Websites —Dana
THE FIRST thing your prospects do when they hear your company name is Google it. Let's hope that your URL is at the top of that search. They'll click on that link...and their assessment of you as a potential print provider begins. Are you prepared? Is your site optimized for your ideal customer?
Despite the growth of social media, your Website remains an important marketing tool. It's your online storefront. It will either invite people in or make them look elsewhere. With about 30,000 commercial printing firms in the U.S., prospects know they'll find what they're looking for online. If you're not there, or if your site doesn't grab them, they'll move on.
As someone who's studied printing Websites for more than a decade from the perspective of your clients, I've seen the good, the bad and the incredibly ugly.
Based on my observations of hundreds of these sites, I have some suggestions for ensuring your own site is a class act. There's a mental checklist that I follow when I visit a printer's site. It has more to do with the information than the look. Sizzle on a Website is a lot easier to come by than steak. But your customers come for the steak.
Think Like A Customer
Here's a sampling of questions that go through my mind as a potential customer of yours:
Is it 100 percent clear on the home page exactly what your business is all about? Are you a printer? A print broker? A print management firm? A marketing or media agency?
In the words of Robert De Niro, playing Travis Bickle in the movie Taxi Driver, "You talkin' to me?" Does your site speak to me and my problems?
Do you serve my industry and print the types of jobs we do?
Are you an offset printer or do you also do digital?
Are you in my state or region? Do you have multiple locations?
Are you interested in environmental sustainability?
Who are some of your current clients? Can I relate to them?
Is your equipment and technology up-to-date?
Are you independently owned? Who's in charge?
Are you going to be too expensive for us?
Are you customer-centric? Do you have educational info on your site?
Is it easy to send you files?
Does your equipment list fit my needs?
Do you seem like an award-winning company—a leader in your field or category?
Am I having an easy enough time navigating your site?
Is there something about your company that seems refreshingly different from all the other printers in your category?
Is there clearly a "corporate personality" that comes through loud and clear?
Can I find the names of the management team, and maybe some sales and service employees? Are there photos, as well?
Does this seem like a welcoming place for someone like me?
Let's focus a bit on the content. Make sure a professional writes it. Homegrown sites, both the design and writing standpoints, can be spotted from the get-go. Your site should exude professionalism.
Work with a writer who's done Websites before, because not everyone has that skill. High-quality content, written in clear and concise prose, can't be overestimated. Steer clear of jargon. Strive for new and creative ways to tell your story, describe your products and highlight your services.
Your site needn't be terribly deep. You can do a good job covering the basics with a handful of main sections and just a few pages in each section. This depends on how big your company is, but the typical printing establishment only needs a basic site. I don't think people expect that every bit of information will be included on your site these days.
There are additional ways to learn about you online. I'm thinking of blogs and social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. (If you haven't read Cary Sherburne's column on social media in the April 2010 issue of PI, it's worth reading on www.PIworld.com.) These new media take the focus off of corporate Websites.
Your site must be error-free. It must be checked and rechecked for typos, bad grammar, bad links and factual bloopers. Have an outsider or two read through your Website, page by page, and give you objective feedback. Print buyers tend to be fastidious proofreaders. Consider yourself forewarned.
Make sure your content is also fat-free. This means it should be clean and lean: no jargon and no bloated sales hype. Remember, people scan sites more than they read them. Short sentences and short paragraphs get to the point quicker.
What makes you different from your competition? Your unique positioning statement needs to be on your home page. It should explain why prospects should choose to work with you, as well as how they'll benefit.
Educational content will set you apart. Think informational, not promotional. Do you offer your customers how-to articles, tips or other kinds of helpful materials? Make sure they're posted on your site and are easy to find.
Do you have a company blog? Maybe a Twitter or Facebook account? This information, and links to your social media presence, should be on your site. Any and all of these efforts are effective ways to keep your Website fresh and current. By updating site content regularly, you give people a reason to come back and it also improves your ranking in the search engines.
Every printer should post an equipment list, regardless of how few prospects can interpret it. I've done a complete turnaround on this position, by the way. Years ago, I thought the equipment list was a waste of space.
Then I surveyed print buyers time and again, and I learned that senior-level print buying professionals insist on seeing this list. Many say that if a site doesn't have an equipment list, they won't consider working with that printer. Consider annotating your list by explaining the types of work that are typically produced on each piece of equipment; this will also help educate newer print buying professionals.
Don't Appear Stale
A news section is a powerful feature on a printer's site—but only if it's current. There's something forlorn about seeing a news release that's three or four years old. It sends out an immediate "we're not doing anything newsworthy" message. (By the way, the same goes for your customer newsletter. If you can't maintain it on a regular basis, don't even start. Sites with newsletters that haven't been produced in years send a really bad signal.)
Your Website needs a personality. Every company has one, so why not let yours shine through on your site? Be intriguing, interesting, or quirky in some way that makes visitors linger. I like sites that don't take themselves too seriously. Be different. Maybe your pages are woven with threads of humor, or your firm's mascot is a four-legged Fido who shows up on the employee page, complete with an e-mail address. Now that's memorable.
Take a close look at your current Website and ask yourself, are your prospects likely to spend time there to learn how you can help them? Does it portray you as a company that can help solve their problems and offer creative solutions? Does it have your peculiar "stamp" on it, revealing your firm's personality? Does it seem different from scores of other printers' sites?
Your Website's main purpose is to attract strong prospects, and help convert them into clients. Keep the focus on how you can provide what they need, and visitors will be more likely to stick around. PI
—Margie Dana
About the Author
Margie Dana is the founder of Print Buyers International (www.printbuyersinternational.com), which offers educational and networking opportunities to those who work with the printing industry. She produces an annual print buyers conference (www.printbuyersconference.com) and has written her popular e-column, "Margie's Print Tips," since 1999. Dana speaks regularly at trade events and offers consulting services as a print buyer specialist. She can be reached at mdana@printbuyersinternational.com.
