The other day, I was scrolling through my shiny, new Feedly (which I love and am so happy Google Reader forced me to try) and I saw website content that caught my eye.
On Marcus Sheridan’s website there is an image of a gorgeous pool and the headline says, “Considering an Inground Pool? Get Started with Pool 101.”
Right below that is a thumbnail of a video with copy that reads, “Watch the video and learn how to make your backyard dreams a reality.”
The redesign of the Arment Dietrich site is on my task list and this struck me as very, very interesting.
Why not give new visitors 101, 201, and 301 content?
From our perspective, it could be start-ups and small businesses, mid-sized organizations, and Fortune 500.
Then, yesterday, I received a nice note from a friend. In it she said it’s time for them to grow their business and she wanted to know our process for working with new clients.
Huh. We don’t have content for that, either.
Then I read Laura Click’s, “Your Corporate Website: Four Deadly Mistakes” and I took the Arment Dietrich site on the task list from “nice to get it done in Q2” to “we’re starting this now and it will be finished by May.”
It’s time for the shoemaker’s children to get new shoes!
Business Owner’s Disease
The reason I’ve been dragging my feet on getting this done is because I have business owner’s disease. You know the one where you think your business is different and what works for our clients won’t work for us? After all, we’re a professional services firm and most of our clients sell widgets.
Why would someone fill out a form on a landing page to get an ebook or white paper or attend a webinar for a professional services firm? What would we use to market to them to help them through the funnel so they eventually buy?
These are questions I ask myself constantly, which is why we spend all of our time on Spin Sucks and not on the Arment Dietrich site.
I’m calling baloney on myself…and the image of Marcus’s site got me there.
Sure, I could tell myself he sells swimming pools. His customer is a consumer. And those things could continue to dissuade me. But I prefer to look at it, instead, as we make our clients see things: Content marketing works.
Website Content
I’ve created the beginning of a list of things we can include on the site:
- Content for start-ups and small businesses, particularly for those doing software as a service
- Content for mid-sized organizations, particularly for those in manufacturing
- Content for Fortune 500, particularly for those who want to emulate some of the best-known companies of our time
- Our process for working with new clients
- Pricing
- Calls-to-action
- Personality (while the home page has a video that changes weekly, the rest of the site is devoid of personality)
- Tops of the funnel content: Blog (woo hoo! Already has this one down!), company news, how-tos, podcasts, and videos
- Middle of the funnel content: eBooks, longer podcasts and videos, white papers
- Bottom of the funnel content: Frequently asked questions, live Q&As, case studies, and testimonials
One of the things I really want to do is write an eBook called, “Communications According to Arment Dietrich” and send that to prospects before I meet with them either in person or on the phone.
While we do a pretty good job of qualifying before my time is spent with someone, I think this would help even more.
What am I missing? What else does an organization need on their website?