Does Your Home Page Have Curb Appeal?
Home is not a place, it’s a feeling.
While a house is made of mortar, bricks, beams, a Home is where you find comfort, hopes, and dreams.
When visiting someone else’s Home you can instantly feel the level of care, attention, and love reflected by furnishings and family photos. The choice of flooring and framed art. In less than a microsecond, your entire being is affected by what you sense the moment you cross the welcome mat and walk through the front door into the well-appointed foyer.
That same visceral feeling can also be experienced at another Home.
Your digital front porch of first impressions.
The online storefront where you hope future customers and prospective job seekers take some of their precious time to drop by for a visit.
When was the last time you reflected carefully on the purpose of your Home Page? How are you welcoming first-time visitors who are curious about what you do and provide?
Are you assaulting those visitors with volumes of industry jargon, mission statement language, and stock photography? Are you focused on hyping and extolling the features, advantages, and benefits of your products and services? Or have you stopped to consider how to create a comfortable, warm and non-threatening environment where visitors can experience something more thoughtful and meaningful? What if you revealed glimpses of your true personality and values as opposed to bombarding your guest with copious amounts of corporate-speak, yawningly vanilla bromides, and bone-dry product information?
In 2009, best-selling author Simon Sinek boldly stated in Start With Why:
“People don't buy What you do. They buy Why you do it”.
Slightly more than 97% of business leaders who are familiar with Sinek’s premise will nod their heads and say to themselves, ‘yes, that’s true. However, it’s exceedingly rare to find tangible evidence of that silent agreement on the vast majority of company home pages.
Our study of 7,500+ websites reveals an irrefutable truth. Home Pages - in all categories – tend to stick to a predictable, generic, formulaic approach focused on two things:
‘What’ we do and ‘How’ we do it.
The entire focus is on the merits of various and sundry products & services.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Not if you are determined to separate yourself from your competitors and give visitors to your Home some real insight into Why you do what you do.
Not if you want to share something a little more personal about Who you are – beyond your products, services, and expertise.
Not if you want to connect on a deeper level with first-time visitors who might share your core values.
Not if your hope is to begin a relationship that might lead to multiple purchases, fulfilling careers, and long-term brand loyalty.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Take Larry for example.
From the outside looking in, Larry might appear to be just another guy in a suit from the financial industry. Visit the home page of Ohio-based Valmark Financial Group, and watch how he and his team have created the metaphorical equivalent of walking up the front steps and getting to know your neighbour.
Valmark has created what we refer to internally as the ‘movie trailer’. A compelling, personal story that represents the flagship of the Valmark brand. In a very subtle, understated way, it sheds incredible light on who they are and why they exist beyond their products and services. Notice how it’s different from the typical ‘corporate video’ with cookie-cutter marketing language focused on “100,000 square feet of state-of-the-art facilities along with our factory-trained technicians known for their unwavering commitment to excellence, innovation and customer satisfaction”.
Years ago, veteran brand strategist Dana Zilic defined the true purpose of any Home Page in any product/service category:
1. Create Connection
1A. Inspire Trust
It’s that simple. It’s what any visitor to any Home would want to feel.
The Home Page is a place where visitors are not only welcome, but they also get a chance to know your company a little bit better. For example, if you were thinking about buying a new car and you reside in Southern Alberta, this is what you would see the second you clicked on the Home Page at Calgary-based Charlesglen Toyota.
Speaking just last week with Bob Lennon of New Brunswick-based Thermalwood Canada, he shared the story of the out-the-blue phone call he received from a prospective client from Colorado. As Bob remembers. “The gentleman recounted how he had just watched our home page video and strongly resonated with our values and what we were all about. From that moment, it changed the entire tone and direction of the conversation. In rapid fashion, we were talking less about business and just getting to know each other. And this is not the first time, that those types of calls have turned into rather profitable orders and repeat customers”.
Bob is also quick to point out that since the Home Page video was posted, Google analytics is reporting steady increases of about 3,000 users and 11,000 page views per year.
First-time visitors to your Home Page care much less about What you do or How you do it. They are keenly interested in knowing Who you are and whether you are a company they would be willing to trust. They already know you’re in the financial products business, the car business, or the thermally modified wood manufacturing business. What Larry, Tim and Bob have just demonstrated with their Home Page strategy is to go a little further than most in ensuring their digital front porch is much more personal and a lot more welcoming. With a real human showing up in front of a camera that visitors can see and identify with.
Think about how you would want to be welcomed into someone else’s home and the way you want to be treated. Do you really want to be on the receiving end of a self-serving pitch and a flurry of unsubstantiated claims? Or would you prefer the opportunity to get to know a little more about the real people involved in that company before you pick up the phone or send out an e-mail?
In the Good Book, you will find the expression “Do unto others as you would like them to do to you” (Luke 6:31). Larry, Tim, and Bob are just several examples of business leaders applying that principle to their digital storefront, knowing that, on a spiritual level, Home is people.
Not a place.
How could you apply the ‘Golden Rule’ to your Home Page?
“Home is where you feel at home and are treated well” DALAI LAMA
p.s…. In researching and curating this post, Josh Parlee and his high-flying team from Defiant Astronaut Media identified some other companies who have created a welcoming, personal environment on their Home Page. Here is an example out of British Columbia from Kelowna-based Secure Rite where Lucas Griffin makes a clear statement that “Life Fits Here”.
Meanwhile, in Louisville, KY, David Galownia and his fellow “Big Kids and Daredevils” show their human side while developing world-class software.
And back in Canada, Marc Langlois, Jeff Killin, and the Toronto-based team at ICP demonstrate what it means to be “Cut From a Different Cloth”.
BIG LITTLE LEGENDS.
Published in November of 2021 through Vancouver-based Page Two Publishing, this national best-seller has sparked a groundswell of support from Real Readers just like you.
“Heroes get remembered. Legends never die” BABE RUTH
YOUR BRAND. ON TRACK.
If now is the opportune time to discover the brand story and strategy that is uniquely your own, consider exploring a metaphorical road trip called THE BRANDING HIGHWAY. Our Executive Bootcamps serve as both journey and destination to help your brand emerge as an undeniable, undisputed, "Category of One". Along the way, you will discover how to create substantial Differentiation and strategic Relevance for your brand while aligning your executive team. Impossible to describe, it helps to take a quick peek at this Video Overview:
“The most important victory is the one which has to arrive” ENZO FERRARI
PLANNING A SPEAKING EVENT?
The wheels of business turn faster each quarter and your company or industry association may be anxious to stay ahead of the lighting-fast relevance curve. In that respect, we are scheduling many in-person and virtual programs for 2022 with customized content designed to inspire conference attendees to acquire a “STADIUM-SIZED PERSPECTIVE”.
For more information on scheduling an In-Person or Virtual Speaking Program, send us a note here: bookings@gairmaxwell.com
Every week someone asks a question about our videos and more specifically our media partner responsible for the storyboarding, production and editing. Headquartered in the shadows of the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Defiant Astronaut Media is uniquely positioned to help business leaders re-think what's possible with this art form. How you can Sell a Purpose. Not a Product.
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“Being on the edge isn't as safe, but the view is better” RICKY GERVAIS