A: A website is no different than any other marketing strategy for a company. Even if your company is
1 person. To determine if a website would make sense for you, consider the clients you want to reach,
aka target audience. With most people having access to the internet at home or on the go, the potential
impact could be huge. Are the clients in a certain age range? Gender? Location?
As much as you may want to say the target is everybody, this is not a plausible approach. Different
ages look at websites differently and through different devices. Men and women look for different things
out of websites. Clients may also be looking to buy things from small, local businesses or from bigger,
national companies.
Starting with age, look at the standard age ranges shown on most sites that collect that information
(i.e. 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65+). What range do you or your product target? Designing a
website to be appealing to a 15-year-old is going to look vastly different than a website targeted
at a 50-year-old. You’ll notice that furniture websites look different from the website for say Hot
Topic. The target audience is different and the websites and products are designed with those audiences in mind.
Gender is somewhat more of a gray area. Women don’t expect pinks and purples with kittens and puppies
everywhere any more than men expect blues and greens with sports stuff all over. Here we consider also
the type of women and/or men we want to reach. Stay at home parents are looking at sites differently
than a single professional. A good web designer can help you figure out what colors and layout will
work best based on your target audience.
If your store is brick and mortar having a set location is a given, so make it obvious for potential
clients and customers to find you. Many people are trying to buy from local businesses more often! If
you have a digital store, there’s more to consider in terms of what kind of shipping can you offer?
Will you do international or just in country shipping? Location can also determine what language(s)
you make your website available in. If you want to target an audience in Quebec, Canada, you’d make
sure the website was available in French and English. Texas, USA, would probably be English and Spanish.
Your target audience is a mix of these things and more. This is a jumping point for you to consider
for your marketing strategy. If you can have this information figured out before a meeting with a web
designer or developer, there’s more details that can be covered instead of starting here. Make more
of your time, and be open to ideas from your designer/developer. We keep up with the latest in research
for what designs work and what colors can help get you the best results. If there are things you won’t
budge on, make sure they know in the initial meeting. Most designers will try to work with these things
if they know ahead of time.
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