Wait a minute... strategy?
I could perhaps have chosen to be a little more descriptive, but it's broad. There are many ways to approach it. There are so many that I'll only touch on a small fraction of them in the course of this post.
Purpose - What exactly are you looking for?
As a business in today's society, you need to have some kind of online presence.
The question is why? Why pay tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions for a pretty logo, a pretty website, an employee who is "just" going to "waste" all day on social media?
At the end of the day, it's all about money. Cynical? Possibly, but true. It's about your business getting new/more/more satisfied/more profitable customers which in turn leads to... money. The paradox is that the people who make the most money are not the ones trying to make money, but the ones trying to create value for their target audience.
So if we assume that the cynical capitalist in me is right. Then the purpose is to get more money, but it's not very sexy for the customer.
"Dear customer, welcome to my new website, could you press that green button over there and give me some money?"
I love spending money, but only when it's on someone I think deserves it. I happily spend money at Kolonial.no because they make my everyday life easier even though I live 30 meters away from Kiwi. I almost throw my money at Apple because I'm saved and love the products. Even though I know there are technically better and cheaper alternatives. I even spend my money on snus, even though I know it's unnecessary and stupid, but it makes me feel good.
We don't buy products and services, we buy a feeling, an affinity, a solution to a problem.
So what challenge does your product or service actually solve?
The purpose then becomes "simple." You should convey your message in a good and effective way and make it as easy as possible for the potential customer to solve the problem, either by themselves or with your help.
Notice how you as a company shouldn't be a deciding factor, you're just the shortcut. That's the way we work too. We're willing to tell you what we think is the right way for you to create a good strategy, a good sales funnel, a good website, all of it.
We believe that there will be people and companies out there who want to use our expertise to avoid having to do everything themselves, and they believe that we can give them an incredibly good result.
Concrete tips
Take the most common enquiries you receive and create a text, video, animation, graphic or similar that explains how the customer can solve it themselves. These can be simple things that you would also benefit from actually doing.
Let's say you give a student who barely knows the difference between a nail and a screw a 5-minute video showing them exactly what to do. Do you think the same student will be more or less open to using you when something comes up that they can't or won't do themselves?
You only need to make that video once, but it can help tens, hundreds of students.
Target group
Remember that teacher who you felt spoke specifically only to you even if they were standing in front of a whole class? I don't. Not because the teacher was necessarily bad or did anything wrong, but I wasn't in the target audience for the message they were presenting.
The same goes for your potential customers, they don't all speak the same language, they don't have the same opinions, they don't like the same things.
You can't meet everyone
I don't know how many times, I've sat in a customer meeting where I get the line: "Our target audience is anyone who needs our product or service." Target audience is not the same as "Who could potentially have some interest in and maybe consider and possibly have use for what you offer."
The market you work in may be large, but your target audience should be considerably smaller.
Let's use a ridiculously simple metaphor. I'm going to sell clothes, and in this scenario, no one in Norway has clothes. I know that there are many people who have emigrated to Norway and therefore speak other languages, but I don't want to exclude them. So what do I do? I make a commercial that looks like this:
"Jeden thấy бясплатна कपड़ा to të gjithë i kaikki Norge!"
My fantastic advertising text says: "One set of free clothes for everyone in Norway!" in eight different languages. I'm trying to reach everyone, but hardly anyone. This is where you might think something like "What if I just keep it so general that it can reach everyone?"
You hit better when you know where your target is
Trying the "safe" strategy of being general in your language to reach as many people as possible simply doesn't work well enough for me to say with integrity that you should do it. Imagine a soccer field where you can score by shooting in any direction, but you never know which direction you can score when.
If you are working towards a specific target group, you will know exactly where your target is at all times because you are always aiming for the same target.
Why should anyone bother?
If you are aware of what you want to achieve, who you want to reach, you are already further along the path than most of your competitors, but...
What is unique about you and your company?
Selling points, USPs, customer benefits or whatever you want to call it, ultimately you also need something that sets you apart from the rest of the market.
The fact that you've actually carved out a small part of the market that speaks specifically to is already well underway, and many will follow you just because of this. But isn't it okay to offer something that no one else can offer too?
An old perk that was awesome when it started was "Craftsmen who clean up after themselves." Today? Not so unique, but there's always something that can set you apart from your competitors without it having to be expensive or time-consuming.
If you want the best possible success when building a website, it's a good idea to be able to answer the question:
"Why should I choose you over your competitor?"
Okay, what am I going to do with all this?
You're ready to start building
With the purpose in place, you know how it's important that the site works, what you need to direct all your visitors towards. With the target group, you know both what it should look like and what kind of customer journey you should take them on. With your selling points in combination with the target group, you know exactly what message to present from start to finish.
There are many more benefits, but these are the basics. If you have this in place before you start your next website project, success is much closer than before.