How to create a game changing website strategy in 2025
As a marketing manager, you know that your website is a critical component of your marketing strategy. But often websites are viewed as an afterthought when it comes down to strategy. We recommend three critical components you should consider to make sure your website adds business value to your company so that your website and the marketing department is seen as a revenue center and not a cost center.
Make it a customer focused website
The first step to making a successful website is to shift from a company-focused website to a customer-focused website. Company websites usually focus too much on their:
Core values
Mission statement
Benefits and features of their products/services
Capabilities
Listing of products
But here’s the problem: In today’s world, when prospects visit your website for the FIRST time, they are not interested in you, your vision or your core values. They are looking for answers to their problems.
So the first thing you need to do is make your website a customer-focused website. This means making sure you demonstrate the following:
You understand your prospects' problems.
One big mistake is talking only about how your products and services solve their external problem, like, “Our products handle temperatures of 250 degrees Celsius.”
In order to connect with prospects, you need to make it personal and demonstrate your understanding of their internal problem, such as the impact on their company, their customers and their own career growth and job security if the website succeeds or fails in moving the revenue needle.
Your company has the expertise and experience to solve their problems.
Yes, it's okay to talk about features and benefits here, but you also need to show them how you will guide them to solutions. One of the best ways to do this is to outline the steps needed to make them successful. (e.g. Like this article on the five steps to make your next website successful) Case studies, client testimonials and educational content are all great techniques to showcase your knowledge and expertise.
It’s easy to work with you and your company.
You need to prove—show, not tell—through your website, sales and support processes that your company is indeed customer-focused.
For example, many companies talk about how great their customer service is. However, if the only way to get in touch with them is to fill in a form on the “Contact Us” page, well, that’s not very customer-focused.
A better way is to SHOW how great your customer service is by offering multiple paths to engage with you, including contact forms, email, phone number, and chat.
Understand your buyers and their journey
The next step in creating a customer-focused website is to identify and document your ideal customers. This is important because by understanding who these people are, what positions they are in, and what problems they’re trying to solve, you can build a strong foundation for your new website.
The buyers aren’t necessarily the decision-makers. They might be the influencers in the company who help make the decision whether or not to hire you. Examples of buyer personas could include:
CEO
CFO
Executives
Engineers
Chemists
Production managers
Procurement managers
Each one of these buyers has different problems that they’re trying to solve.
For example:
An engineer may be focused on designing an application—in which case they need product specs—but a production manager might be more interested in the durability and reliability of your product because they have to keep their line running.
A procurement manager may be more concerned with the ease of placing an order and shipping time.
By understanding each of these personas, you can make sure that you have content that gives them confidence that they should buy from you.
Don't have an "award winning" website
Quite often marketing is hyper-focused on the aesthetics of the website: the brand, the font, the logo, the colors, pictures, and how it looks. The problem is that if you focus exclusively on the look and feel you may end up with an award winning website that does nothing to add to the revenue of your company. Instead focus on having a customer-focused website. This means two things:
Work with all departments that interact with your customer.
A customer-focused website is more than just a brochure website: it needs to be an integral part of your sales and customer support processes.
So, make sure that the sales, marketing and customer support departments all have a common understanding, agreement and commitment by answering the following questions:
How does/should the website fit into the overall sales process?
How does/should your website content help the sales team close deals?
How does/should the website help customer service direct people to helpful content articles?
What kind of questions do the sales and customer service teams answer?
Define how the new website fits into your overall marketing strategy
Your website is the keystone to your marketing plan, but after your customer-focused website launches, what are your plans to continue to improve the site, drive qualified traffic to the site and integrate it even more into your company’s sales and support departments?
We recommend making a 12-month action plan that lists the time it will take to launch the site and then show the timing of additional activities, such as:
What type of traffic generation campaigns will you be running?
What is the pace of content creation to answer the sales and support questions you just identified?
When will you add functionality to the website to make continuous improvements?
Make sure to identify what key performance indicators (KPIs) these activities will affect. This way, you can hold your team and outside agencies accountable for results while demonstrating to senior management how the website aligns with the sales goals of your company.
What's Next?
Now that you have defined your website strategy, the next step is for you to take action and implement it.
Most likely this will mean a website upgrade to make the shift from a company website to a customer focused website that adds value to your company by being a part of the sales process and adds revenue to your company.