Approaching your portal strategy & design

Portals or business websites are an important element of consumer branding and engagement. Defining a portal largely depends on the business and its “key” goals. And, goals vary widely as we go from business to business. For instance, shopping cart for easy consumer purchase (amazon, eBay, etc.), content promotion (MSN, Yahoo, Aol, etc.), account management (CapitalOne, Verizon, etc.), or brand presence on the internet (corporate sites).

While apparently disparate, these goals have a fair amount of overlap and managers see it as such, which is the primary reason portals tend to be “one size fits all” hodge-podge of “stuff.” In other words, managers often try to cater to their “diverse audience,” instead of focusing on the core products/services that the audience comes to their portal for.

I am purposely staying away from calling out the specific site designs that are prompting me write this article, but I am sure, if you see it you will know!

I believe all portals serve 3 common goals, irrespective of their market focus:

1. Improve brand image – this is letting the consumers feel a sense of pride as and when they connect with your brand. The key to achieving that is to offer the best-in-class product/service, complemented by such features as; intuitive/easy navigation, simple user interface, access to FAQs & customer support, etc.
2. Educate – from bringing most current and relevant content to the audience, or educating about your company’s products and services.
3. Drive sales – make it easy for the consumer to complete the cycle of product research to order (be it online or offline) – don’t forget to complement this with the industry best post sales support.

Note too that the above goals are not mutually exclusive, but need to complement each other, with focus on the key corporate objective.

 These goals are sure to address many of the seemingly divergent goals. But, if done right, we have the opportunity to create a great touch-point for our brand that will bring the consumer back and refer us to their family and friends (http://www.analyticsheaven.com/2010/03/one-metric-to-define-website.html).

The audience is always diverse, but our product or service – by design – addresses a specific need. The more we focus on the need, the better we serve our “diverse audience” through our communication vehicles (such as portal!).