Brochure Websites are Dead. Or are they?

As the commercial manager of Big Red Digital, a small professional digital marketing company based in Glasgow, I often visit potential clients who have been confused and frustrated by speaking to my counterparts from other digital agencies.  "I keep being told I need SEO, PPC or Social Media Marketing Campaigns" is what I hear "however I really don't think that is right for our kind of business".  It is a theme I've heard many times. And, under certain circumstances,  I agree with them.

A case in point
I recently visited a well established professional firm of consultant surveyors who are specialists in their field and who have a long and illustrious history of providing professional services.  They are already well known in their target marketplace and achieve most of their business through personal recommendations. They generate sufficient business enquiries this way so they really do not need many digital additional marketing services such as SEO and PPC.  In fact they could not understand why most digital marketing companies could not see their point of view.  You could sense the frustration in his voice.

Listening carefully to this company director, who is in charge of the entire firm's marketing policy, I realised that he was absolutely right.  I have experienced this before and fully empathise with his view on his established company's website requirements.  Their website should be regarded as the backbone of their company image online.  A website that reflects the quality of their expertise and professionalism.

What a website should do in these cases is to impress visitors online, supporting and reflecting the professionalism of the firm.  In most cases this revolves around the qualifications and experience of the management and key personnel. When you consider that the website is probably the first point of contact after a personal recommendation this makes sense.  Incidentally, many of these personal recommendations will happen during one to one conversations, very likely at social occasions, so the first website visit is highly likely to be on a mobile device. 

Personal Recommendations are the Best Leads
Usually these recommendations are people based: "John Smith of Acme Consultants did a great job for us, I can recommend him highly". The person receiving the recommendation would then be looking up that firm on the Internet and would be looking for information on John Smith in particular. The website should be designed to support the process of personal recommendations.  In addition, the website should contain a 'Case Studies' section of projects that key personnel have been involved with, cross referenced with relevant key personnel profiles.

The website should be created with other company media firmly in mind such as letterheads, adverting, printed brochures, business cards, signage and so on, so the corporate branding is professional and uniform across all marketing material.

Paying particular attention to corporate branding is as important as great brochure web design. Normally this new branding is an evolution of an existing brand design, freshening up logos and typestyles to ensure uniformity across new media outlets (eg Mobile phones and tablets - 50% of all Web browsing happens on Mobiles now) 

Keep it Simple, Stylish and Professional
So professional brochure websites needn't be festooned with attributes normally associated with Social Media Marketing, PPC and SEO. Sometimes what works best for an established professional firm is attention to logos and branding, stylish and complementary design. They should contain appropriate content geared towards supporting the key personnel and case studies rather than focusing on lead generation and online sales.

Want a Great Brochure Website?
If you are a Scottish based professional firm looking to refresh your corporate branding, reflected in a great website, profiling key personnel and case studies, then contact Big Red Digital