In this episode, you’ll learn about your consulting website and branding.
The website featured in this episode is Dana James Mwangi’s website.
[Slides]Transcript
Welcome to Consulting Website Design 09, The Power of Brand.
Last week, I received a message from my friend Dana, and she told me she re-launched her consulting website.
She told me that my content and advice had been a lot of help to her, so I was really curious to see how she, a super talented creative, would use my advice to re-do her consulting website.
And I was blown away by the result.
So let’s take a look at Dana’s new consulting website and see what we can learn from it.
Now as I scroll through this website, I want you to take note of how the website makes you feel about Dana and her brand — one that I think she does a really good job of intentionally crafting.
For this top section, we have a great big headline written with some original typography — and instantly, you get a feel for who Dana is, who she serves, and what she’s all about. This is communicated through the typography, the colors, the copy, and really the entire website.
As we scroll down, we see her lead magnet with this eBook, as well as a nice simple opt-in form.
And it’s very clear what she wants her prospects to do is download this guide, and we can obviously tell that this is not a brochure website, because she’s offering a ton of value up front.
Then after that, we have an about section, with a big professional headshot and a bit of copy that tells her prospects about who she is and the types of problems she solves for her prospects. And again, we have a nice big CTA that helps her take the next step and get in touch with her reader.
Thirdly, we have a social proof section. Here are a bunch of logos, right underneath her picture, to really enhance her perceived credibility and add a nice professional touch to the page. This section instantly helps tell you that her business has worked with some big names in the web design space.
And lastly, in my favorite two sections of this website and homepage, we have some social proof in the form of her guest appearances on blogs and podcasts. You can see here that each of these images, were are links to each appearance, that fits perfectly with her website and her brand. This is a really nice little detail, and it’s these types of details that separate good websites from great ones.
And in the second part of this content section we have some blog posts. Notice how she’s saying who each post is for, instead of just the title. I think context is much more important than content, and in her writing sections, she’s leading with context. If you identify with one of these statements you’re going to click “Read More” to learn what she has to say.
So after I scroll through this site, I start to perceive Dana as fun, creative, energetic, cheerful, artistic — these are some of the words that come to mind. I’m starting to buy into her brand as communicated through all of these different design elements on her website.
And I assure you that all of this is very intentional. I’m thinking that Dana wants to work with businesses who need someone fun, creative, energetic, and cheerful to help with their own brand. So that’s how she crafts her own brand = to attract the type of clients who she would fit best with.
I really like the way Gary Vaynerchuk approaches sales vs branding, as demonstrated by this quote:
The difference between branding and sales is simple. Are you trying to convert or are you trying to create an experience? The latter always wins.
At the end of the day there is only one thing that constitutes “brand.” It’s how you feel in the moment you interact with the product, service or business.
And obviously, if you’re in the business of providing services like consulting, it’s already all about the relationship. It’s a relationship business.
And really good branding like Dana’s website, on which a big part of is packaging and design, is going to help you build and develop those relationships at scale.
Effective branding, combined with effective marketing, makes selling that so easier. You can sell without a brand, but it’s much easier when you have a great brand backing your sales process up. And your website is a huge part of what constitutes your brand.
Action Step
Today’s action step is to ask a friend or colleague of yours to browse your website and tell you what they “feel” about your website.
You want to learn about what people think about your brand. Maybe they feel exactly what you want them to feel about it, or maybe they don’t really think or feel anything about it. Either way, it’s important to know what other’s feel about your brand so that you can, if needed, can be more intentional in how you go about creating it.
As always, you can reach out to me with a link to your website and I’ll give you my thoughts.