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Recruiting the Future Initiative     

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When designing the layout of a web page, the first thing to do is to sit down and ask yourself what do you want to achieve, because there are too many pages out there that just say - this is us - this is our factory - this is our lorry - aren't we wonderful, which is too boring to be true, and accomplishes little because the page lacks direction. Alan Shaw of Carshaw Management Consultants, in a recent paper on "Leadership in Selling", demonstrated that customers really need credibility, honesty and integrity from the people from whom they are going to buy. So while the site needs to fulfill an objective such as creating a platform which will generate inquiries for a product or service, or generate sales, or just establish a presence to enable clients to view a product range, this integrity business must run as a thread throughout the site.

Having decided what we want to achieve with our page, we next need to find our target market, and direct the page output accordingly. We need to decide whether we are projecting our company's products or services towards the general public, to other manufacturers or service providers, or maybe even to our own shareholders, because their motivations will all be different, and maybe if there are different market categories towards which we need to direct the site, then maybe we should navigate each towards a separate page or set of pages, and then design accordingly.

Remember, an advert is a static and transient form of advertising because it is fixed in it's place in the paper, and lasts only as long as the paper. A web site is permanent, and at the same time it is dynamic, or in other words can change over a period of time, and can also be made to change according to whims of the reader, it can be what the reader wants it to be. Indices and navigation aids can take a viewer where he or she wants to go on the site, so the site needs to reflect that and draw different target people to different areas.

Having selected our target market, we need to determine which of our customer's primary needs we are trying to fulfill, and then feed them in percieved order of priority. We all have primary motivations for making buying decisions. The principal ones are - Pleasure, Pride, and Profit. These may be redefined as making life easier for ourselves, an enhancement to our ego, or simply the liklihood of making more money. It is an old marketing maxim, that we sell benefits, but those benefits must in themselves target one or more of the primary motivations in order to ring bells with potential customers.

Another old marketing maxim is that people buy people first, and therefore try to add a little of your style and personality into the pages and get away from all those pages that say 'here we are, we are the greatest, buy us'. A slightly more subtle approach can reap more benefits and you will be better able to get your message across.

You need to consider why people should buy your product or service rather than from your competitors. What have you got that they haven't. You need to find your niche, that something special that only you can supply. Do a brainstorming on it, write down all the reasons why you think you are ahead of the competition or in other words - your selling points. having established your selling points, we now have the bones of a story - we have selling points which have benefits that respond to buying motives.