In our BAMA513 class, Professor Paul Cubbon recently talked about usability and design of a website. We learned how to do a proper website audit and about the 7C’s of web design. What was interesting to me was when we got into a discussion about what the purpose of your website is. It turns out that websites are most successful when they have specific purpose. The purpose can be to,

• Gather info
• Raise awareness
• Direct enquiries
• Influence sales
• Transact sales

More importantly, not every site should do everything. Companies must ask themselves,

• Who is your target customer?
• How will you serve him/her?

By taking the time to answer these questions, companies can create a seamless website experience that fits into the total customer experience.

One company that is doing a good job of this is Lululemon. Through various classes at Sauder, I’ve heard various individuals from the company speak about their strategy. Lululemon’s goal is to make great products and then to simply educate customers about their products. To this end, their in-store sales staff are called “educators” who aim to teach guests about the technical elements of their products. This mentality translates to their website that has a lot of features that allow customers to learn about the products. Take, for example, this jacket I’ve been eyeing at Lululemon for a while. The website features multiple pictures of the jacket, a video of someone wearing it so the consumer can see how it moves, and customers can build profiels and leave comments about the jacket. All of these features are used to better educate potential customers about the jacket, which ideally will turn into a sale.

To contrast this, another company, Gilt has designed their website to have the functionality to allow many customers to make multiple purchases incredibly quickly in a short period of time. This has been enabled through one click purchasse.

Both Lululemon and Gilt have achieved success by having a clear understanding of who their company is, who the target customer is, and what specifically they’re trying to achieve. By taking the time carefully consider this last step, they have thoughtfully created websites with the functionality required to satisfy their customers’ needs.

Food for thought: Take the time to think about your company’s website. What do you want your customers to do immediately after they visit your website? Is this call to action clear? Is there something you can do to improve this?