Website Branding Versus Website Sales

website-branding vs website-sales

Website Branding vs Website Sales

What should you prioritise on your website, website branding and presentation, or generating leads and sales? Well, here’s my two cents, and you might not like it.

Many small business owners have been given bad advice. Many have been told to focus their time, money and efforts on branding their website rather than building a website that generates leads and sales.

I disagree with this.

Prioritising sales generation over branding is about focussing your efforts wisely to get the most out of your business website, and not wasting time on things that are not initially profitable. It’s about promoting a clear call to action that will increase your sales and ultimately your profits.

Richard Branson and Coca Cola

Many in favour of branding will use the argument that people like Richard Branson put most of his time and budget into branding, or that Coca-Cola focuses entirely on branding. Well, of course that’s how it looks now, but let’s look back to their beginning.

Richard Branson started his first record shop in London in 1971 and worked hard building and publicising his businesses to increase sales and turnover. He put massive amounts of time and money into each and every business. What we see today is the result of his PR machine at work. Yes, he focuses on branding now, but that’s because his sales were taken care of in the early days.

John Pemberton who started Coca-Cola put his first advertisement in the Atlanta Journal in May 1886 and regularly advertised his product after that. His initial focus was marketing and sales.

Can you begin to imagine the billions of dollars these two well-known brands have spent on promotions and advertising over the past decades?

So what does this mean for you and your business?

Well, branding is nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills. Focusing on sales does! It’s as simple as that. When your business grows to a decent size and you actually have a marketing budget, then you might focus on branding over sales.

Initially you must focus on building your leads and sales. In this way you will naturally build your brand, for no effort or money. Your brand will grow as a by-product of good sales and referrals.

I regularly see business owners falling into the trap of prioritising website branding over sales, but there is no competition. Sales consistently produce results.

Prioritising sales over branding is about focussing your efforts wisely to get the most out of your business website, and not wasting time on things that are not initially profitable. It’s about defining what you want your business website to do for you, and promoting a clear call to action that will increase your sales and ultimately your profits.

So, take a look at your Google Analytics and ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are you getting reasonable traffic but no conversions?
  • What’s your bounce rate like? The lower the better.
  • How many people fill in your contact form?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, make it a priority to find out. Knowing these things is the first step toward working out how to get more leads and sales from your website.

What’s your priority? Website branding or website sales? 

Originally published on Flying Solo