Your Web site needs to communicate your message and influence others to move groups to action.
To achieve these desired effects, your message needs to project presence, credibility, and passion. And yes, your Web site can do this, but only if you get out of your own role and leard to speak in your customers voice.
Our advice to anyone out there who is considering changing the messaging on your Web site: Speak to your customer as an individual, not as a group. And don't forget to integrate your copy with all of the other Web based marketing strategies.
Common public speaking advice is to know your audience, but in typical marketing fashion, it's easy to speak to your public "as a whole", rather than individuals. The problem frequently comes from trying to put everything in a single message, rather than trying to offer up several messages with the design on allowing individuals to relate to them sepcifically. It may be a challenge to avoid being "all over the map", but properly formatted, this can be a unique way to to tailor your comments and avoid a frequent misstep trying to cover everyone’s concerns or speak to the middle.
Remember, you are speaking to individuals with individual concerns. Don’t litter your comments with what you care about the most, and beware of falling in love with your content. I know you've heard me say this many times before, but it still gets lost in the process, so here it is again:
It’s about the other person, not about you.
If you still have trouble gaining clarity of this issue, then try pretending that you are a potential customer, and visit your Web site. Can you relate to the content on the site? Does it answer the questions that a potential client might have? Does it speak to several potentential different TYPES of clients?
It may take some time and repeated efforts to get this concept into play, but it's well worth the effort, and definitely more effective than trying to be all things to all people.