When your homepage doesn’t deliver your brand strategy you’re making a mistake. Plain and simple.

It’s okay to have a functional home page. In fact, it’s an imperative — with buttons for navigation, pictures of products and lifestyles, copy explaining what you sell (hopefully).  But if you don’t land a punch about your main brand value you are missing a most important messaging opportunity. Perhaps the most.

With my little brand gambit “Brand Strategy Tarot Cards” I look at a company or product homepage to see what it conveys about the key brand value or claim, in What’s The Idea? parlance. In the digital age it’s très important.

That’s not to say you must bang visitors over the head with the claim day after day, but you have to accommodate it. Coca-Cola is still about refreshment. They needn’t say the word, but should convey it on the homepage.

There was a time when ads were your best image and brand building tool. Now it’s the homepage. And just as ads burn out, so do home pages. Update them regularly. Daily would be awesome. Weekly, best. Keep then on-claim and fresh.

Peace.