Know-How Exchange : Strategy

I'm taking the liberty to assume this is a new or young business.

First, you need to focus your marketing dollars and energy. Do you really need to offering all of these services? Is there one service that will be most demanded and most profitable? Will you really have the time to build out all these sites and make each one produce tangible results for you?

Focus breeds success.

Secondly, do you feel that each of these services will become it's own brand/company? Take into consideration demand as well as your resources. If not, you'll probably end up moving them all to the same site to make things easier logistically. I've seen it happen over and over and over again.

Third, are the different services complimentary or fairly unrelated? When they stand together, do they make you a stronger company and more attractive to do business with? Microsoft Office combines a few strong products to super product, but they are all complimentary. They all address the same target market. As someone said earlier, Marketing Consulting + Web Design = Good Combination. Marketing Consulting + Legal Help = Questionable Logic.

Fourth, as far as search engine optimization goes, getting links to 5 different sites might mean you need to get 3-4 times more links. Why not leverage all your links into one website? You'll probably be hosting all your websites with the same host. Google and others will know they are on the same host which means they are probably owned by same people. It won't count that much. Infact, if you go too far, you'll get labeled as a link farm and be blacklisted.

Dear Samer Sheber,

It is good that you have thought of giving separate brand identity to each of the services that you plan to offer. Of course, you would then have a separate brand identity to your company. The company's name and its branding should be preferably relevant to these varied services and should be inclusive of these services.

But, the caution & advice would be that first launch one or more of services at a time and organise it and manage it well and further consolidate on them before venturing into further services. Many a brilliant ideas have failed in the market place because they were not managed well.

So, when you succeed in this effort of consolidation and when each of these services develop into a big functional identities you could have separate company for each, if it is so needed. So, have a clear vision as to where you would expect your venture to be in another 5 or 10 years and chart out a strategy and plan of action before you embark on the venture.

Regarding the website option, I feel it would make sense for a common man or the potential visitor of the site to remember just the company website wherefrom he could find and click on to the links to the specific services. So, your option # 1 suits for this purpose.

You must be aware that even big business empires or conglomerates have independent company websites and group websites that provide links wherefrom one could move back and forth.

Best Wishes,

kannan

Focus, focus, focus.

Offering wine, shampoo and dog-walking all under the same brand would make no sense at all. Figure out what you want people to think about your brand/business and do that. Unless you have way too much money, it's not likely you can do a good job of marketing all of them at the same time -- let alone delivering well on all of them.

On the other hand, if your products are shampoo, bath gel, and conditioner, maybe you only need one brand name.

You need to decide what business you're in, then go for that one. Don't try to be all things to all people. You'll almost certainly sub-optimize on all your offering elements and be the loser as a result.