Marketing

How to Build Online Influence: Website Strategies from the 5 Most Influential Venture Capital Firms Online

June 19, 2012

5 Examples of Innovative and Successful Website Strategies in Action

The most successful firms in the venture capital industry make their online presence an important component of the entrepreneur community, providing business advice through their content and in some cases even becoming an online platform for startup job searches. They recognize that websites are no longer just a digital version of a company’s sales or marketing brochure; rather, websites have evolved into the hub of a company’s content and online brand strategy, serving as an informative and engaging destination for its audience while helping a company extend its influence online.

OpenView’s research confirms this. A survey of OpenView’s newsletter subscribership of more than 13,000 CEOs, entrepreneurs, and startup professionals — conducted for our report ranking the most influential venture capital firms online — identified websites as one of the top online channels entrepreneurs go to for information on investors.

The rise of social media and the growing prevalence of mobile search have injected new purpose into websites and highlighted the importance of using them strategically and making them visitor friendly. Visitors have grown increasingly impatient with poorly organized sites and will often turn to directories and other channels to learn about a company if they cannot find the information that they are looking for immediately after accessing a webpage. With so many options available to find information, quickly capturing a visitor’s attention is essential.

Each of the sites on OpenView’s list of the five most influential technology venture capital firm websites* does just that. Here are some highlights of the website strategies the most influential tech venture capital firms are using to influence and attract visitors. By examining the tactics they utilize to set themselves apart and learning how to implement them you can improve your own online influence and drive more traffic to your website.

 

*For the purpose of this ranking, we considered search engines and blogs to be part of the website channel, as venture capital firms rarely operate a corporate blog that is separate from their website. However, many venture capitalists operate independent blogs to build their personal brands. Such independent blogs like Brad Feld’s “Feld Thoughts” have been excluded from this study. For an in-depth look at the online influence of individual venture capitalists, read OpenView’s report “Social Media Mavens: A Look at the Top 10 Technology Venture Capitalists on the Web.”

Marketing Manager, Pricing Strategy

<strong>Brandon Hickie</strong> is Marketing Manager, Pricing Strategy at <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>. He previously worked at OpenView as Marketing Insights Manager. Prior to OpenView Brandon was an Associate in the competition practice at Charles River Associates where he focused on merger strategy, merger regulatory review, and antitrust litigation.