Here’s how websites are crucial to your digital strategy
As the world moves online, websites have become a key aspect of digital marketing strategies. While the growing popularity of social media has elevated marketing tactics, a well-designed website is still crucial to the success of any business in the online space.
Top 10 Reasons Why Your Website Is Crucial To Your Digital Strategy
Websites have been a key aspect of digital strategy for many years now and despite the growth of social media, a well-designed website is still one of the most important aspects to ensuring success in the online space. If you’re skeptical as to how important a good website really is, read on to discover 10 reasons why your website is imperative for a successful strategy.
Your website helps you to…
1- Create a Good First Impression
Never underestimate the power of a good first impression. Your website is often the first touchpoint your customers have with your business, so a professional design and ease of use helps to ensure that it is not their last. Ensure that your website exemplifies your value with an appealing design, quick load times and strong branding so that they regard your business and offerings highly.
2- Establish your Credibility
A quality website design also enhances the legitimacy of your business. After all, anyone can create a website on a certain topic, so ensuring that your website is built in a professional manner, highlighting your work, key values and how to contact you is essential to building trust with potential clients from the get-go. This initial trust is critical to establishing a strong dialogue between you and your customers, ultimately resulting in improved sales over time.
3- Create Consistency
Your website is the perfect opportunity to make sure that your branding is consistent. This includes graphics, photos and even tone of voice within website copy. A consistent brand further builds on the credibility you have established with a well-designed website and makes your brand recognizable across different online platforms, including social media posts and paid ads.
4- Share Key Information with Customers
Your website is essentially a hub for information for your customers and should be a one-stop-shop for customers to come and learn about what you do as an organization and the value that you offer to your clients. This makes decision making easy for potential clients as they are able to assess whether your solutions are right for them. By clearly outlining what it is that you do and your key values, you are more likely to attract your target market for whom your services are specialized and grow your business.
5- Simplify Interaction with Your Business
A good website can also make it easier for customers to take action and further engage with your business. Website design nowadays incorporates data capturing forms and contact information, so that your customers know what their next steps are when they wish to engage with your offerings. The easier it is to get into contact with you or purchase your services, the less friction there is for sales, meaning that ease of contact should be a priority when designing your website.
6- Host All of Your Resources
As a home page for your business, your website can also host important resources. Blogs, podcasts and thought pieces can all be included within your website, further establishing your credibility in the market. Other important resources that should be included in your website are testimonials and case studies, which can be referenced by customers who want to know more about the nature of your offering or the level of satisfaction amongst past customers. Whatever the purpose of your resources, having them easily accessible within your website is a must to encourage potential clients to engage with them.
7- Make Your Business Easier to Find
Search Engine Optimisation is a necessary part of any digital strategy. By making your business as easy to find in search results as possible, you can reach more customers and grow your business. The role of your website is therefore critical. Incorporating keywords throughout your site and hosting SEO improving content are some of the steps to creating a SEO optimized site.
8- Improve your Following
Your website can also help bolster the growth of your social media channels. Including links to your social media platforms is a must for your website. This means that if customers are interested in your business but haven’t contacted you yet, they are able to follow your accounts on relevant platforms, allowing you to expand your reach amongst potential clients and encourage long term growth.
9- Streamline Lead Generation
Websites are the ideal place to include forms that can assist you with generating leads. Through these forms, you can construct databases of potential clients you can reach out to who have shown an interest in your offerings or resources. This assists with your CRM activities and is a set and forget the way of having a stream of potential clients filtering through your sales department.
10- Improves Customer Service
Finally, your website essentially provides self-service customer support to your clients. By having information about your work, contact details and services, clients are able to easily get information about your company and answer any questions they may have. To further enhance customer support, chatbots can be incorporated into your website to instantaneously answer questions or point them in the direction of appropriate resources. Even if it seems like a simple step, readily accessible contact details and additional information improves transparency and makes it easier for clients to work with you, further building trust and loyalty amongst your client base.
There are so many reasons why a website is critical to your digital strategy. By establishing an appealing, easy to navigate and information-rich website, you can improve trust between you and your potential clients. Additionally, ease of access to information empowers your clients to understand which of your offerings is most tailored to them, allowing you to best help them. All of these reasons highlighted contribute to higher levels of client satisfaction and greater lead generation potential, ultimately helping your business grow.
If you’re looking for assistance with developing a website and some of the more complicated aspects including SEO and embedding forms, Robotic Marketer’s marketing strategy workshops can assist you in building a website that will help grow your business.
5 Reasons Why it’s Time to Rethink Your Digital Marketing
It’s almost 2021 and it’s impossible to think of marketing without digital marketing. If you are a business owner, you are sure to be using at least one form of digital marketing in promoting your products and services. According to DigitalMarketer, “Digital marketing is the act of promoting and selling products and services by leveraging online marketing tactics such as social media marketing, search marketing, and email marketing.” Here are five reasons why it may be time to rethink your digital marketing strategy.
Reason #1: COVID-19
If it weren’t already obvious, COVID-19 has created waves all across every industry, the digital marketing space included.
According to Bernard Marr’s Forbes piece, COVID-19 has resulted in many businesses depending largely on their digital marketing strategies, even to the extent that it may, in many cases, “be the deciding factor in whether they make it through the tough times ahead.”
Many businesses rely on having face-to-face meetings, attending and hosting events, conferences and tradeshows and entering awards to market their brand. However, with these avenues being entirely blocked from access due to the pandemic, it’s time for marketers to get creative.
Marr explains that B2B companies particularly depend on tradeshows and exhibitions to network and build customer relations. While larger companies may be investing equally in online efforts, they would have no doubt lost millions of dollars due to canceled events. This means bringing back the focus to social marketing, content marketing, SEO and influencer-led campaigns.
Reason #2: Your digital strategy lacks clarity
Smart Insights finds that many companies (regardless of whether they have a digital strategy or not) tend to lack direction in terms of their online marketing strategies. This could be a lack of clarity in terms of their digital strategy to gain customers, retain existing customers or any other marketing goals they may have.
If your digital marketing strategy lacks direction, it’s time for a digital marketing refresher.
Start by thinking of your digital marketing objectives. Taking a SMART approach is one way to articulate this – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
Reason #3: You’re missing adaptive content
Adaptive content is simply the opposite of static content. While static content stays the same throughout all social media channels, adaptive content is content that is tailored to each digital channel, whether it is your blog, website content, EDM, social media or other channels.
While the substance of your content can stay constant, it is really important to use the correct style, structure and length to meet each digital channel. For example, while blogs are allowed to be long-form, someone browsing your content on Instagram is not likely to read an extravagantly long caption.
Reason #4: It builds credibility
A clearly defined digital media strategy starts with your target audience.
This involves ideating and creating buyer personas to be able to target your market better – ensuring that your message reaches each target segment effectively through appropriate channels. For example, while Instagram has seen a heavy increase in popularity among people up to the age of 30, if your product is mainly aimed at people in their 40s, the message will be lost through this channel.
Similarly, Twitter users are more likely to buy a product promoted by an influencer, rather than based on a television ad. Therefore, targeting your audience appropriately can help with solidifying your brand image but building trust.
A clearly defined online customer value proposition targeted towards each target segment will help you articulate the value you can add through your online services. Develop a competitive content marketing strategy to generate new leads and keep existing customers loyal.
It’s all about getting the right message out at the right time, building trust and credibility and consequently, boosting sales.
Reason #5: It can make or break your business
The present is online, and the future will be online. Marketing without digital marketing can be equivalent to running on a treadmill – you’re putting in the work but not really getting anywhere.
According to Digital Marketer, having a strong digital marketing strategy will help to create awareness and engagement both before and after the sale, build brand loyalty and allow consumers to promote your content too.
So, if you haven’t already begun to rethink your digital marketing strategy, now might be a good time to start!