While many businesses are eager to simply get a website up and running, not a lot of them actually invest the necessary time to first build a solid marketing strategy foundation. After all, your website is the biggest marketing tool in your arsenal. Don’t you want the right infrastructure in place that will allow you to leverage your website as a tool to easily attract new customers?
If you’re ready to have more than just a pretty website, read on to get tips to infuse marketing into your website plan.
1. Start with Marketing Goals
What do you want to accomplish with your website? Likely, you want to add leads to your contact database so you can email them and convert them to paying customers. It’s important to list out detailed marketing goals before you design your website so you can keep them in mind throughout the process.
2. Tie Goals with Website Components
For example, if you want to attract leads, you’ll need a unique offer to get people to sign up for your emails. Then you’ll need an email subscription form so people can get that offer. Tying the goal of increasing leads to the email form and offer (i.e. a whitepaper or coupon) ensures that you will move the needle toward that goal being achieved.
3. Build Trust
It’s imperative that your website instills trust in your visitors, and that it’s not just a sounding board for your own agenda. You do that by addressing your visitors’ pain points and providing useful content that answers their questions and solves their problems.
4. Be Authentic in Your Marketing
Everything from your blog to the videos on your site should be authentic — not just because you don’t want to come off as phony with your audience, but also because not being real may negatively impact your placement in search results. Your blog content, social media updates, and use of video is key for authenticity, so make sure all of your communications are genuine.
5. Pay Attention to Metrics
You can’t know what’s working in helping you generate leads unless you pay attention to your analytics.
Let’s say you have an offer for a free eBook, but nobody’s signing up for it. You need to know why it’s not netting the results you want. It could be because you require too much information in the signup form, the copy doesn’t include a call to action, or the offer isn’t compelling.
All of these are fixable, so if after a few months you’re not getting the results you intended, make one change, then watch and measure again.
In the end...
You’re not done marketing once you have your website up and running. It will likely require ongoing tweaks and updates to ensure it continues to appeal to your target audience. And a refresh of web copy or marketing offers every year or so is guaranteed to convert more and more visitors into customers. Just be sure you are specific about what you want out of your site, and the rest will fall into place.
What are some of the ways you measure your marketing results? Share your tool list below.
Source: SEMrush blog