Your Website Will Not Perform Without a Sound Marketing Strategy - Having a website is not enough!
A website is a marketing vehicle that can help you reach your sales goals and objectives. The amazing reality is that your website works for you 24 hours 7 days a week. It is virtually the hardest working, most cost effective employee that you have. Unfortunately most companies don’t get the results they should from their website.
The reason is simple. Most companies fail to incorporate a sound sales and marketing strategy as part of the foundation of their website. Furthermore they fail to utilize all the tools that are available to monitor the performance of their website once it has been created and becomes operational. This is a critical mistake, as monitoring results and making ongoing adjustments is paramount to a website performing at its optimum.
It begins with goals and objectives.
Developing a strategy begins with understanding organizational goals and objectives: What are current sales goals? How many products should be sold during a specified time period? Which products and/or services create the highest profit margin? Working through these types of questions helps to identify goals and objectives to work toward.
With a clear understanding of organizational goals and objectives, a marketing strategy can be formulated and applied to a website. A solid web-based strategy will address the following concerns:
Customer Demographics – Who are your customers? Where are your customers? What are their habits?
Customer Expectations – What do your customers expect from your company, its products and services?
Competitive Analysis – Whom are you competing against? Do your competitors have websites? What are their pricing points? What are they communicating to their customers?
Website Traffic – How much traffic will be needed to generate the desired results?
Site Messaging – What and when are you communicating to your customers?
Call to Action – What is the ultimate action we want viewers to take? Is it to purchase products? Is it to register for something or to download information?
Conversion Tools – How will the website capture the necessary information from viewers, enabling your sales team to understand their interests and follow up accordingly?
Once these questions have been answered, a strategy can be formulated and implemented.
The rubber Meets the Road
At this point, the completed strategic plan becomes a specifications document that acts as a road map during the development or modification of a website.
In conjunction with the strategic plan, the site is carefully designed to meet the needs of customers based on their desires and interests. Taking it a step further, the site will engage the customer with the goal of a sale or the generation of a qualified lead.
As you can see, a website developed in conjunction with a marketing strategy literally becomes an extension of your sales force. It will communicate with your customer base speaking the language that they understand and, more importantly, want to hear. The website will guide them to their destination, engaging them every step of the way. Finally, the website will create sales and sales leads that will help your company accomplish its sales goals.