Your website can be the most powerful marketing platform in your arsenal. As the world becomes more digital, physical storefronts are competing against and being augmented by online storefronts. With the proper strategy in place, your website will function as both a 24 hour business and a 24 hour data collector. Since your company’s site is in the unique position of always being available for your customers and always learning about your customers, it can get you where you want to go in much less time. Attracting and retaining customers by interfacing with this online vehicle is an effective means of keeping traffic moving in your direction.
24 Hour Store Front – Get them to your Marketing Platform
A website, if maintained well, never closes. Nor does it require a great deal of manpower to work the register and show customers around. Even the overhead for running a website comes in a few monthly fees and even fewer daily expenditures. A website is the marketing platform that never quits. Staying open 24 hours means not excluding any demographics based on lifestyle, transportation capabilities, or even sleeping habits, from engaging with your services. Establishing a user-friendly site where viewers can help themselves to answers and services at their leisure, will keep your business flowing even when you need to take a break. No one wants to lose out on a sale because you can’t miss out on sleep!
24 Hour Data Collector – The Marketing Platform performs when you can’t
While you sleep, your website continues interacting with your customers, gathering pertinent information about visitors and learning how to better serve them. Sites can track who visits, how they arrive – search engines, links, URLs – and where they navigate to while on your site. They can track how your customers spend time online, what other sites they visit, and how you are best able to fit in with their interests. Using your website as a marketing platform sets the stage for compiling hands-on information and using it to tailor your services by determining the successes and weaknesses of your marketing campaigns.
In order to turn this platform into a show home, you have to focus on the selling features. Some areas of your online space may need to be rebuilt, others may just need a fresh coat of paint. Here are some methods for sprucing up your website for maximum platform potential:
A memorable address: Smart website URL – Having an easy to remember, short, inclusive web address will help attract and retain visitors. For potential viewers, this is their first impression of your company. If your address is complicated, forgettable, or even offensive, audiences more likely to pass it by.
Curb appeal: Attractive website layout – After the URL, your homepage is the next step towards making a good impression. Curb appeal draws people in. Your website should have a clean layout, with clear navigation, and pertinent information. Make your space welcoming and visually pleasing so people will want to stay for a while.
Themed decor: Consistent branding and information – Keep the company information consistent and visible at all times. Ensure all vital information is situated intuitively, and all company logos and slogans are done in a uniform appearance across marketing mediums. Give your website a style that complements your business’s design and feel.
Bake fresh cookies: Special Offers – Offer exclusive deals on your website that will draw in customers from searches and other mediums. Invite them to your online storefront for something special, then convince them to stay for with further engagements.
Engage your guests: Provide useful content – Utilize the 3 Cs of content creation – Create, Curate, and Circulate (see CM2 Article “Social Media Content Strategy”) – to draw in new audiences, service your current clientele, and improve connections with your industry and network. Create new content, curate existing content, and circulate all that content to the community to keep the conversation on your business.
Keep up with the Joneses: Get ranked – Strategize with SEO and content creation to improve your online presence. Utilize multimedia to keep things interesting and ranking-friendly: videos, pics, audio, and offer offline content. Integrate your website with other social medias to promote exposure of your site on numerous platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, app checkins.
.
Get out of the house: Make it mobile compatible – Continue the trend of freeing your storefront from being tied down to a physical address and desktop domains only. Ensure your website is mobile friendly. It will increase your presence in online searches, and it will allow customers to find you on the go.
Websites may appear to be unmanned, but keeping a page working to maximum effect is a full time business. Enlisting a marketing agency to oversee the technical aspects of running a website and integrating that site into an overall marketing strategy is a sound investment. Set a budget for this exponentially growing online market, and entrust that budget to an agency that’s made it their business to get you a strong return on your investment. Digital Marketing is a fast paced, constantly shifting landscape. You would entrust the sale of your house to a real estate agent because they know the market and details of a complicated industry.
Let CM2 Media help build and market your online store, so it can be every bit the show home you envision for your business.