Launching A New Website Is Not Enough
"If you build it, he will come." While that was true for an Iowan farmer building a baseball diamond in Field of Dreams, it is often not at all true for a business owner launching a new website. Companies that have never had a web presence rarely experience an influx of visitors. After investing copious time and energy into a website launch, it can be disheartening to not immediately have the phone ringing off the hook and an inbox full of new sales leads.
It takes a marketing strategy
We talk a lot about strategy and a new website is no exception. The internet is extremely crowded, and new websites are hard to find. Most people visit the same group of large sites, and a select handful of smaller sites that are specific to them. Rarely do they deviate from this habit.
Decades ago, all a business needed to do was put up a billboard or air a TV commercial to begin getting leads. Now, an audience must be carefully lured through the stages of awareness, interest, desire and action. A new website must be complemented by a complete digital marketing strategy in order to reach an audience.
The effort to find website visitors and turn them into leads is a marathon, not a sprint. In fact, in many ways creating and launching the site is the easy part! A strategy must be created in order to bring in web traffic through coordinated, useful, compelling content and multi-platform digital advertising.
It takes digging in and consistently implementing your strategy
Here are four tips for beginning to create a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.
- Know your audience. Who would be most interested in visiting your website? Where can they typically be found online? Once these questions have been answered, begin creating content targeted towards them and publishing it on the sites and social platforms where they are most likely to be found.
- Develop content. Create content for your company blog and social media channels, as well as evergreen content for the website. The content should include a clear call to action to visit the website or sign up for a newsletter. It should also be optimized for search engines, which can drive a significant amount of traffic to your site.
- Refine your website. Provide thoughtful explanations of how your product or service solves potential customers' pain points. As your customer base grows, ideally you will be serving them well enough to turn them into company evangelists. Ask for their feedback and use it on your website. As your content brings in new visitors, the positive opinions of current customers will entice them to learn more.
- Advertise online. While your organic efforts begin to take root, grow, and bear fruit over time, use digital advertising as a growth booster. Social media advertising can help expose your content to new audiences. Digital banner ads on other websites where potential customers like to visit can also help. Consider using paid content distribution services to help your content get more exposure.
It takes a specialist
That may sound like a lot of work - it is! But it is worth the effort, and you do not have to go it alone. With the help of an experienced marketing agency to help you plan, execute and analyze results, you can create a digital marketing strategy that will make people aware of who you are, pique their interest, cause them to desire your product or service, and eventually take action.
