Website marketing for some people is almost forgotten in running their business.
Building a website is just the beginning of the marketing process not the end of it..
In many ways it is like moving into a shop in Perth. You would make sure you have signage and you would make sure that people knew you were there.
Maybe you would use some of the following techniques :-
Local letterbox drops
Signs out the front
Press release for the local paper
Create a PR event by sponsoring a community event and getting coverage
Handing out flyers
Local paper ads etc.
Put your website on your offline marketing (the number of people who don’t put their website on flyers/ads etc is surprisingly high)
As online is now the predominant marketing channel for most consumers, you would need to especially ensure that your website was marketed properly.
Before the website is constructed you would need to ensure that you know who will potentially buy from you.
More importantly you would want to know what was important in their buying decision and ensure that your website was designed with that in mind.
A website that converts visitors to leads or clients is critical for many reasons. If your website doesn’t convert then it doesn’t matter how much traffic you send to it, you will be wasting money and this can be substantial. This is the difference between a quality website focused on the customers and a template you may buy.
In short, if you build a quality website then everyday afterwards it will make you money day after day month after month, year after year.
A poorly designed website will save you money initially and then COST you money day after day, month after month, year after year.
I know the option I prefer.
After the website is built and it is converting your visitors you have a reliable business tool to build on. One that is predictable.Send x visitors to the website and get x calls or leads.
Generally the 3 most common ways to market to your leads/clients are
1 Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) that optimises the search results in Google so that potential customers can find you.
2 Adwords – This is where you pay for the Google ads in the search results. Every time someone clicks on your ad you have to pay Google.
This is also called cost per click marketing.
3 Email Marketing- This is when you collect the emails and names of your clients and send monthly or quarterly mail outs to them using special software that can tell you who is opening them and what percentage is doing that.
The biggest mistake that new businesses make is not having sufficient capital for there marketing and a plan of how to use it.
My view is that you need a reasonable marketing budget to generate leads or your business will atrophy. We spend $2,000 + every month and I know one thing for sure, that if I didn’t do that our turnover cuts in half within 2 months. I monitor every lead that comes into this business and have had periods in this business where I spent nothing on marketing to save costs with regretful results.
I say this as someone who has both an accounting degree and 13 years experience working in public companies and a decade and a half in marketing.
I don’t see marketing as a cost. I know that if I run $1000 worth of Adwords per month, that will create at least 15 times that in turnover every month reliably.
Given the choice of cutting back this $1,000 and any other cost, I will never cut this marketing cost. The same applies to SEO and strategic partner marketing I do.
It is like owning a printing press having these returns. I never look at the cost, I look at the returns. My marketing budget is the last think I would cut.
You should ensure you have a plan and the working capital to carry it out. Ring on (08) 9350 9392 and we can discuss how we can help you.