Web Marketing Strategy - transcribed
Web Marketing Strategy
Hi, I’m Sage Lewis the president of SageRock.com. I would like to talk to you about your overall web marketing strategy. When I’m talking about web marketing strategy the first thing that comes to mind is the second habit from “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. The second habit is start with the end in mind. If you understand what exactly it is you want your visitor to do on your web site, it is going to significantly help you craft your web site, design your web site; lay out your web site. Every element you add or remove from your web site is going to be put up against this factor. Is it helping or hurting this end goal? Really, I don’t see a lot of people doing this. Start with the end in mind. Now, if you are an e-commerce site you might say that your end in mind is for someone to buy something that is very well and good. Obviously that should be your ultimate goal. However, it is very rare that people will buy on their first visit to a site. Simply because the web has changed the entire shopping experience, instead of someone walking into a store someone can visit your site and then go on to another to compare service and cost, the buyer is in more control than they have ever been. So, you might not want your end goal, for the first time visitor, to buy something. Maybe it is to get information, to sign up for a drawing, to play a game, the more creative the better. Something to get them engaged in your overall marketing strategy. There might be some very small ticket items that the most wanted response is to buy on the first time. It can be done, it’s going to be hard, you have to have really compelling copy, great testimonials, great price and shopping experience. It has to be seamlessly perfect almost. The more expensive the item, the longer the buying cycle. You should also not assume they are going to bookmark or remember you. You have to get them into your marketing cycle. If you are a service business, most likely you just want to get information from them. When you have an online form always keep in mind, the smaller the better. Do you really need to know the name of the company or their title? You don’t need that stuff on the first time visit. You just need a way to reach out to them. It has been my experience; if you can get a phone number you are in a better position than if you just get an email. I typically find that if somebody gives an email on a whim they don’t always return an email response. If you can ask for a phone number that is really ideal, so you can call them and see if they are interested. I like short forms, a name, phone number, a comment field, maybe an email address field, and that is it. You can get all of the other information in future visits. Even that isn’t going to come free; you are going to have to do something that compels a person to want to give you their information. This could be free information, a free consultation, something that is valuable to the visitor. It is worth honing this; you paid for the visitor one way or another. If you are doing pay per click you paid an actual dollar amount to get them to the site. If you are using search engine optimization, your optimizer cost you something. You can equate that out to what every visitor cost you. If you just wrote out an article, sent out a press release there was time in that, there is a dollar, a value to every single customer that comes to your site. People often ask me what percent of people they should expect to do their most wanted response. I typically say that the industry average is about two percent. So, if two percent of the people who come to your site do your most wanted response, I think you are doing well. That is certainly not to say that you can’t do better. I have seen up to ten percent, but that is a well crafter, well honed site that has been massaged over years of time. I would not anticipate coming out of the gate at even two percent. If you are starting a new site, even half a percent is realistic. Two is a good goal to get to, if you are above two keep working on it. If you are below two you are probably missing something, your message isn’t right. I hope that helps a little bit with your web marketing strategy. If you have any more questions feel free to call us at 330-379-9000, or you can email me directly at sage@sagerock.com. Thank you so much for listening, have a great day.