If You Build It – Then Tell Them About It – They Will Come

Any effective marketing plan starts with your website. It’s the most important element of your online presence. Your website is the one place where you have complete control over all visuals, messaging, and content. All your online marketing tactics should bring visitors directly to your website.

There are many other online channels that can be an important part of your marketing strategy. With all these options, the best approach is to build your marketing plan around your website and then work outward from there. Here are several steps to consider in making that happen.

First Step: Build a Strategic Website

Many of today’s websites are visually appealing but fall short of being effective. It is critical that your website has all the basic elements in place before thinking about flashy visuals. What are the basic elements? Here are just a few:

• A smart, simple design that works in all major browsers, and it must be mobile-friendly.
• A clear value proposition and top-line explanation of what you offer.
• Intuitive navigation.
• A comprehensive SEO strategy, including metadata, keyword research, and off-page elements.
• A strong call to action (CTA) on every page.
• Interesting content in a variety of forms, such as blog posts, videos, and even podcasts.

The Social Media Connection

Social media has become a critical part of most people’s daily online experience and the pandemic elevated the importance of these platforms.

When establishing profiles on your social media sites, it is important that your design and messaging are consistent with the look and feel of your website. Logos, color schemes, voice, and tone should line up with what visitors will find if they visit your website. By failing to do so, you can easily put visitors off and erode trust in your brand.

A good portion of your social content should reference content that is housed on your website. Whatever type of post you create — blog, video, webinar or event listing, or podcast — it should serve as a way to gain attention, create an appetite for more, and lead followers to your site to read an article in full, sign up, claim an offer or some other type of action.

Establish Email Marketing

In today’s digital marketplace, email marketing is an essential component of a well-rounded marketing system. But how does this tie into your website? It only happens intentionally. A great website will have a very close relationship with email marketing campaigns. It will include a way for interested visitors to provide their contact information using landing pages and lead capture forms. This is accomplished by embedding links in the emails that redirect readers back to the website.

Add Paid Social and Search

After establishing an effective organic presence on your social media platforms, it’s time to broaden your marketing horizons into paid social and paid search. You can create ads that target very specific groups, whether by geography, demographic profile, or even people who are already clients. Once you have segmented each audience and created ad copy that speaks to each, the final step is to create a unique landing page on your website that is designed specifically for the paid ad. By greeting visitors with information that is tied directly to the ad campaign, conversion rates can be boosted significantly.

Integrate Offline Tactics

A strong digital marketing strategy can be greatly enhanced with offline marketing tactics. Depending on the campaign and the targeted geography, more traditional channels might be considered, such as radio, print, and direct mail advertising. In many cases, it is possible to drive traffic from these offline marketing efforts directly to your website. Again, specific landing pages can play an important role here, as can unique promo codes.

A Key Role for your Website

An effective website should be at the heart of every company’s marketing strategy. Whether online or offline, every marketing tactic should lead right back to that site. This provides for a better understanding of the target audience, the ability to control the marketing message, and improve conversions all along the customer journey. Of course, a great website requires the support of other marketing efforts for it to be fully effective, but it all starts with a website designed for the long haul.

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