You can’t build a great house without a great foundation. For your business, your website is your digital foundation. Without it, all of your marketing efforts will crumble. If you only have the bandwidth and budget to do just one thing to improve your marketing and sales strategy, ensuring your website is optimized to support your business should be it.
Here’s why a beautiful, functional website is critical for the success of your marketing activities:
Make a Great First Impression
According to research conducted by Missouri University of Science and Technology, you have just 2.6 seconds to make a first impression on your website. That means that in about half the time it takes to sing “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me,” customers need to understand what your company does, what you stand for, and the action that you want them to take. This requires captivating design, razor-sharp copywriting, and a team that deeply understands user experience. Eye-catching design also ensures that the experience will stick with a potential client after they’ve left your site.
Keep Track of Potential Customers
One of the most tangible ways that a well-designed website drives marketing strategy is through analytics. When tracked properly, your website can tell you how many people are checking out your brand, what interests them, and where they’re coming from. From sussing out who your customers are and how you can fill their needs to how to spend your budget to reach them, analytics inform both business and marketing strategy. Well-tracked website analytics truly serve as a launching pad for all your business decisions.
Build Brand Equity
A well-designed website reinforces your brand design, mission, and values. If your potential clients experience cohesive design and messaging every time they interact with your brand, it increases the likelihood that you’ll be top of mind when they’re ready to make a purchase. Brand consistency is how you build trust and develop loyal customers.
Convert Potential Customers into Loyal Brand Ambassadors
Your web development team can implement various on-site tools that will allow you to capture contact information. This gives you the opportunity to continue communicating with potential customers until they’re ready to buy. According to the “Marketing Rule of 7”, it takes seven communications with someone (through various channels) to convert them into a customer. Your website serves as the best platform to begin filling your sales funnel.
Expand your Search Reach
A great website makes your brand searchable, meaning you can reach new customers without lifting a finger. To do so, you need a solid SEO strategy and a way to capture leads once people reach your site. Awareness is a big part of the sales funnel; the more you have, the more will filter into your bottom line. Your website also serves as the home base for all of your marketing activities; everything should direct back to your site so that you can track, analyze and strategize.
Drive Sales
Making money is a fundamental part of being in business and to do so, you’ve got to drive sales. A great website works to boost your bottom line when it is SEO optimized, easy to navigate, and includes a clear call to action that inspires your customers to buy your product or services in that moment. Your website can also help you connect the dots from specific marketing efforts to sales to help you expand on what’s working and step away from what’s not.
Brand Credibility
A website that looks nice and offers potential customers a seamless pathway to finding what they need will give your brand more credibility. Great UX or user experience design ensures potential customers flow through your website in a way that encourages them to take action, and that you are able to glean analytics from their actions. Great UI or user interface makes sure the look and feel of your website are appealing and on-brand. People might not think much about a website that works well, but they will almost certainly only return to sites that are the easiest to navigate. A well-designed website also presents your company as one that other brands can partner with, increasing potential for expanding awareness about your business.
Eye-catching design, seamless UX and UI, engaging copy, brand awareness, simple navigation, SEO, and conversion tools are all necessary to create a website that can serve as the hub of your business’s marketing strategy. Need help navigating all this? Contact us for a website redesign discovery call today.
