What do all of your marketing channels — print marketing, social posts, emails and more — all have in common? Despite each marketing channel having their own audience and purpose, they all lead back to your website in some way. No matter the size of your business, what industry you’re in or what geographical area you serve, your business needs a powerful website that your target audience can use to research, engage and build a relationship with your brand.
The modern consumer journey relies heavily on Google searches, social media posts, videos and other online channels that influence how a consumer makes any purchasing decision. The online consumer journey isn’t completely linear either. In fact, it takes the average consumer 3 website visits before making a purchase. Your website needs to be prepared to attract and engage with your target audience at any given moment of need — no matter how they find you in the first place. You can’t control exactly how a consumer will find you online but you can control why they stay on your website. When you treat your website like the centralized hub of your marketing efforts, you’ll learn to think critically about your sales funnel and online presence needs. Let’s explore the 5-step process on how to turn your website into an impactful marketing hub:
Step 1: Build Your Customer Journey
Your homepage isn’t the only webpage that matters. If your target audience finds your business through a social media post, a Google search, Yelp profile or anywhere else online, they could find your website with any random webpage or blog post as their starting point. Your website’s user experience and design must keep the consumer journey in mind; that means every single webpage needs to have a clear purpose and unique call-to-action that guides your website visitors through your intended sales funnel. One blog post won’t be enough to persuade a website visitor into a purchase. It’s your website’s job to keep your audience engaged long enough to explore your products or services, learn more about your brand and build a trusting relationship before they make a purchase.
Step 2: Answer Questions
Just because you get a website click, doesn’t mean every website visitor is ready to make a purchase decision on their first visit. The main purpose your website serves in the beginning of the consumer journey is to answer questions. Unlike a social post that gets buried in a feed or an email that gets lost in a cluttered inbox, your website content is prominent without competitors. This is your first distraction-free chance to educate your audience, and answer their most pressing questions at any given moment. Here are a few ways you can use common website features to answer your audience’s questions:
Blogs
You can use blogs to introduce your brand through the timely industry news and latest trends. Unlike service-related landing pages, your blogs can focus on hyper-niche topics that answer one specific question at a time. Not only do blogs have exponential search engine optimization (SEO) impacts, they can also be repurposed across all your other marketing channels to create buzz and drive more traffic back to your website.
Landing Pages
A landing page is a standalone web page created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. It’s where a visitor lands after clicking on a link in an email, ad, or search engine result. They are a powerful sales tool that increase brand awareness and educate your target audience on your offerings. Each landing page should have a unique pitch with a singular clear call-to-action that drives the sale.
FAQs Page
A well-crafted Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page can serve as a central webpage that answers your business’s most commonly received questions all in one view. This resource can showcase the ease of use and transparency that website visitors are looking for — ultimately creating a positive user experience that builds a strong relationship with consumers.
Step 3: Create Urgency
After you’ve educated your target audience on your brand and services, it’s time to create urgency. This is not done in a vacuum; your other marketing channels will also play an important role by creating awareness of the want or need. A strategically structured and designed website creates a sense of urgency for how quickly a consumer should navigate through the sales process and make their purchase decision. This can be done through:
Pop-Ups
Website pop-ups are small windows or overlays that appear on a website, usually triggered by specific user actions or timed events. Creating pop-ups or banners with timely enticing offers with clear deadlines can bring awareness to sales or exclusive offers.
CRM Connection
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is software that helps businesses manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. Using your website to collect contact information is the first step to kicking off an impactful automated email marketing follow-up strategy.
Use of Color Theory
Certain colors can change our mood and increase our heart rate. Utilizing the right colors and the right time can influence a consumer’s purchasing decision. For example, the color red can out-convert the color green by over 20%. Red is a great choice for impulse purchases; however, it can also induce stress if used incorrectly which will result in consumers turning away too early. Finding the right color balance will help build urgency without becoming overstimulating.
Step 4: Build Trust
Today’s consumers are tech-savvy and more self-aware than ever before. They won’t make a purchase if they’re unsure how safe their information will be. In fact, 48% of consumers report abandoning a website due to a lack of trust (Econsultancy). Your website is your strongest opportunity to build trust with your consumers. There are several factors that play into building trust with online consumers:
- Reviews & Testimonials: Real-world stories and examples about your business and services have just as much positive impact as personal recommendations.
- High Performance & Secure Hosting: 61% of online shoppers say that they would abandon a transaction if the website was not secure (Statista).
- Consistent Branding: Keeping your visual brand consistent across all your marketing channels ensures customers that they are in the right place every step of the way.
- Trust Badges: Adding awards, community membership badges and other accomplishments to your website and marketing materials boosts a consumer’s confidence and emotional ties to a local business.
Step 5: Analyze & Adjust
The only true way to measure your overall marketing performance is through marketing analytics. Analyzing your website performance on a monthly basis allows for strategic data-driven decisions about how to change or expand your website in a way that will benefit users. Google Analytics is a powerful website analytics tool that is free to use by everyone. Through tools like this you can analyze:
- Top Performing Pages: What pages are your most and least visited?
- Exit Points: How quickly do users leave your website?
- Traffic Breakdown: Where does most of your website traffic come from?
Understanding how users are finding and engaging with your business online will help you build a stronger marketing and content strategy that fills in the gaps across every marketing channel you use.
Key Takeaways
Your website is your most powerful marketing and sales asset, and it deserves to be treated like one. Your paid search ads and social posts might draw attention to your brand, but your website is the place that will seal the deal. A well structured website answers questions with ease through engaging content while simultaneously building consumer trust during their research and decision-making process. Treating your website as the central hub of all your marketing will help make your business stronger.
Ready to take your website to the next level? Contact Katava Marketing today for expert guidance and strategies tailored to your business goals.
