Envisioning Success

Is Your Website an Effective Marketing Tool?

Posted by Chris Shockley under General, Marketing, Usability, Web Design

Everyone has a website these days. We’ve all been to the same marketing seminar that says you need one.

That’s a good start, but don’t stop there. Your website can be one of the most effective marketing tools you have. It is by far one of the best values as well.

In the past, if you wanted to do business you’d get a yellow pages ad, for thousands of dollars, and then you took out ads in the paper also, maybe canvasing and area with fliers or something. You knew you had to spend the money because that is how you were found. You put it in the budget and organized your business around it.

But for some reason people approach things without the same business commitment. People seem to think that spending as little as possible is somehow going to achieve a satisfactory result.

It seems to me that if we think about our websites in the same way that we used to think about our yellow pages ads, we’d realize that for it to be truly effective for us, we will need to spend a little time and money getting it working for us. Only then will we get the return we are looking for. The difference is that you will spend far less and get far more through your website than through a yellow pages ad. Sorry little yellow book sitting in my drawer unused, but you just will.

The key is not to simply hang your website like a sign then walk away expecting customers to just show up. It just doesn’t work that way. What this means is that someone needs to do the work necessary to make sure your website is designed correctly (structurally), is optimized so people can find it (Search Engine Optimization) and is easy to use (usability) so that your website can be found by people looking for your products and services and when they get to your site, they find what they are looking for and hopefully take the next step.

You Get What You Pay For

If you decide that you are going to manage your own website yourself, be prepared to spend a lot of time learning about website design, search engine optimization rules and writing content for the web, which is very different than other writing you may do. You must learn all this so that your site will perform effectively. If you don’t, your website is not going to be effective and you will have spent your time for a less than desired result. You might not like this next statement, but it’s not the websites fault if it’s not working for you.

Think about this. If you hired someone to do your website and they could not get it to where you want it, or couldn’t make it look how you want (EG: to match your branding), you’d fire them, right? Well, maybe it’s time to fire yourself.

Don’t Skimp

One of my challenges, surprisingly, is to convince business owner not to skimp on their marketing efforts. This is a bit odd to me as your marketing is what prospective customers use to decide if they are going to take the next step and move forward in doing business with you. Is it really worth saving a few bucks to take that chance? You don’t want people to look at your website and think “This says they’ve been in business for a week” do you? Or to simply hit the back button because they couldn’t find what they were looking for?

I see people with those paper brochures that they printed themselves. Cheap? Yes. (Actually maybe not when you look at what ink costs). Easy to update? Yes. Effective? Not really. So, is that a good use of your money and resources? Is it a good business decision? I see the same thing with business cards people get for free from certain companies as well. A bunch of people have the same business card because they’re all picking from the same templates.

Not Like The Old Days

Keep in mind that we’re not talking about the same kind of dollars that yellow page advertising cost. I’ve heard of people spending $5-30k per month! Yes, you read that right, per month. A brand new website doesn’t cost near that and if you have a website, you can get it hosted and professionally managed for around $40/mo.

It’s not personal, it’s business

If you want a professional result, you need to hire a professional. Just make sure you define your goals and make the necessary choices to achieve them. You may take your business personally because it represents who you are. I understand that, but when you need to make a business decision, keep your emotions out of it. Find someone you trust and see how it goes. If they can’t get it done, choose someone else.