Marketing and Measuring ROI
On-line marketing has come of age and is rapidly becoming a dominant medium. Traditional business marketing is very specific, however when it comes to the Internet you are literally reaching the world. I guess that’s why they call it the World Wide Net!
What are some of your options are if you are depending on foot traffic to your door. Networking is pretty much a necessary event in the normal course of business. We all need to network, unless you are actively trying to keep your business a secret.
Every time you open your mouth you are networking. Please do not confuse networking with selling. Networking gets your name out there, puts a face to your business name and your Web site should be providing the rest of the story.
As part of your web strategy you should have your Web address on everything you present to the public. Every advertisement you place in every single medium, all the business information that is handed out should have your Web address on it, including cards brochures and flyers.
Television and radio commercials should make it part of your tagline and by using a specific url you can also then measure the success of that particular medium.
Driving traffic to your site
Once you have the public visiting your “electronic salesperson,” what then? Specials can be created that can only be found on your Web page and can be downloaded and brought into your establishment and once again measured. This will drive traffic to your door and there is nothing like warm, breathing and hopefully buying bodies to lift the spirit of a business and boost the bottom line.
What the Web has done is give an owner different ways to reach the public. Offer an ongoing competition or reward in exchange for getting your customers to recommend your products and services and share potential new customers e-mail information, in this way they are buying into your efforts to expand your customer data base. What’s more, in order to collect their prize they must come into your establishment to collect.
Use your Web site to brag about what you have done for your community, or to talk about your ongoing projects that could involve your customers. They might even be interested in helping, too, which in turn creates an entirely new kind of loyalty. Get recommendations and testimonials as 70% of customers are still using the web to research the products or services that they are wanting to purchase
What do you do once you have a website?
Once you have a site, you will need to be sure it is easy to use. You are not the best judge of this because you know what’s on the page, and often, designers and managers egos can get in the way. If you are not your own Webmaster, then your Webmaster is not necessarily the best person to ask, either, because his/her ego is definitely involved, so who’s left?
Ask a few impartial colleagues to go onto your Web site and look around (not your closest friends). Don’t give them your Web address; let them find you the way they would normally look for a business. Get feedback of their first impression. How easy was it to find you, where were you ranked by the search engine? Can they suggest any areas of improvement and what do they think is missing?
Ask them to look for what you consider critical information. How easy was it to navigate around once they found your site? Did they find what they were looking for? How long did they stay on a page and which did they prefer, where did they go first and how easy was it to be ‘led through’ the site? Did it stir their interest and make them want to look for more or did they get bored and jump off quickly?
These factors and more are critical to you having a successful and profitable Web site.
If you have questions, comments or opinions, feel free to email me at jamie@wsioms.co.za or visit our website at www.wsioms.co.za (WSI –We Simplify the Internet) is an Online Marketing Consultancy with a track record of building on-line business through innovative marketing strategies.