3 Reasons Why Your Website is Not Enough
Don’t put all your eggs in one (web) basket
When new companies, and old ones for that matter, come to us for marketing services, they often first ask about their website. They either need one or their outdated site needs to be revamped. While a website is an extremely important tool for marketing and sales, it should not be the only tool you use. Here are three reasons why your website is not enough:
1. There is Only So Much Room on Page 1 of Google Search Results
A search on Google for Marketing Companies Decatur AL brings back about 4,010,000 results, and a search for just Marketing Companies nets 103,000,000 results. With that many possible results, showing up in the list of ten on the first page of results is a herculean feat. If you only have a website and nothing else, you may get lucky and show up well in the search engines, or the website may never be found at all.
The Lesson: You need a marketing strategy that includes advertising, social media use, content marketing, and other methods for helping people find your website. While, the Red Sage site shows up on the first page of results for Marketing Companies Decatur AL, it is our other marketing efforts that have helped with that ranking and drive the most traffic to our site.
2. A Website is Slow in Real Time Marketing
Over the last few years, there has been a huge push towards real-time marketing. This means responding to things as they happen in a very short timeframe. While static websites are great for general information, this constant changing of content is much harder to do on a website, especially for small business owners. This type of messaging is better suited for social media and other forms of instant communication.
The Lesson: You need a social media presence or other nimble communication tools to handle the demands of real-time marketing. One of the best examples of real-time marketing is Oreo’s quick tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl power outage. They’ve got a great website, but this tweet captured much more buzz than their website could ever get.
3. Websites Are Not Humans
Your website may represent your company well, but it cannot fully replace personal connections. By its nature, a website is typically a one-way conversation, with limited actual conversations possible. It is the way that you interact with people that truly captures and retains customers.
The Lesson: You need to build a website that answers as many questions as it can, but also create a plan for customer service, networking, and other personal connections beyond the limitations of your website. Excellent customer service, such as the kind that online retailer Zappos provides, can boost the power of your marketing even better than a well-designed website.
Top Three Things to Do In Addition to Your Website
Now that I’ve convinced you that you need more than just a website, let me share three things that you should consider adding to your marketing plan this year:
- Advertising: Sure, not every company needs advertising, but the vast majority of them do. If you are starting your first advertising campaign, consider online options. Google AdWords, Facebook ads, and other online ads are typically more flexible and easier to track than traditional advertising. Don’t discount traditional advertising completely though, because a good radio, TV, billboard, or newspaper ad still reaches big audiences.
- Social Media and In-Person Networking: Making personal connections with your customers and prospective customers can lead to longer relationships. Just keep in mind that social media and in-person networking is relationship-based and hard, one-way sales messages typically do not fit here.
- Customer Service: Your website can make huge promises, but if the customer experience doesn’t live up to those promises, your website will become useless. Create expectations with your staff to deliver excellent, above-and-beyond customer service. Happy customers are often the best salespeople that a company can have.
In addition to these three things, also consider these 5 Free Marketing Ideas. If you’re looking for more help in taking your marketing beyond your website, give us a call at 256-560-0098. We’d love to help.