Look around you. The chances are that everyone you see will be on their smart phone at some point within the next 10 minutes. We are quite simply addicted to them. Because of this it is essential to ensure that your website is “responsive”. By this, I mean that it works and looks great not only on laptops but on tablets and smart phones as well. This is where people get their information from in 2017.
If your website has not been created in the past couple of years then the chances are that it needs to be right now. It is your shop window after all. Can you imagine Harrods having the same window displays all year around? Your website is you best marketing asset and it needs time and money spent on it. It is controllable and it is yours.
But why should you spend money when the site you have seems effective enough? To answer this you need to ask yourself how many people you think in the past month have mentioned your site on their social media. It is your websites job to not only inform customers of what you do, but also get those same people so shout out about it’s existence. To do this you first have to get the basics right. Does your site look modern (or you look very outdated and no one will be interested) and responsive (automatically change it’s design to fit laptops, tablets and phone screens). Look at your industry leaders sites and make a judgement on yours. The purpose is for people to be happy to tell their friends about you so you have to be looking top notch for this to happen.
When you have your modern and responsive website you can really start to focus on your marketing and ultimately sell more, increasing your profits. If done correctly, and this takes a lot of time, dedication and knowledge, you can start to eliminate your print advertising or other marketing and advertising costs.
Your goal should be to capitsalise on all the amazing word of mouth publicity you generate by making your customers your ambassadors. It is well documented that people make choices based on recommendations from trusted friends than anything else, so use your website to achieve this.
Pleasing people at the point of sale is just the first step. The real goal is to make each and everyone of those people an ambassador for you. But how do you do this in a cost-effective manner? The key is creating content that engages your customers and works to build your own audience. You want people to come to your site to be entertained, discover something new or leave with a new skill. If you supply knowledge then your ideal customers will find you and share that content within their social circle. It is not an overnight project, rather one that takes time in order to build trust and respect. The idea is not to sell to your audience but be their entertainment. You will build trust and hopefully they will buy from you at some point.
You become the media that they trust and take inspiration from. It takes time to build your list but when it gains traction think of the possibilities. You will have thousands of people wanting to read or watch what is posted on your site. These will turn into customers.
In my next post I will discuss what type of content you need to publish to engage your audience.
Note – the next post can be viewed here