A good example the other night was an Australian company I hadn't seen advertising on free to air TV before and referring prospects to their website.
The advert itself wasn't bad. It focused on benefits and built a reasonably compelling story; painting a picture of a quality, modern and progressive company. BUT that image was quickly shattered.
When I had a look at the website (I actually rushed out of the TV room to check out the website...which bit of a worry I suppose!), I saw a completely boring, old style corporate brochure website that was a good few years old. Not one call to action, no engagement, no customer benefits, no compelling reason to do business with them at all.
The production, the creative, the on air cost of the TV advert, as good as it was...was a complete waste of time and money.
Would it have cost money to get an end to end lead generation and conversion model in place and fix the website. Sure, but a damn site less than the money wasted without doing it!
Business's have got to realise that there is no magical solution to marketing. It must be a well thought out strategy that is a system...lead generation, lead conversion, customer retention.
A system that produces revenue which will then justify the cost of having all the overheads a business must have...staff, premises, production, finance, IT etc. If you don't create a customer and retain them for the long term...guess what, no business.
So don't just advertise, build a strong business system that will provide a complete process to generating new customers and retaining them in the long term. Don't just throw money at an advert when times get tough...keep it up through the good times to grow and protect the valuable investment that your business is!
Right, that feels better, now...
Before signing off, here are some tips for a marketing driven website home page...remember, you only have 6.5 seconds to engage with a visitor to your website before they hit the back button, make every single one count.
5 Tips For A More Powerful Website Home Page
- Clear Outcomes - What do you want them to do? Make sure it has been thought about before just building a pretty looking web page. Focus on results.
- Credibility Builders - Surprise surprise, not everyone knows you. Can you introduce a testimonial, client logo or Association membership?
- Engagement - What can you do to engage with your visitors? Offer them something to take away. It could be a free ebook or white paper or even a brochure.
- Calls To Action - Regarding the first point, what do you want them to do? Call you, send an email, fill out an interest form, register for a seminar, join your email newsletter list? Make it easy, obvious and tell them what to do.
- Barrier Lowering Devices - Make it easier to do business with you. The testimonial mentioned above will help. Can you or do you offer a guarantee? Well tell them, show what differentiates you from your competitors.
There are plenty more ideas, but use this simple checklist to review your website. Have a look and it will be obvious straight away whether you tick all the points or not. For an opportunity to pick our brains, get your own FREE Digital Performance Assessment.
By the way, if you want a couple of examples of websites that incorporate these features, have a look at SMI's two websites...just click on the names below.
SMI Digital is a Website Design and Internet Marketing Agency and is a division of SMI Business Impact, a business development, marketing and management consultancy...invite us to help improve the performance of not only your website, but your lead generation and conversion marketing strategy.
Call us! on +61 1300 858 764 or enquire now Contact Us , we operate throughout Australia and globally.