We decided today to quickly write a series of short blog articles sharing just some of the ways your website directly increases your business sales and growth… if it is set up correctly.
These are to provide insights into some of the strategies that can be setup behind the scenes.
We have written these scenarios more-so with service-based businesses in mind, but they also apply and work for product-based businesses (particularly those who sell products on their website).
One thing to note before reading the scenarios is ‘the 7 touches rule’ (otherwise known as ‘the rule of 7’). If you are not familiar with this old marketing rule, please read about it here, then come back to this article.
For each of these scenarios to work, your website must first:
- Be correctly setup including mobile phone friendly
- Contain at least 1 Lead Capture Opt-in System (on the home page)
- Communicate within 3 seconds of your website loading who you are selling to (or working for), what the customer-value of your business is, and allude to why your business offers better value compared to your direct and indirect competitors.
- Is a modern and attractive website
- Contains excellently written website text that uses ‘less is more’ technique but still clearly communicates what you do, how you do it and why your processes are best
- Demonstrates how your business stands out from the crowd
- Has great photos (and videos if you want to create quality videos)
- Contains what our industry calls ‘proof to support claims’ which are items on your website that help site visitors decide to trust that what you say you can do is the truth, honest and accurate. Some proof to support claims include: customer testimonials, customer case studies, business awards, certifications, industry licenses, insightful information and articles that help your intended ideal customers understand/ evaluate for themselves your level of expertise, experience and depth of knowledge. Plus you need to include good examples of your work (before, during (progress) and after photos and/or videos.
If the above-mentioned things are setup within your website, your site is primed to perform (to become a performer website) once enough quality website traffic is driven to it each month. If these things are not included correctly within your website, do not expect that the scenarios in this blog series will work (including the one written below on this page)… as in, do not expect to ever own a ‘performer website’ unless it is strategically recrafted by website specialists.
Side note: a ‘performer website’ is a website that generates a high volume of unique website visitors every month AND (importantly) converts a high percentage of those website visitors into leads for your business, enquiries for your business and direct sales (if you sell products directly on your website).
When reading this article, put yourself in the shoes of potential buyers for your business. Think about ‘buyer behavior’.
Scenario 1: A Basic Facebook Remarketing Strategy
In this scenario, let’s say you are needing a builder to design and build your new home. Maybe you already know a great builder who you want to work with. That’s great… but that’s not what this scenario is about. Imagine the following:
You are on your phone. You might post a question on Facebook, but chances are you will also search Google. Let’s say you search Google and start clicking into websites that sound like they might be a good home builder business. You know you want to shop around so you call a few of them to get ballpark quotes. They each take you through their sales pipeline process. You’re starting to get an idea of which business you might select to build your new home.
That night you are on your phone after dinner while watching some TV. You’re checking your Facebook feed. You see an advert in your news feed for one of the businesses who’s website you visited. The advert explains that the business is running a limited time special offer. The advert looks really good and also has some short (by powerfully convincing) customer testimonials in its text. It also says that you can instantly claim the special offer, by clicking a link. You are now compelled, even though you know that it is going to require you to provide your name and email address. The offer though is just too good not to claim it!… so you click the link. It takes you to a page on their website that you have not seen before. It explains that for the next period of time (let’s say ’40 days’) they are providing 25% fee reductions for all residential home designs. You then fill out the simple form, receive an email and download the offer (in this case, it’s a voucher).
This offer was not from the business you had previously tentatively decided you might want to commission. However, with this offer in mind, they are now a serious contender. Over the next few weeks, everything checks out and you commission this business to design and build your new home.
WOW! What a WIN for the business with the offer! They have won the project because their business was running a great limited-time promotional advert on Facebook, that was triggered by clicking into their website.
How did this work? It works because the business has a special cookie (provided by Facebook through the Ads Manager) setup on their website. The cookie is called ‘the pixel’. Whomever is doing the digital marketing for the home builder business has setup the pixel system so it displays ads after visiting the website. This is one example of what Facebook calls ‘Remarketing’. There are also many other strategies using ‘the pixel’.
Once your mobile phone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer is pixeled by a website (a business), that business can run targeted ads to you at any time of the year… including when they want to run flash sales, huge discount Black Friday Sales, Cyber Monday sales, pre-Christmas sales, EFY sales or any type of seasonal marketing sales.
Side note: Google and YouTube have a similar system. It is called ‘Remarketing’.
Here’s the next blog article in our series “Ways Your Website Generates New Customers for your Business (there are many)”.
Jay Daniells has been doing advanced Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) work for clients since 2010. He is an SEO specialist. He first started doing SEO work in 2005. He has also been creating websites full-time since 2003. Amongst things Jay is also a graphic designer, digital marketing consultant and creative person. His focus is helping businesses, community groups, clubs, charities, organisations and other entities achieve their goals. He is the owner of Green Valley Digital.