No one can deny the immense effect the internet has had on modern life. And marketing is not immune from it. Digital marketing is cheaper, much better targeted, can travel further faster, and is easy to amend with the click of a button. Offline marketing is still important – but digital is here to stay.
If digital marketing is not just a fad, but an evolution into the digital age, then sensible businesses will understand that it has to be embraced. Just like in the animal kingdom, if you don’t evolve when the world changes, you will eventually go extinct. And what’s the quickest and most comprehensive way to benefit from the internet age? To carve out a little piece of the internet for yourself. For almost all businesses imaginable, that means owning a website.
Not convinced? Here’s our list of four tangible benefits that creating a fresh, modern and up-to-date website today will deliver to your business almost immediately:
1. A better curated customer journey
The internet gives businesses far greater control over customer journeys than ever before. Once upon a time, you would target customers with ads in magazines or direct mail, and hope that they eventually showed up in your workplace. That was when the customer journey began. But today, those traditional barriers have been eliminated or reduced. Now, customers can find your website through a simple Google search or through social media, and as soon as they land on it, they are taking part in your customer journey. This gives your brand the ability to walk them through a process you’ve carefully designed to convert them into a customer.
2. Immediate validation
Today, when a customer is trying to research a brand they’ve just discovered, the first place they go is Google. And if you have a website, they will find it instantly. This is important, because it means they will be greeted right off the mark by a powerful body of content that you have designed specifically for them. This gives you the kind of instant, and powerful, validation that is only possible if you’re online. It proves that you exist, and are on display to the world, adding credibility to your claims – and it puts you in control of the messaging.
3. A globally visible shop window
Your website is, in a very real way, your shop window. You can use it to introduce your brand, show off your services or products, and create attractive displays to lure customers to your business. You can use dedicated landing pages to create immediate displays, in the form of beautiful graphic design and persuasive copy, that conveys what’s important about your brand to everyone with an internet connection, wherever they are in the world.
4. Digital marketing is how you get them into your shop
Your website is a shop window in one sense, but it can also be a shop itself. Ecommerce is quickly out-competing offline retailers, and it’s easier than ever to integrate online stores – or at the very least, provide relevant information over products and services along with a contact form. Judicious use of digital marketing – social media campaigns, online advertising, email marketing, and the like – is what drives people to your shop… to your little section of the internet where you control the messaging and provide the service. In other words, your website is not a stand-alone tool – it functions as part of a wider digital marketing strategy.
There’s no doubt that a website is one of the most critical marketing tools available to businesses today, but to make the most of it, you need professional designers, copywriters, and marketers. At Kiss, we have years of expertise in designing websites and digital marketing plans for businesses of every size and industry.
To learn more, contact us on 01675 446101.