Question: Who is the best salesperson at your company? Hint: They are always exactly where your customers are. They present a perfectly crafted message every time that is perfectly in line with the way your customers think and feel. They are available to answer your customer’s questions 24/7. They can tell great stories that are engaging and informative.
Want the answer? It’s your website. OK, I may have misled you a bit, because your best salesperson isn’t actually a person. However, you can think of it as one – and doing so may help you to craft a strategy to make it as effective as possible at marketing your brand, informing and converting leads to customers.
Unfortunately, many business owners neglect this member of their sales and marketing team. They load it up with a ton of useless information and leave it unattended and stagnant. Imagine allowing that to happen to a member of your sales team. Try to picture the person that best represents your website in its current state. Are they dressed in outdated attire? Do they use boring technical industry jargon that completely misses the mark of what your customers are interested in? Or, do they look modern and current and represent a company that is cutting-edge? Do they speak the way your customers speak? Do they seek to help and inform or do they come off as too salesy?
Consider your own website
Consider the front page of your website and how you approach your potential customers with the content you present on it. Some websites go right for the sale, listing endless bulletpoints about the services the company offers and why it’s so great. Compare this to someone who you have just met for the first time who immediately goes into a long sales pitch trying to convince you to buy from them right then and there. Unless you are already in the market for such a product, you are most likely going to be repelled from this person and want nothing to do with them or their business. Imagine another meeting during which this person, before even telling you about their products or services, provides you with a tidbit of useful information to help you become more familiar with what her company does or the industry that she is in. She asks for nothing in return, only looking to help and inform and build a bit of good will and confidence in her expertise. While driving a couple days later, you come upon a billboard advertising the company she works for and are compelled to call to learn more about them and how to purchase their products or services. What has just been described is a content marketing and remarketing strategy and can be incredibly successful at gaining new customers when executed correctly.
The most important element of any digital marketing strategy is your website as it is the hub of all of your content and a major centerpiece of your brand. Once people arrive there, you had better be sure that they are getting what they are looking for and are presented with information that helps them with whichever phase of the buyer’s journey they are in or they will leave in an instant.
So, think about what kind of salesperson you want to greet your customers when they arrive and what strategies they are using to attract, inform and retain them. Hold your website in as high a regard and put as much effort into nurturing it as you would the best employee on your marketing team and you can be sure to see great returns on your investment.