Are your Internet marketing tools working hard or hardly working when it comes to generating new business for your company? Especially in a lean economy, your online marketing strategy needs to put your best foot forward. All too often, however, companies miss the mark when developing Internet marketing tools and leave money on the table for their competitors. By understanding common challenges and how to overcome them, you can be sure that you are getting the most out of your investment.
#1 Your Web Site Speaks Volumes about Your Business
Did you know that launching a website without proper research and planning could actually hurt your company’s marketing efforts? Creating a successful Web site design that showcases your company, services, and products requires design savvy, technical knowledge, and marketing know-how to engage, inform, and convert prospects.
#2 Put Function before Cost
Most of us are bargain hunters at heart, always scouting for the best deal. And many of us find out the hard way that sometimes the best deal isn’t always the cheapest price. When researching Internet marketing and website design firms, it is crucial to find out all that you can about the capabilities of each company in order to determine who will give you the most value for your investment.
#3 Stagnant Sites Don’t Sell
Imagine you’ve subscribed to an industry journal. The first issue contains well-written articles that offer a wealth of information about your topic. The second issue consists of the same articles. The third issue is the same, too – even the ads. Would you keep reading the publication or cancel your subscription? Like print media, websites need to be updated constantly in order to stay relevant. New content is attractive to both readers and search engines. Making changes to your site’s content on a regular basis will help position you with your readers as a leader in your industry and encourage Google to push your site higher up the rankings.
#4 Flexible Internet Marketing Tools Give You Room to Grow
In the past, if you wanted to freshen up your company’s website by adding new content, changing navigation elements, or implementing interactive features, it was an expensive and tedious process. With today’s technology, however, there’s no excuse not to grow your site as big as your company needs it to be. By developing your site using a dynamic open source framework, it is quick and easy to keep your site relevant to your readers and the search engines.
#5 Hit All of the Links
At Profile, we’ve developed a recipe for creating marketing tools that give our clients the competitive edge. We call it our three-link development system. Marketing + Technology + Superior Design. Without Marketing, the other elements would produce something that looks amazing but has no relevance to businesses. Leave Technology out of the mix and you get a good-looking piece of collateral marketing that could have reached more prospects and engaged more of your target audience if the latest technology had been utilized. Throw Superior Design under the bus, and you sacrifice the power of visual keying mechanisms that resonate with your target audience. Together, the three elements can be used to create marketing tools that attract, engage, and convert your market.