Leverage Sales and Marketing: Web

Featured Person: Chad Root, Spearhead Sales and Marketing, President/Founder

Where Web Fits in the “Relationship Machine”

CR: I’m Chad with Spearhead and thanks for joining me again. We’re coming around towards our “web” portion of the “Relationship Machine”. We’ve spoke on strategy and positioning, the function of sales, contact management, and offers. Now it’s time to build the website. The web is just a portion of a fully integrated sales and marketing system. Sales have helped identify contacts we need, want, and hope to attract. They’re the ones that come through promotion and we drive them into the website. Then they inform us of what we should offer them, but the offers must be connected to our website. We utilize the web platform tool as a virtual “you”. The goal of this video is to provide three tidbits of value, along with some sub items that will allow you to have a successful website.

Three Ways Web Helps You Attract Clients

Of the first three things I have in mind to share, you need to make sure your website is modern. That means it’s trendy, fashionable, and it follows current communication methods. You can see old websites that offer good content, but their very dated and sometimes 5-10 years old. It gives the impression that the site is not current. The danger of being in “fashion” is that you can fall victim to a lack of substance. The other thing about being modern is that it allows you to stay plugged into technology (SEO, Social Media, Security, Load Speed). When it comes to SEO, it’s very important that you strategize on what you want to do. You can’t be all things to all people. The more specific focus you have on your target market and keywords, the more the search engines understand what your site is all about. From a social media perspective, you’ll want to make sure you have the social share function. Making sure you’re mobile is also very important. In today’s marketplace, there’s been a 30-40% increase in purchases that come from mobile devices. Be sure to keep this in mind. The last thing about being modern is you want to have a way for your clients to get “to and through” your site. You need SEO to get them to it, but what offers or value do you give that helps guide your clients through the next steps? (This is where you exchange an offer for information)

The next thing to make sure of is that your website is up to date. This means no more set it and forget it. You go through the entire process of mapping out your website with your team and it turns into a 6-month project. Once it’s finished, you’re tired and you don’t want to deal with it anymore. This is what you can’t do! There are people in your database and people out in the world that you’re trying to reach, so get to them. You need to check your site weekly to make sure your offers, events, summaries, etc. are up to date. You need to make sure your offers are new and fresh, nothing less than a quarterly approach. Offers function as the meat and potatoes of your site, they provide the content with action. It’s also imperative to take down offers that didn’t work tremendously well or are no longer relevant. The last tidbit of keeping your website up to date is no strings attached content. It’s the raw materials, reports, featured projects, photography, case studies, testimonials and more. This stuff is what drives your site and marketplace.

The last thing I want you to think about with your website is your digital footprint. This entails Google analytics and your database. The analytics allow you to see which pages are popular on your site and how you can better organize and navigate through it. This should be done on a weekly / bi-weekly basis. The database information allows you to view which forms have been filled out and what potential new clients have visited your site and provided you with new or updated contact information. Another example of your digital footprint is pixels. Pixels allow you a chance to offer retargeting ads. That means once a potential client hits a certain page, they will be shown a specific and based upon that page visit.

Notes

• You need a modern platform for both presentation and performance.
• “Fashionable” – colors, fonts, presentation styles, navigation features.
• “Plugged-In” – SEO optimized, mobile responsive, social share auto-publishing, security, load speed.
• For your new contacts – Have a path for 1st impression, building trust, and trying you out.
• For existing contacts – Present new opportunities and ideas, encourage and make it easy for them to share their positive experience.
• No more set it and forget it!
• Offers should be going up AND coming down, monthly or quarterly.
• No strings attached to content that serves your audience.
• Leave a digital footprint.
• Use database tracking for form fill outs link clicks (both on the page and in your digital ads), page visits by contact!
• Retargeting pixels for online banner ads to people that have visited your site.

Conclusion:

There are many opinions out there from tons of professionals on what makes a good website and what doesn’t. If you decide to start a new project in your company I’d advise you to ask yourself these three questions and use the answers as the building blocks of your website (Is it Modernized, Is it Up to Date, Does it allow you to track your Digital Footprint). These things will help you stay on time, on track, and on budget and provide the best ROI possible. Thanks!

Spearhead uses WordPress – the worldwide platform of choice for web publishing because it’s easy to update, is mobile-responsive, has built-in SEO and integrates with select social media channels. ONTRAPORT captures leads and web visits. Again, thanks for watching and you can contact us at info@spearheadsalesmarketing.com.