“How do I know you are legit?”

“I get 2 emails a day – spam – offering me SEO, digital marketing, Facebook ads. All promising me higher rankings, more traffic, more leads. Why should I believe you over them?”

“My current web designer promised me higher Google rankings, what makes you any different?”

Typical soundbites from conversations about digital marketing that we have with business owners regularly.

As with any industry, marketing has its share of charlatans and snake-oil salesman. Hiding behind a wall of techno-babble. Promising the world and then leaving you holding dust.

And then there is all the stuff – blogs  articles, infographics, videos – available on the internet about digital marketing.

If you Google “PPC advertising” (Pay Per Click – just one arm of digital marketing) it returns 3,240 million results. Twice as much as porn (438m), cancer (548m) and diabetes (251m) combined.

No wonder business owners are bewildered.

It is simple – start with the fundamentals

In reality it’s quite simple – it all goes back to first principles of strategic marketing:

1. Why do you want a website?
   1. Is it because everyone else has one; your competitors have one?
   2. Is it just a staid online brochure twitched by the occasional e-newsletter?
   3. Do you want it to generate enquiries
      1. From new qualified, interested prospective clients?
      2. From your existing clients wanting to know about your other services?
   4. Do you want it to be a publishing platform building your online reputation; generating greater awareness of your expertise & services?
   5. Do you want it to sell products?

1. Who is it for?
   1. You; your staff; your competitors?
   2. Or maybe it’s for visitors who might be interested in what you have to offer? Talking in their language, meeting their needs, their value drivers; and designed with them and the outcomes you want in mind.

Simple questions, but they underpin all good strategic thinking.

And are critical to the success of your digital marketing.

It is not enough to just tick the box on marketing – it has to have a purpose and a clear strategic path to achieve that purpose.

“And I have spent money on this before and got nothing,” – another typical retort from business owners.

Yet it constantly surprises us how little thought is put into this. Which is why, by the time we meet with business owners, they are frustrated with their existing website. Wondering where it went wrong.

it does matter

• Depending upon the research you read, 68% – 83% of buyers of professional services research the business online and visit their website before making contact with the business.  They are checking you out long before you know about it.

• 5 billion people are on Facebook every day.

• In Newcastle alone there are 560 Google searches each month for mechanics; 480 searches each month for accountants and 518 searches each month for kitchen renovations.

There are numerous other factoids but the key point is: the world is going digital – it’s time to catch up.

Who to partner up with?

Once you are clear on the purpose of your website then it simply is a matter of choosing who to work with.

The key selection criteria here are results.

You will want to see evidence that the business you partner up with has done it before. That they know how to create or transform your website to achieve the outcomes you want.

You want evidence that:

• they research your business, your market, your clients, your competitors
• they understand target profiles and buyer journeys; customer value propositions
• they use analytics to measure how visitors are using your website
• they test and optimise the site’s performance
• they understand how design, navigation, copy and images all inter-play to make it a user friendly and successful site
• they know the importance of good copy
• they have created valuable, measurable results for their clients.

With these criteria met and with clarity of purpose, your website can become a powerful business tool.

If you want any help in this area just call me on 0459 320 999 and I will happily set up a half hour consultation in which we can review your digital marketing to make it more successful.

And if you want some evidence about the successes we’ve had in generating enquiries and more sales for our clients just look below:

• 285% increase in new leads for a US mortgage broker on the same level of ad spend – they had to put on 10 new loan officers
• 47% increase in conversion of visitors to enquirers for a regional accountant business – they achieved a 137% return on investment in just 4 months
• 49% increase in sales for a health service business in Australia simply by re-designing and writing their website – all at the same level of visitors
• 25% increase in enquiries for a window blinds waning business.