Your website is one of the best tools you have at your disposal for marketing, but did you know that it is more than just a tool? You can use many tactics and strategies to grow your business using your website.
You can use SEO, PPC, email marketing, and more to grow your business using your website. When you understand these mechanisms and how they work together, you can put them to good use to promote your business.
Here’s how you can set up a website marketing strategy:
Marketing Plan
Before you start building your website, you should have a clear idea of how you intend to use it and what you will do with it. This is more than simply planning to have a website; you should also have a clear idea of how you will promote it. It is essential to set up a marketing plan that will lay the foundations for your website promotion.
Your marketing plan should include the following items:
- An introduction, explaining who you are and what your website is for
- A statement of purpose, articulating your reasons for creating the website
- A description of the target audience and their needs
- A summary of the competition
- An overview of your website’s content and structure
- An outline of the pages you will build
- A list of the materials needed (e.g., domain name, hosting, etc.)
- An indication of how you will promote your website
- A timetable
If you’re new to marketing, you may be wondering what all of this planning entails. Fear not, just follow these steps:
Step one: Define the problem you are trying to solve
The first step in setting up a successful website marketing strategy is to clearly define the problem you are trying to solve. This will form the basis of your whole strategy and will help you choose the right tactics to achieve your goals.
If you’re looking for quick wins, you should try for symptom-based marketing campaigns. For example, if you are trying to boost your sales, you could try running an ad campaign on social media encouraging people to buy your product due to the pain points it alleviates.
If you want to go down the route of solving a specific problem, you should look for the underlying cause. In doing this, you will discover a whole host of problems that your product or service solves. From this, you can create key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your success.
Step two: Identify the goals and objectives you are trying to achieve
Setting up a website to solve a problem is one thing, knowing what you want is another. With your marketing plan in place, you can now set your goals and objectives. These will serve as the benchmarks for your strategy and will help you assess its effectiveness.
For example, your goals may be to generate $500,000 in annual revenue or to increase the number of customers by 10%. Without these benchmarks, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of your strategy. Setting goals and objectives is an important part of any strategic plan.
Step three: Identify the key performance indicators
To complete the strategic outline, you need to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) you will use to measure your success. These are the metrics you will use to judge the success of your campaign.
For example, you may want to track the number of visitors to your website, the time spent on each page, the number of clicks on an advertisement, or the amount of sales generated through a marketing campaign.
When choosing these KPIs, you need to bear in mind the objectives you have set. For example, if you are trying to raise revenue, you will want to track the number of people who come to your site and the time they spend there. This will give you an indication of how effective your marketing strategy is.
The list of KPIs you choose should be relevant to the problem you are trying to solve. For instance, if you are raising revenue through advertising, the number of clicks on an advertisement is a common KPI to track. On the other hand, if you are trying to increase the number of customers via SEO, the amount of time visitors spend on your site will be a key indicator.
Step four: Determining the tactics to achieve your goal
At this stage, you will develop specific tactics to achieve your goals. These are the actions you will take to drive revenue or growth for your business.
For example, if you want to increase the number of visitors to your site, you could choose to run social media ads, invest in SEO, or create content that will draw people to your site. Each of these tactics has advantages and disadvantages, so it is important to understand which one will be the best for your business.
To determine the right tactics for your website, you need to weigh up the relative strengths and weaknesses of each one. For example, if you want to generate $500,000 in annual revenue, the best tactic may be to run a paid ad campaign on social media.
In this case, the advantage of running a paid social media ad campaign is that you can target your audience more accurately. The disadvantage is that you will have to spend money to run the campaign. The same goes for SEO; you may have to spend money to hire a top-tier SEO firm to achieve top search rankings on major search engines.
Once you have chosen the right tactics, it’s time to set up your schedule. Be sure to put aside adequate time for planning and implementing your strategy. Regular review of your plan and taking mid-course revisions are essential.
Step five: Create a timeline
To complete the strategic plan, you need to set up a timeline for its execution. This will serve as a guide for yourself and others involved in the process. You can use this plan as a guide for the following year, updating it as needed.
For example, if you are running a paid ad campaign, the timeline for this will be from now through the end of the following year. If you are doing SEO, the timeline for this will be from now through the end of the third quarter of the following year.