Am I Ready for an Online Marketing Campaign?

So you’re itching to launch your next big online marketing campaign you say? Let’s take a step back and make sure that you’re ready for it first!

Most companies have a website that was built by their friend Joe down the street or even worse it looks like it was done by Joe down the street. Although Joe has the right intention to help get a company on the web, just because your website is online doesn’t necessarily make it ready for a marketing campaign.

Expectations

Most people running a business are hoping their website can magically make them money just from being online. Unfortunately that’s not the case, you need people and traffic coming to your website first. However dumping money into search engine marketing (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media or other online marketing programs to get more traffic might not always get you the results that you’re looking for. Your website is your key conversion tool for converting your visitors into buyers.

Is my website optimized for conversions?

Here’s a quick checklist I use that you can easily run through just by using your eyes:

1. Is it appealing to look at? (Ie. updated photos, clear path for visitors to travel, relevant content, etc.)
2. Is your website mobile friendly?
3. What are you offering to your customers and do you make it clear on your website?
4. Is your website easy to navigate?
5. Is your phone number / contact information easily visible and accessible?
6. Do you have a special offer to promote? If so, does it stand out?
7. Does your website load quickly?

If you answered NO to any of these questions then you’re going to have some work to do before you launch your first online marketing campaign.

Other ways to find out if your website is ready to convert

There are a bunch of tools available that can track how visitors are using your website. Some of our favorites include Google Analytics, CallRail, Hotjar, and several others that show where a user’s eyes travel on the page. There are also plenty of tools such as Google Optimize that can allow you to serve users different versions of a webpage and track which version performs better based on their conversion rates.

Analyzing the information gathered from these tools above can allow an expert to give you important recommendations for adjustments to your website to help increase user conversions rates. These are complex tools that you would need a marketing agency to help you with, but are available and should be kept in mind before starting your next online marketing campaign.

Before you take the leap, check out this post on the cost of advertising which has some important points for you to consider. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at this link, we’d be happy to share more insights.

What are your experiences with launching an online marketing campaign? I’d love to hear about your results. Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments!