At first you may think this is an oversimplification. But please, go ahead, try to say anything that a digital marketing agency can do to garner leads that does not fall into one of these 5 Catagories.
If breaking a process down into it's bare component parts is the beginning of understanding something, then let this be Digital Marketing 101.
The 5 Steps to Online Sales are:
1.Get Traffic.
2.Land The Visitors.
3.Convert Visitor.
4.Analyse the process,
5.Make Adjustments / Website Design.
& Repeat & Repeat...
Let's Look at the first step.
1. Get Traffic Everyone ideas, sure. But the rubber hits the road when we ask, "how are you going to do it?" How do we get traffic to a website? Every way we can! Inbound Marketing SEO On-Page SEO Referral Traffic Social Media Social Media Ads Google PPC Other PPC & Display Display Ads Remarketing Newsletters Blog Posts Billboards Guerrilla marketing Podcasting
2.Land Visitors once they come to your site.
This is 20% of the online conversion process but it happens in less than 3 seconds.
Does the website prove to be a website that a visitor who arrives there would want to stay on to get what they are looking for, or does the site visitor hit the back button when they see the site?
What are the elements that make a site visitor land? Is there a Clear Explanation of what the site is about?
Does the website or webpage inspire confidence in the visitor that they can get what they want at this site?
These types of items come into play: Color Scheme,
Styling, CSS Spacing,
Page Load Times.
Behavioral Psycology,
User Experience (UX),
Above the fold content,
Images and Text.
Descriptive Line of text that simply states what one can get from that landing page.
Landing a visitor is important because if you are getting people to click through to your website or landing page but the visitor leaves immediately, they Bounce, without engaging, then your digital marketing is failing because the process never gets started. You still paid for the visit which each click regardless if a user stays on your site or hits the back button and returns to the vertical or verbal search results or list of other unknown source of services.
3.Convert Sales
Internet users do not want to have to spend a lot of time abosorbing the information on your site. (Lazy) The site needs to move them to the next click, walk the site visitor to the information they are looking for and though the purchase process so they can easily get it scheduled and paid for. They do not have to think about it. Walk them through the process. Tell them how you do business. Show them why they should trust you while getting the information that you need.
What are the conversion Goals?
The fist step to creating a digital marketing strategy is to identfiy what your goals are.
Does the website have a conversion funnel?
A conversion funnel is your plan for the user to flow through your website to get to YOUR desired outcome. Do not let users wonder through the woods to hopefully make it to your conversion goals. Digital marketers, we are not throwing up information willy nilly or providing every bit of content the company has to offer. We are crafting a strategic path that the user can follow to get to the specific conversion goals of the client. This is a two way agreement with the visotor who is there on your site to find something they are looking for, to order something, to sign up, to learn more, they have an impetus.
A conversion funnel may be one page and be the behavior flow over that page, or may contain multiple pages. Whatever your conversion funnel is you have to design websites and landing pages that guide users to your conversion goals.
4. Analyse! Test! Are proper tracking codes in place? Analyse the data. Measure data. Test data. What pages are working? What is not working? What sites are bringing in traffic that converts? What is your target demagraphic? What area are your conversions coming from? What is your Cost Per Aquistion?
- Web Design and Site Edits.
Since this process is a circle it really all starts here, at web design.
A good web design will consider the User Experience, conversion funnels, clean coding, colors that work together, mobile responsive, and proper spacing. Sites will load fast for the user and be easy to manage for the marketing team who needs to make changes as they progress through a campaign.
There you have it. If you can think of one thing that falls outside of these 5 essential steps to successful internet marketing campaign or if you can think of one step that is not necessary, please let us know. We would love to hear how wrong we are!
Visit The Langley Group to see some of the websites we have built and some of our own conversion funnels inside of our marketing strategies. & Repeat.