Effective Home Pages: Business Websites

As I’ve mentioned before, websites are the most crucial part of an online identity for any company. People used to deliver pamphlets and brochures to tell people who they are. Now, with a few buttons they can get all the details they want. However, this ease of access means that they can find competitors and other businesses as well just as easily. The front page of the website needs to be developed in a way that hooks the viewer from the very beginning, while convincing them you’re the best and they should spend their hard earned money.

Websites come in all shapes and forms but what makes one stand out from the rest? There are a few things I’ll touch on. The first is instant delivery of who you are. Within the first 30 seconds, people should know what your purpose is, what your product is, and a call to action. Similar to how people don’t look past the first page of results on Google Search, people won’t look past the home page of your website unless they have an enticing reason to.

The most important aspect is the call to action. (Boag, 2017) This means that when someone lands on a page, they are instructed to do a task no matter how menial. The reasoning behind this is found in psychology; the more invested someone becomes, the more likely they are to invest more. Think of it as a sunken cost fallacy. It can be as simple as a button that says “Learn more here!’. To get an understanding of how effective it is, remember any website for a clothing store you frequently visit. The part of the website that immediately stands out is the sale or clearance button. They know this will get people to click further and browse their listings. It is quick and effective because they know what people are looking for.

Lastly, I’d like to tie this back to a previous post which was about search engine optimization. As I said in that post, the amount of time people spend on a website and the activity on that website directly correlate to the standings of said website on Google search results. This is vitally important to the amount of exposure a website gets to the public. For large, well-established companies like Facebook, Apple etc it is an irrelevant thought. When it comes to smaller companies or startups, this is an invaluable tool. When nobody knows who you are, getting your name out there is the utmost priority.

Leave a message in the comments if this post helped you in any way. Have you started looking at websites more critically, or if you have your own website did this inspire you to make changes?  

Statistical Analysis

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In this post, I’d like to discuss in further the importance of statistical analysis related to digital marketing. Numbers are the medium through which we can determine the efficacy of any marketing campaign. Learning to maximize efficiency through observation and analysis of the numbers increases the efficacy of marketing drastically. Data analysis is the 4^th step of Market Research’ 6-step process. (DeVault, 2017) 

A digital marketing campaign consists of many components. The primary source of information about your company to the consumer is your website. This is where they will discover who you are, and what your product is. However, just viewing the front page isn’t enough to convert someone into a consumer. Thus, a marketing specialist would take a deeper look at the number of people who land on your page and what they do afterwards. What is their level of interactivity on the website? How much time do they spend? What parts of the website are most often viewed? The ones that have less views, or pages that people spend less time on, are something that need to be optimized according to your target audience. What is the ratio of people adding items to a shopping cart compared to the number of people who actually complete the transaction?

Another important aspect of a campaign is advertising through emails. Using similar metrics as stated above, the marketing specialist can determine how useful a certain campaign is, and then tailor the next one further to increase activity and sales. Some sample statistics that should be analyzed are the number of people that open a link to a sale you’re having, how many people just delete your emails or classify them as spam, and how many people are purchasing as a result of a promo code or sale delivered to them through email.

Apart from just activity, the most crucial statistics to look at are your demographics. What demographic of people are you most appealing to, and which demographic the majority of your sales can be attributed to? Once that is determined, you can further plan better ways to attract more people in that demographic and keep the current customers coming back for more.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I encourage you to educate yourself more on the topic, and share anything new you learn in the comments to benefit the rest of the community as well!

Social Media Marketing

According to 2016 figures, the average adult checks their phone 30 times a day, and the average millennial checks their phone more than 150 times a day. (Staff, 2016) Ask yourself. How many times do you scroll through Facebook? Read on Twitter? Browse Instagram? Pin on Pinterest? The average person spends almost a total of 5 years and 4 months of their life on social media. (Asano, 2017)  

The amount of time people are spending on social media is increasing, especially as we see an increase in the thriving digital marketplace. What does that mean for social media marketing? Gone are the days of handing out fliers, mailing out surveys and asking people to fill out paper reviews. The new world thrives on online marketing. The majority of time spent online is on a mobile device, and that accounts to about 60% time spent on social media. (Asano, 2017) 

Social Media marketing is one of the most effective tools in delivering ads. Have you ever scrolled through online websites for accessories, flights or clothing, and then noticed the ads that appear on the sides of Facebook when you log in afterwards? Those are tools companies use to deliver their ads.

No one writes business reviews or comments on paper anymore. Creating an online page is essentially the new version of reviews. The number of people that follow your page or like your page is correlated to how people view the perception of your company. Marketing analytics can identify through the use of location-based tools where you are and what companies are close to your vicinity. That’s why when you visit a new city, your Facebook home page will welcome you and invite you to visit attractions close-by. That’s due to an effective technique called geo-targeting; a marketing technique businesses use to customize their ads for their products or services to specific markets based on the geographic location. (Canada, 2014) 

Update your business page today using tools and analytics to get to your preferred audience! If you already have a business page and have any tips or comments, let readers know by commenting below!

Digital Media Marketing | What is it?

We humans have a perpetual tendency to evolve as we advance through ages. Specifically, in this last generation we witnessed the domination of the technology age which has transitioned into the digital age. As business students and owners, to survive we must adapt. The latest shift in the industry is digital media marketing. 

Before the internet became the equivalent of oxygen for survival, marketing was done through various means. Fliers, advertisements, and word of mouth were very common techniques that reached the majority of people in your local community. However, the internet has expanded the definition of that ‘local community’ to encompass anyone in the world who is online.

Digital media marketing means having your company’s advertising platform being delivered directly to your intended target market. They will see your company’s name, your product and your ads on their smartphones, laptops and tablets. One of the major benefits is that the campaigns can be changed with just a few buttons, and those changes will be broadcasted to your audience immediately.

A key aspect of digital media marketing to keep in mind is the idea of personalization. (Morrison, 2015) Using information about the consumer, companies are now designing targeted ads to consumers in ways that will attract them as an individual rather than creating a blanket advertisement for anyone. Also it recognizes what services and products people are searching for and can give them specific ads for those items. This will be discussed more in depth in a future post.

Marketing has evolved just like everything else. We used to throw a massive fishnet and hoped to catch as many as possible. Now, it’s become an art of perfecting individual nets for each fish based off their size and speed. To learn more about digital media marketing, stay tuned for more posts and participate in the comments and discussions below!

Google Analytics & SEO

Google in today’s world has become the equivalent of Odin in Marvel movies. It stores our data, controls our phones and even our houses now. It’s gone from being a company to becoming a verb when we want to search for anything. It handles our communication and dictates our day’s schedule every morning. Subsequently, Google has also given companies a platform for their digital marketing effort and strategies.

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One of the most important aspects of digital marketing is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is how Google (and other search engines) determine the importance of your website and thus its ranking on their servers. Ever wonder how certain websites always show up as the first or second link on Google? It’s not a freak coincidence. It’s an algorithm with many variables. Some of these variables are how often people click on your site, how interactive they are when they’re on the page, the length of time they spend on your website and how often your website is referenced by other reputable sources.

Think about your own habits for a moment. When searching on Google, how many times do you look past the first page, or even the first few results? It is well established in the community that over 75% of people don’t go past the first search result page on Google. (Siu, 2012) If they don’t find it, they’ll change their query or just settle for one of the first few links. As a company, you want your name to be the first thing they see so they click on your website and you can work on the transition from viewer to paying consumer.

Beyond just result listings, Google has an Analytics framework.  This backend allows you to track every detail of your marketing efforts. How many people are clicking on your website? Did they even scroll past the landing page? How much did they engage and how well did they respond to your website? What is the percentage of people that click on your website versus how many actually spend money? These are all questions that can be answered via Google Analytics. They have even set up free introductory learning modules online to get started: Google Analytics Academy. 

This is not a sell-out for Google. It’s showing you the best way to get started on attracting more people to your company and being as efficient as possible with your resources and marketing team. Try it out, and post your results in the comments!