Going online for business is part of a company’s marketing strategy. For example, you have a company that makes a cat DNA test. There’re not as many customers there, as you would like, so you decide to make your own website. Also, you can pursue goals such as:
- Release of new products (for example, oral health test for cats or whole genome sequencing);
- Automation of business processes (increasing sales of your main product, in the case of the site above, it is the breed + health cat DNA test);
- Entering new markets;
- Expansion of the client base, etc.
Based on the goals that your site should follow, you should choose the right kind of site for you.
Website types and purposes
The first step is to choose the type of site.
- Corporate website
Goals: formation of the corporate image of the company, attracting new customers and business partners, business process optimization.
2. Site-catalog
Goals: customer interaction, maintaining the company’s image, automation of the application process, attracting a new audience.
3. Online store
Goals: expansion of the product sales market, increase in sales, increase in the number of suppliers, attracting a larger target audience.
4. Website-portal
Goals: improving information support for customers and employees, collection and systematization of data, reaching a larger target audience.
5. Promo site
Goals: promotion of a specific product/service/brand, formation of the company’s image, getting more sales.
6. Business card site
Goals: informing potential customers about the company’s services and products, attracting potential customers from the network.
7. Landing page
Goals: sales increase, attracting an audience to participate in any event (webinar, any offline event), obtaining contacts of new potential customers.
8. Information site
Goals: development of the company and business with the help of content marketing, monetization by attracting traffic to the site, creating an attractive image of the company.
If we take a site with DNA tests for cats as an example, then it will most likely be more important for them to attract potential customers than attract partners. From which it follows that it is highly likely for this company to choose a landing page, the main purpose of which is to attract new customers.
Strategy selection criteria
- Accounting for the type of site when choosing advertising channels
Each type of site has its own characteristics in attracting visitors. For example, if you have a landing page with a specific offer and you are testing demand, contextual advertising and social networks (near-thematic traffic) will be the most effective channel for attracting traffic. If you have a large information portal, you need to work for the long term and improve your position in organic search results + use other tools, the choice of which will depend on the subject of the portal and the data obtained during the primary analytics.
2. Compatibility of used advertising channels
You should not randomly use all the tools in a row – for example, if at this stage there is a specific task to increase the number of repeat purchases, then you should pay attention to retargeting technology and email newsletters.
3. Priority of advertising channels
The budget for advertising channels is distributed in order of priority and in accordance with current goals. If the priority is to work on the company’s image (implementation of the SERM strategy), then it is worth investing, for example, in content marketing (goal: create an image of an expert) or YouTube (goal: increase product / service recognition).
Customer acquisition strategy
Attracting traffic to the site is an important component of the development of your Internet resource, because in fact each visitor is a potential client who can eventually buy or order a service. The start of work on attracting traffic implies the complete readiness of the resource: the site must meet all the basic usability requirements, at least minimal optimization must be carried out, and the content must be developed taking into account the interests of the target user. All these measures are necessary so that the user, having entered the site, can quickly find the necessary and relevant information.
If all the requirements are met, then you can start developing a strategy to attract traffic. To do this, you need to conduct a primary analysis and research the product, demand, target audience, sales strategy, competitors in order to select the most effective marketing tools.
Selection of traffic channels
- Contextual advertising in search engines
Contextual advertising is an advertisement of an advertising nature that is shown in response to a specific user request in a search engine, as well as on thematic sites included in the advertising network.
- Advertising on YouTube
YouTube uses TrueView ads, which means that you are not paid for possible views, but for a specific number of interactions or views.
- Targeted advertising
Targeted advertising allows you to very select the target audience (based on its real interests) for displaying thematic advertising for a specific category of social network users.
Email marketing is an important tool for working with the target audience and promotion on the Internet, facilitating direct communication between business and buyers. The purpose of such efforts is to strengthen loyalty and increase sales.
- Retargeting
The key task is to retain the audience that showed interest in the proposed product.
- SEO and SERM promotion
The term SERM is an abbreviation of the phrase “search engine reputation management”. That is, managing the most important component in the image of any public person, company or brand.
- Teaser ad networks
Teaser ads are ads on the Internet with attractive pictures and intriguing titles.
- Content marketing
Content marketing is a strategy for promoting a brand or product, which is based on generating useful materials that attract the target audience.
- Advertising on the mobile web
Such advertising is always used to promote products and services in the consumer market.
The final action will be to monitor the results and make adjustments. And remember, if you are new to marketing, it is better to hire a trained person who will accurately fulfill all the intended goals.
