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3 Content Questions for your Next Web Design Project

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For any business owner, the company website is one of the most valuable marketing materials. It is often one of the first points of contact for prospects, and as they say, first impressions are everything. A website’s content, when managed effectively, ultimately contributes to higher conversion rates, increased revenue, and better customer service across the entire business. But before the content creation process begins, there’s a few questions to ask yourself that will save you time and aggravation.

Do I Have All The Materials I Need?

I don’t mean cutting down the amount of work you do by reusing the content of your brochures and data sheets. Instead, gathering and utilizing the context, message, or tone from these established materials can give your brand a kind of “time-honored” consistency. In addition, users and potential customers will often respond and more easily relate to content they feel is familiar. That’s the trick—making sure your content is updated and “fresh,” but reinforcing the same message / values that you’ve established your business around.

Do I Know Who I'm Writing For?

The point above, as you might expect, leads to the issue of your audience. To attract, engage, and ultimately convert customers with a website, it’s important to have a firm grasp on who makes up that audience and what they want to see. Choosing your desired segmentation, identifying their interests, needs, and expectations, and finally aligning your content with those attributes makes for a smoother process and a better, more impactful end result.

What About The Future?

When all is said and done, what happens next? Where do you take your content after your project is complete? The good part about pondering this is that there is a wealth of options for your new web content. For example, you can create an optimization plan to ensure it stays fresh and relevant. You can also use your renewed branding efforts to update your marketing materials, brochures, pamphlets, social media pages, etc. The goal here is to form a solid information architecture with a steady stream of relevant content. No matter how you end up using it, understanding the applications of new content is a big step on the path to better marketing.

Now more than ever, great content is at the heart of all marketing, and taking your efforts online doesn’t change that. Investing the time and work into new web content is something that will have a host of benefits in the long run. Overall, thinking about your company’s history, your target audience, and what lies ahead will greatly contribute to that success.

Why Your Social Media Marketing Isn’t Working

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When it comes to Social Media, many companies know enough to realize that nearly everyone is connected to at least one social network. And if they’ve done their homework, they’ll realize that a great deal of benefits can come from interacting and advertising in the Social space. Thinking they’re already behind the rest of the pack, they hurriedly create social media accounts and, after a fury of liking, friending, re-tweeting, pinning, and posting, not much happens. How is this possible? Isn’t Social Media one of the easiest ways to create visibility and improve customer service? It is, but only if it’s done right from the start.

Problem 1: Timing is Everything

If you gathered anything from the example above, it’s probably that that particular company rushed into marketing with Social Media without any sort of preparation or plan in place. As with anything related to a business, performing research, weighing the options, and planning accordingly are vital to success. Once your business decides that entering the Social Networking realm is viable, have a detailed plan of action. Define goals and objectives, determine which social networks would be most effective for your industry and audience, and implement with a Social Media Management tool (if applicable).

How does this help me?

Not only having a plan, but sticking to it, keeps your company’s Social Media activity consistent, fresh, and (for the most part) automated, saving you time and resources. Also, clearly outlined goals give you a better idea of what future direction your campaign should take to reach its desired outcome.

Problem 2: Finding the Time

Usually a direct result of the first problem above is failing to allocate the appropriate amount of time, resources, & personnel to a new Social Media Marketing plan. Many newcomers to the digital marketing frontier often misinterpret the amount of work that goes into a smoothly running, revenue-generating digital marketing machine. A Social Media strategy cannot be implemented, maintained, and managed by a small handful of people, especially for larger companies. During the initial planning stages, it is essential to take the amount of time and work into consideration and allocate the necessary resources to the project.

How does this help me?

Having the foresight to designate specific tasks to the right individuals eliminates the risk of unexpected budget concerns and scheduling problems that can arise with workers’ other projects.

Problem 3: Where's the Data?

When all is said and done, a marketing campaign of any kind is nothing without analytical proof of its effectiveness at achieving its goal (See Image Below). Without the necessary data to track a campaign’s impact on revenue, leads, or sales, all of the effort put into it will be wasted. Thus, adding social media into a standalone analytics tool (such as Google Analytics) or one that is integrated into a prior solution (such as Hootsuite Analytics) is the best way to make the best decisions regarding your Social campaign.

How does this help me?

Having analytics data at your fingertips allows your business’s Social Media Marketing plan to remain flexible, offers the advanced ability to evaluate whether your goals and objectives are being achieved, and acts as proof of what’s working, what isn’t, and which campaign areas need improvement.

Is your Social Media Marketing campaign guilty in any of the areas above? Is there something you’ve experienced that you’d like to add? Let us know in the comments section!