10 Website Marketing Strategies to Help Your Business Grow

Your business website is, by far, the most valuable tool in your marketing arsenal. Not only does it establish an online presence for your business, but it also serves as the basis around which all your other marketing takes place. Your website allows you to communicate your brand, culture, and – perhaps, most importantly – your story to existing and prospective customers.

As a website is often the first point of contact with a business for many potential customers, you want to ensure that yours makes a great first impression. Based on the layout, content, and ease of navigation of your website, prospective customers will decide if they want to interact with your company further – whether by opting in to receive regular content from your brand, picking up the phone and calling you, or making a purchase.

In today’s highly competitive online market, any business that wants to succeed must have a clearly defined website marketing strategy. If your site isn’t generating enough traffic – either because it’s unappealing or it’s difficult to find in search engine results pages (SERPs) – or it isn’t succeeding at attracting new leads or keeping existing customers engaged, it’s time to take a new approach to your marketing strategy.

What Is Website Marketing?

Simply put, website marketing is the strategic process of promoting a business’s website on the internet. The primary goal of website marketing is to drive more qualified traffic (visitors who may be interested in your products or services) and increase your site’s rankings in SERPs by applying search engine optimization (SEO) tactics and other digital marketing techniques.

In this article, we’ll look at 10 essential strategies that you can use to generate leads, increase conversions, boost sales, and grow your business through website marketing.

Perform a Review of Your Website Design

Take the time to thoroughly evaluate your website design. You want to make sure that your site not only looks attractive but is user-friendly and fully functional. Several aspects come into play when it comes to effective website design:

Visual Elements: Keep design styles and shapes simple. Font sizes and colors should be easy to read. Flashy elements not related to your message or the end user’s experience should be kept at a minimum.
Ease of Navigation: Having a clear navigation structure will keep users moving effortlessly through your web pages. Ideally, every page on your website should be accessible from the homepage in three clicks or less. An easy-to-navigate sitemap helps Google crawl and index your site more easily, discover new pages faster, and determine which pages to prioritize.
User Experience (UX): Evaluate your website’s user-friendliness and eliminate any design elements that add complexity or aren’t needed. Make sure your web pages are well-organized and that the site layout isn’t overly complicated. If visitors can’t quickly and easily find what they’re looking for, most will simply give up and leave.
Mobile Responsiveness: These days, most consumers use mobile devices to access the internet. So, you need to ensure that your site provides the best possible experience for mobile users. A mobile-responsive website will automatically adapt the content on your pages to display properly on a smartphone or tablet – meaning that visitors can spend less time squinting or sighing and more time clicking and buying. Optimizing your site for mobile devices results in higher rankings in search engine results and faster page loading times, both of which contribute positively to your SEO efforts.
Clear Communication: The second a visitor arrives on your website, they should be able to recognize who you are and what makes your brand different. Your content should clearly communicate how buying your products or enlisting your services can make customers’ lives easier or more pleasurable. Ensure that all the pertinent information on your site – such as your business address, phone number, and product pricing – is always up to date. Regularly update your site with valuable content like customer testimonials, company news, upcoming events, and engaging videos.
Security and Trustworthiness: Visitors want to feel as secure on your website as if they were buying something from a well-known physical store. They need to know whether there are return policies in place if a product doesn’t perform as it should and that their data will be protected. If consumers don’t feel that you’re trustworthy, it’s unlikely that they’ll sign up for your mailing list, purchase your products, or enlist your services.
Calls to Action (CTAs): A call to action is a prompt on a web page that encourages visitors to take a desired action, such as signing up for an email newsletter, calling to request a consultation, or purchasing a product. To increase clicks and conversions, make sure your CTAs are prominently placed on each page of your website, and that they’re presented as direct commands or action phrases (such as “Sign Up,” “Buy Now,” “Contact Us,” “Call Today,” or “Learn More), and that you offer something of value in return for users surrendering their personal information.

Implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Most visitors will initially arrive at your website via Google and other search engines. Having a well-defined SEO strategy is essential to ensuring that your site is easily discoverable by search engines and potential customers alike. By increasing online visibility and improving your rankings in organic search results, SEO helps drive a steady flow of relevant traffic to your website. SEO is a long-term, often complicated process involving several key techniques:

Technical SEO: Checking your site for errors or issues that may prevent search engines from “crawling” and indexing your site.
On-Page SEO: Making your content easy to read for both users and search engines.
Off-Page SEO: Building backlinks (links from other websites that point back to your site) from well-known websites within or directly related to your niche or industry.
Keyword Research: Accumulating a list of words and phrases that your target audience searches for most frequently.
Content Optimization: Incorporating your target keywords into various elements of your content such as titles, subheadings, paragraphs, meta tags, meta descriptions, and URLs. Including links to other pages on your website and other reputable sites in your field.
Image Optimization: Adding alt text and descriptions containing your target keywords to every image (or video) on your site.
Local SEO: Optimizing your site for location-based searches to increase both website visits and foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores.

Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing involves creating engaging, highly readable, and well-structured content that directly addresses the needs of your target audience and shows how your products or services can solve their problems. Effective content marketing can help establish your business as an authority in your niche or industry, build trust and relationships with your target audience, and inform and educate potential customers about your products, services, and other industry-related topics.

With content marketing, you can generate continuous traffic to your business website – whether you’re sending an email, posting on social media, or creating a YouTube video, always include a link back to your website. If you’re publishing a blog on your website, promote it on your other marketing channels and include a link that points back to your blog.

In developing your content marketing strategy, you must first identify which keywords to target with your content by performing keyword research. Conduct a competitor analysis to find out what’s working (or isn’t) for your competitors. Evaluate Google search results to determine what type of content Google wants for your target keywords. Promote the content you create across all marketing channels (social media, email, online communities, etc.).

In addition to regularly publishing new content, you should also periodically review your existing content to see if anything has changed. Pinpoint any pages with outdated information, “thin” content, low search rankings, no backlinks, or very little traffic. Determine whether to update or republish these pages, remove them from your site, redirect the URL to other related pages, or combine them with other web pages.

Promote Your Website on Social Media

Publishing high-quality, engaging content – such as blog articles, short videos, creative images, memes, or polls – to your social media pages regularly is an excellent way to interact with your target audience directly, build relationships with current and prospective customers, increase traffic to your website, generate new leads, improve conversion rates, build brand awareness and customer loyalty, and get instant feedback about your business, products, or services from actual consumers.

Before marketing your website on social media, you need to determine which social networks make the most sense for your business. Create a business page on each platform your target audience uses regularly so you can interact with them easily. Use your company logo as your profile photo and create accounts with the same username (consisting of your brand name or your website) across all your social media profiles. Keeping your brand identity consistent helps improve brand recognition for your business.

Fill out all the relevant information on your profile or bio, including your physical address (if you have one), email address, phone number, website URL, and store hours (if applicable). Your “About” section should effectively communicate your brand’s value proposition while establishing your overall tone and style. Include a call to action with a link to your homepage or a dedicated landing page. Having a distinct and memorable bio increases the chances that you’ll capture your target audience’s attention and that your message will resonate with them.

Social media users are more than willing to share your content to their news feeds if they believe their friends, family, and colleagues will enjoy it, too. Provide links to all your social media profiles in prominent locations on your website – such as your homepage or blog – and include “Share” buttons on any web page with content visitors might want to share. On each of your social media profiles or bios, include your website’s URL so users can easily navigate to your site to learn more about your business, book an appointment, or make a purchase.

Target Your Ideal Customers with Paid Advertising

Improving your search rankings using SEO tactics and gaining a decent number of social media followers organically can take time. For faster results, paid advertising is a great alternative. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and social media ads are among the most popular types of paid advertising.

PPC advertising platforms like Google Ads allow you to create and run ads centered around the words and phrases you’ve identified through keyword research to get your website to appear at or near the top of search results when users search for businesses like yours. Pay-per-click ads can be a cost-effective way to drive targeted traffic to your website quickly, increase brand awareness, and generate fresh interest in your products or services. With PPC ads, your business only pays when someone clicks on your ad. Each ad links to a landing page that’s customized to your specific offer.

Paid social media advertising platforms such as Facebook Ads let you target the users that best match your customer personas. Through highly sophisticated and advanced targeting methods, paid social media helps generate the right kind of traffic to your site – in other words, the people who are most likely to buy your products or enlist your services. When users click on the link in your ad, they’re taken to a dedicated landing page where they have the opportunity to take a variety of specific actions, such as learning more about your business, subscribing to your email newsletter, reaching out to a sales representative, or making a purchase.

Keep Your Audience Engaged with Email Marketing

With an average return rate of $44 for every $1 spent, email marketing remains a powerful, cost-effective way to communicate directly with existing and potential customers and keep them up to date about your business, products, services, special promotions, company news, and more. Since email list subscribers have already demonstrated an interest in your business, regularly dropping engaging content into their email inboxes will keep you on their radar. Provide links to your website or blog at multiple points throughout your email communications (including in your call to action) to keep subscribers returning to your site.

Of course, before you can start sending out emails, you have to build a solid contact list. While the list-building process can be difficult and time-consuming, coming up with new and innovative ways to encourage visitors to give you their email addresses can help fast-track the process. Depending on your specific business and its audience, there are several different tactics you can use to incentivize people to surrender their contact information, such as:

Extending a special discount on their first order
Providing a free digital download (e.g., an e-book, whitepaper, or case study)
Offering the chance to win a prize at an in-store event or trade show
Conducting a contest or giveaway on social media
Sending referral emails to your existing clients

Make it easy for users to subscribe to your email list by adding signup forms in highly conspicuous places throughout your website. Once you’ve gained new subscribers, continually send them great content to keep them engaged and dissuade them from unsubscribing. Encourage subscribers to return to your website frequently by showing them what they might have missed since their last visit – new product launches, recent blog posts, videos, or other interactive content.

Encourage Returning Website Visitors Using Remarketing & Retargeting

There’s an old marketing rule, known as the “Rule of 7,” which states that a potential customer must see or hear an advertisement or marketing message at least seven times before deciding to buy a product or service. Internet marketing is no different. Most people will need to revisit your website several times before taking the next step in the path to purchase.

That’s where remarketing and retargeting come in. While the two techniques are similar, there are also a few distinct differences. Both involve reaching out to consumers who have already expressed an interest in your business, products, or services – whether by visiting your website, clicking on one of your ads, searching for your business on Google, or following you on social media – and encouraging them to reconnect with you and take a specific action (such as signing up for email updates, booking a consultation, or making a purchase).

Remarketing is focused on engaging current or previous customers via email in order to recapture their attention and encourage them to return to your website when they’re ready to buy. Retargeting involves serving targeted ads to prospective customers who have previously visited your website or a specific web page and have (or have not) taken a specific action. With retargeting, cookies (text files containing small pieces of data) are used in conjunction with certain advertising platforms like Google Ads or Facebook to track your website visitors’ actions after they leave your site and continue browsing the internet. The ads are displayed on subsequent websites the user visits, reminding them to return to your site.

Implementing one or both of these techniques will help drive more targeted traffic to your website, boost brand awareness, improve engagement, reduce shopping cart abandonment, increase conversions and sales, and lower advertising costs.

Measure and Analyze User Activity & Website Traffic

With traditional marketing methods, results can be difficult to accurately monitor and analyze. Do you really know how many people took the time to read your flyer, and how many simply threw it away? But with digital marketing – and your website, in particular – everything is measurable and can be analyzed. Along with providing a better understanding of who your ideal customers are, so you can effectively market to them, web analytics platforms can also help:

Measure how your website traffic changes over time
Track where your visitors are coming from and how they arrive at your site (whether by typing in your URL, getting redirected from another website, or finding you through a Google search)
Identify which pages users are visiting most often, what actions they are (or are not) taking as a result of these visits, and which pages might need improvement
Determine which search engines (Google, Bing, etc.), devices (mobile or desktop), and operating systems (Windows or Mac) visitors use most often to access your site

Since most of the data you need can be obtained from Google Analytics, installing this valuable tool on your website and ensuring that it’s properly configured is critical. Tags – small pieces of code inserted into a page’s source code – are used to facilitate the collection and sharing of data between your website and Google Analytics. Using tags the right way – and in the right places – helps you identify what’s working and what isn’t so that you can improve your website content and drive even more potential customers to your site.

Collecting and interpreting the metrics you wish to track and adjusting your marketing strategy accordingly can help elevate your business to the next level of success. Your website will only generate the desired results you want if you’re analyzing it routinely.

Launch Contests & Giveaways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

People love getting free stuff, especially if it’s relevant or useful to them. So, why not use this to your advantage? When you offer something of value to existing or potential customers, it makes them more likely to purchase from your company in the future. It also makes people more willing to share your content with their friends, especially on social media. Getting something for nothing from a brand they love and respect inspires loyalty in your customers.

While contests and giveaways are sometimes regarded as tacky marketing techniques, they’re actually quite effective at driving high-volume traffic to your website, generating interest in your products and services, building rapport with your customers, and even making connections within your industry.

Create a compelling contest or giveaway on the social media platforms where your target audience is most active, and your followers will flock to your website. Develop a dedicated landing page and post a direct link to it on your social media pages. The lure of “free stuff” will be irresistible to participants. From the landing page, you can easily direct visitors to your full website.

Generating useful content centered around your brand, products, or services, and then offering visitors free access to that content is another great way to keep your company top of mind with consumers when they’re ready to purchase something that you offer. If you sell products on your website, offer a free e-book detailing key features that potential customers should look out for. If your business is primarily service-based, create a checklist of action items that prospects can take prior to reaching out to you. When you focus on adding value for your audience, it’s a win-win.

List Your Business in Online Directories

Online business directories are the modern-day version of phone books. In previous decades, printed directories like the Yellow Pages featured comprehensive listings of local businesses, organized by categories like business type or location. Now that searching for products and services has primarily shifted to the internet, today’s businesses must make their presence known in online directories in much the same way as they would have done in printed books in the past.

Online directories help point users to the specific organizations they’re looking for and enable them to click through to a business’s website directly from the listing. Most listings provide basic information about the business such as the website’s URL, a brief description, hours of operation, contact details, products/services provided, customer reviews, etc. Listing your business in online directories gives customers the chance to post reviews of your business, products, and services, and allows you to respond to these reviews personally and publicly.

Given that 88% of users will call or visit a business within 24 hours of their initial search, it’s essential that your business be listed in the most popular and relevant online directories – otherwise, you could be missing out on a lot of potential customers. Adding your business listing to online directories helps drive targeted traffic to your website and through your business’s doors, makes your site more easily discoverable in search engine results, and creates high-quality backlinks (which, in turn, helps improve your SEO rankings).

Creating or claiming your Google Business Profile is a great place to start. Setting up your profile is fairly straightforward (and free). Ensuring that your profile is fully optimized makes it eligible to show up in Google’s Local 3-Pack (a set of three business listings appearing prominently on SERPs when users conduct searches for local businesses), as well as on Google Maps.

For over a century, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) has been helping customers connect with local businesses. Today, the BBB is not only an expansive online directory – it’s also a trusted resource for consumers seeking to discover more about an organization’s credibility, ethics, and business practices. Getting accredited by the BBB and being able to reference that accreditation on your own website remains a major trust signal to modern consumers.

Once serving as the premier offline business directory, the Yellow Pages has been able to successfully and smoothly transition into the digital age. Over 70 million people annually use the Yellow Pages website and app to find local businesses.

Listing your business on Yelp, a trusted online directory for everything local is an easy way to get your name in the public eye, especially for food and retail establishments.

Angi (formerly Angie’s List) is a popular local business directory that consumers can use to find residential services like plumbers, lawn care companies, and roofers.

In addition to these popular sites, there are hundreds of industry-specific online directories in which to list your business. Adding your listing is free, in most cases, but many platforms also offer paid advertising options to make it even easier to reach your target audience.

Final Thoughts

More than just digital signage for your brand or a virtual storefront for your company, your website is your online home base – and as such, it should be at the center of your digital marketing strategy. Whether you’re sending a tweet, publishing a blog post, running a newspaper ad, or adding a link at the bottom of your business card, the ultimate goal of all your marketing efforts – online and offline – should be to drive traffic back to your website.

The success or failure of your overall marketing strategy hinges on the design, effectiveness, and intuitiveness of the website you’re drawing people towards. If you aren’t utilizing your website as the valuable marketing tool it is, you may be missing out on a lot of potential business. If you don’t make a concentrated effort to meet your customers where they are, you can bet that your competitors will reach them before you do.

By heeding the recommendations outlined above and incorporating them into your marketing strategy, you’ll be well on your way to achieving positive results for your business!

If you need help developing your website marketing strategy, or if you’re looking to update your existing website or build a new one from scratch, HighClick Media can help! Call us today at 252.814.2150 or drop us a line here!

Marketing Agency vs. In-House Team: Which Should You Choose?

August 17, 2022

Marketing Agency vs. In-House Team: Which Should You Choose?

Like most business owners, you know you need to effectively market your business to expand your sphere of influence and engage new customers – but you’re unsure of the right approach. Is it better to recruit a dedicated marketing team to manage all your marketing in-house? Or should you enlist the services of an experienced digital marketing agency to tackle everything for you?

Both are reasonable options, but there are also ramifications connected with either decision. In this article, we’ll take a look at the pros and cons of hiring a digital marketing agency versus hiring an in-house marketing team.

3 Time-Tested Methods for Growing Your Business

If you want to grow your business (and why wouldn’t you?), there are a few tried-and-true methods you can employ to attract new customers:

Word of Mouth & Referrals
Advertising & Marketing (PPC, SEO, Social Media)
Direct Sales (Cold Calls, Email Blasts, Knocking on Doors)

In a perfect world, a business would land so many new customer referrals that it wouldn’t have to shell out money for advertising, marketing, or direct sales. But when you’re first getting started in business, you can’t always rely on getting the referrals you need. As a result, many companies will consider either hiring an in-house marketing team or outsourcing their marketing to an agency. Let’s examine both options…

Why Hire an In-House Marketing Team?

Based on your specific business needs, employing a dedicated in-house marketing team might seem more reasonable. Sure, you’re accruing additional salary expenses to the business, but you’re also gaining total control over how your marketing plan is put into action.

Recruiting an experienced, skilled marketing manager who can take charge of every aspect of your marketing efforts can help grow lead generation and steadily attract new customers. So, let’s weigh the pros and cons of hiring an in-house marketing team:

PROS:

In-House Marketers Have a Deeper Understanding of the Business

Generally speaking, someone who works exclusively for your business is likely to have a much better understanding of your customers’ needs. They’re more acquainted with your products and services, and they know how best to promote them to your clientele. If you’re a B2B organization – one that specializes in selling products and services to other companies – employing an in-house marketing team may be even more critical. After all, an outside agency might not be as familiar with your specific market.

In-house marketers are likely to feel more connected to and in line with your overall business strategy. In addition, they probably have a fairly solid knowledge base and a good awareness of previous campaigns – and whether or not those campaigns have been successful – without having to go to the trouble of researching them as an agency would. Moreover, an in-house team gives you creative control over the end-to-end digital process.

An In-House Marketing Team Is Focused On Your Brand Only

While marketing agencies will certainly make the effort to familiarize themselves with your brand and devote ample time to your marketing strategy, they’re also focused on the marketing needs of their other clients.

By contrast, in-house marketers can focus on your business 100% of the time. Each of their marketing efforts is customized to your business’s specific needs. They spend time examining what’s working for you and making adjustments to marketing goals and processes. Because of this singular focus, your in-house marketing team is liable to put forth more ideas that are unique to your business.

In-House Marketers Are Available All Workweek Long

With a dedicated in-house marketing team, you don’t have to schedule a time to meet – you can brainstorm or revise plans anytime you need to.

Having convenient access to key decision-makers in real time can help streamline creative timelines and project management much more so than if you are outsourcing a project.

CONS:

In-House Marketing Can Be Inconsistent and Lackluster

One of the challenges of having just one or two people working on your marketing is that it’s often a part-time role. In-house personnel might already have other duties they’re expected to perform, and handling the business’s marketing needs is simply bundled into their job description.

As a result, consistency plummets quickly. It’s conceivable that in-house marketers could go weeks without posting any new content or monitoring ad campaign statistics.

Additionally, if budget constraints prevent you from recruiting a diverse team of crackerjack marketers, the content created by these individuals might be lifeless and uninspired as a result.

An In-House Marketing Team May Have Limited Training Time

Marketing agencies often spend a considerable amount of time and resources ensuring that their employees keep up to date on their knowledge and skills. Ongoing training might include attending marketing conferences or webinars, exchanging articles and resources online, and brainstorming between various departments.

By contrast, in-house marketers usually have less time to dedicate to improving their skills. They also don’t have the benefit of learning from or collaborating with other marketing departments. While you may initially hire individuals based on their digital marketing experience and expertise, once they’re a part of your in-house team they are far less likely to have the time and resources available to continue to maintain and refine their skills.

In-House Marketers May Run Out of Fresh Ideas

Effective marketing inherently demands imaginative minds that thrive on change. When a small in-house marketing team is focused on managing your brand alone, creativity can begin to languish over time. After all, it’s difficult to keep formulating new and innovative strategies to promote products and share content when you have no one outside your circle to bounce ideas off.

In some cases, company leadership keeps a tight rein on their creative team and doesn’t give them leeway to take chances and try new things. There may also be some overarching arrogance on the part of leadership, believing that no one outside the organization can represent the company as effectively as its employees.

Companies Must Foot the Bill for Retaining an In-House Team

In the short term, it can seem like you’re getting a better bargain by opting for a small in-house marketing team. But ultimately, it can become considerably more costly.

If you choose to partner with a marketing agency, you can anticipate spending more money at first to get you set up. But these costs will dramatically decrease to monthly maintenance over time.

By contrast, you will need to keep paying your in-house marketing team members an annual salary, as well as benefits and paid time off in most cases. With cost-of-living increases, this amount will only grow.

Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?

Securing the services of a digital marketing agency can feel like a monumental maneuver. Typically, there’s a preliminary meeting, a contract of some duration, numerous discussions regarding the scope of work, and interaction with a variety of different people on the team. Finding the ideal agency can involve a great deal of time and effort.

Then there are the costs. Working with an agency is oftentimes more expensive than “DIY” marketing or recruiting in-house personnel, primarily because the agency is more experienced. However, a digital marketing agency can deliver a more expansive array of services and also churn out higher-quality work. Here are some pros and cons of hiring a digital marketing agency:

PROS:

Professional Marketers Have Specialized Skill Sets

Effective marketing demands a multifaceted approach, involving content creation, social media management, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), graphic design, website design, and web development. Assembling an in-house marketing team teeming with all this talent is no easy undertaking.

When you partner with a reputable digital marketing agency, you gain access to an entire team of specialists – each of whom knows their niche and understands how best to get results. These passionate and knowledgeable marketers routinely manage a wide range of clientele, making it all the more probable that they’ll implement the proper strategies for your company with not as much trial and error.

A Marketing Agency Can Offer a Fresh Perspective

Companies that have been in business for any significant period may ultimately realize that they’re circulating the same ideas over and over again. Campaigns start to look alike, and copywriters continue using the same terminology to describe things. In-house marketers keep trying to devise new and innovative ideas, but it’s getting more and more challenging to do so.

This is entirely normal. There’s a natural limit to how long a company can craft quality content when they’re promoting the same products and services day in and day out. It’s easy to become single-minded when working from inside an organization. That said, getting an outside perspective can be immensely beneficial to a business.

Partnering with an agency can help you view your company from a different perspective and bring a fresh approach to your marketing strategy. While it’s true that an outside agency will not immediately have a thorough, expansive understanding of your company’s brand and history, this can actually be beneficial. An agency can objectively identify opportunities that might have gone unnoticed or were not as easily recognizable by in-house personnel.

Digital marketing specialists have years of knowledge and experience, and they’re trained to analyze your business from the consumer’s or client’s viewpoint. The old adage “two heads are better than one” is especially relevant when it comes to digital marketing.

Additionally, an agency may be more willing to push the envelope and think unconventionally. This can bring about increased ingenuity and quite possibly more successful marketing strategies.

Consistency and Speed of Work Are Hallmarks of Marketing Agencies

When generating new marketing collateral, it’s easy for an organization to become careless about what and when to communicate. More often than not, attending to customers is their primary focus, and marketing takes a back seat.

Since the majority of in-house personnel have other responsibilities apart from their marketing roles, the time they have available to keep up to date on all the latest social media, SEO, content marketing, and branding trends is extremely limited.

By contrast, entrusting your marketing to an outside agency enables these marketers to jump in and start implementing strategies right away, carrying out each project from planning to completion. Because these agencies routinely handle a wide array of client accounts, they typically work far more efficiently than an in-house marketing team.

Over time, these agile marketers have designed state-of-the-art workflows and processes that are built for quality, volume, and efficiency. Outsourced agencies will strive to make sure to send your content, ad campaigns, and social media marketing out on time, making sure it not only looks great but also that your branding is consistent.

Marketing Agencies Are Cost-Effective Over the Long Term

While partnering with an outside agency might seem more expensive at face value, when compared to the costs of recruiting a full team of dedicated marketers, it’s a bargain! In-house personnel can set your company back hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in salaries, benefits, and technology investments.

On the other hand, you might choose to designate a single, in-house employee to handle all of your social media marketing, graphic design, and online advertising. But for less than the costs associated with that one individual, you could hire an agency and gain access to an entire team of specialists who are experienced in meeting the needs of a variety of diverse clients in multiple industries.

Working with an agency that comprehends your company’s specific needs will allow you to move swifter, secure better outcomes, and make decisions more effortlessly. You may not even have to work with an agency long-term at full scale – once you’re up and running successfully, you may only have to manage maintenance fees, which are considerably less by comparison.

Outsourcing to a Marketing Agency Gives Your Company a Competitive Edge

Competition is fierce and technologies evolve at lightning speed. Therefore, it’s essential to keep up-to-date with the latest trends to stay ahead of your competitors. It’s possible to achieve this with an in-house team if your organization is prepared to invest in marketing education, new technology, and advanced resources. But most aren’t.

Fortunately, staying on top of the most current digital marketing techniques is an agency’s lifeblood. Marketing agencies often enjoy early access to cutting-edge technologies, tools, and software – most of which just aren’t available to smaller, in-house marketing teams.

Unless your internal marketing team is large enough to justify the costs of ongoing education and technology, it’s generally more economical to outsource your marketing to an agency.

CONS:

Partnering with a Marketing Agency Can Incur Higher Costs Over the Short Term

Depending on how many functions you decide to pass on to an agency, you can expect to spend a bigger chunk of your marketing budget than you would with a single, in-house professional – at least at first.

But, as previously mentioned, you can’t always get the best results when entrusting all of your marketing efforts to one person. If you’re currently covering the total cost of salaries plus benefits to support an entire in-house team, you might find that outsourcing to a marketing agency is actually more affordable.

When you partner with an outside marketing agency, it’s important to bear in mind that, in addition to gaining access to a whole team of professional marketers, you’re also laying the foundations of a long-term marketing strategy that will gradually decrease costs and improve overall profitability.

Being businesses as well, marketing agencies naturally have their own salaries, taxes, and other expenses that they must meet. To accomplish this, agencies must set prices for each of their various services. That said, most agencies are upfront about their pricing and are willing to adjust their fee structures to meet your budget.

While an agency may cost more in the short term, it is likely to generate better returns that you can measure right away. This signifies that you know the value that you’re paying for.

Marketing Agencies May Lack Your Knowledge of the Industry

While some marketing agencies concentrate on a specific industry, most of them work with clients in a variety of markets. Consequently, they may not have the degree of knowledge you have about your products and services.

In such cases, there will be a bit of a “discovery period” in the early days of a project until the agency has become familiar with the particulars of your key business processes. Even agencies that have worked with a vast array of clients will need time to grasp your customers’ needs.

Because each market is distinct, what performs well for one business might fail miserably for another. You won’t want to squander money on a campaign that will end up alienating potential customers.

Finding a firm with demonstrated results in your field can help counterbalance a lack of industry knowledge.

It Can Take Time for Agencies to Get Up to Speed On a Company

It can be hard to get down to business straightaway after hiring an agency. The client-agency partnership needs time to ensure proper alignment with the client’s stated objectives.

A creditable marketing agency will want to gain a deep understanding of your clients and identify what it is that they’re looking for. At the same time, they’ll need to make sure they have a good grasp of your brand’s voice and image.

After taking the time to evaluate your goals and prior marketing efforts with their team, the agency will work to determine what direction to take with your marketing and ensure that you approve of it as well.

Once a campaign has concluded, the agency will ask for your feedback so that they can adapt and enhance your marketing strategy going forward. All of these things take time, and a freewheeling approach won’t produce optimal results.

You Can Expect Lots of Meetings, Especially Early On

When outsourcing your marketing to an agency, you can anticipate taking part in a lot of meetings and discussions, especially at the outset of the relationship.

Every single aspect demands your consent and stamp of approval early on, and you can’t relegate these critical decisions to the agency. Being tasked with reviewing a new web design, fresh website content, or greenlighting an ad campaign can be burdensome at times – but it’s an integral part of the process.

As the client-agency relationship progresses, you can expect to continue having regular meetings to:

Review current projects and determine whether or not they’re on track to meet their objectives
Address concerns, bring new ideas to light, and get clarifications as needed
Further solidify trust between the two parties

Regular Communication with a Marketing Agency Can Be Challenging

Effective communication is crucial to keeping your marketing plan running smoothly. But when you partner with an outside marketing agency, you won’t always have instant access to your team. Lack of physical proximity is a natural barrier, and face-to-face communication is understandably more limited.

Communicating with agency partners often takes place via phone or email, and they may be slower to respond to requests, questions, or concerns than you’d prefer. Certainly, meetings can be arranged, but they typically occur hours or days later.

The fact of the matter is, you aren’t the agency’s only client. You may not even be their biggest client. Agencies routinely manage multiple accounts for a variety of clients. If other clients contract for more services, your company’s project may not be prioritized as highly. Simply put, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle.

However, principled marketing agencies will work to ensure that no client feels less valued than another. They strive to keep in constant contact with each of their clients and make a conscious effort to respond to concerns quickly.

Final Thoughts

Both recruiting an in-house marketing team and outsourcing to an agency have their benefits and drawbacks. Neither option is inherently right nor wrong for any business.

To determine which approach is right for your company, it’s important to examine your short-term marketing goals as well as your long-term growth strategy. Weighing these against your own team’s strengths and weaknesses is critical to assessing whether you should keep your marketing initiatives in-house or entrust them to outside experts.

In addition, identifying which particular services your company needs and determining your marketing budget are essential to reaching a final decision.

Many companies already have a core of in-house individuals tasked with handling their marketing.

By and large, in-house personnel live and breathe the company brand and are likely to have a far more in-depth understanding of the business’s unique selling proposition, product set, and buyer personas.

Thus, in-house marketers may be better qualified to create relevant content and effective communication strategies for the company.

Nevertheless, the range of expertise and resources available to in-house marketers may be limited – indeed, they may find it difficult to implement new software or keep pace with ever-evolving trends and technologies.

There’s a steep learning curve involved with digital marketing, and teaming up with an external agency can help avoid classic “newbie” mistakes.

Instead of spending time and effort exploring various possibilities, agency specialists will formulate and carry out a hard-and-fast plan without delay, ensuring a quicker return on your investment.

Many organizations find that a hybrid approach to marketing works best.

Outsourcing key services to agency specialists can not only be extremely cost-effective, but it also provides an outside perspective that can help in-house marketing teams recognize opportunities to improve.

Keeping some of your resources in-house also helps the company maintain some degree of direct control over its content, branding, and other marketing resources.

Now that you’ve had a chance to analyze the pros and cons of retaining an in-house marketing team versus partnering with an outside agency, it’s time to take the next step.

If you or your business could benefit from the services of a professional, full-service digital marketing agency, HighClick Media is here to help!

We provide comprehensive digital media and online marketing solutions for businesses of all sizes.

Our talented team of creative thinkers, innovators, and digital marketers bring skills above and beyond the ordinary to every project, resulting in explosive business success!

Whether you’re looking for a fresh website design, brand development, email marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), or pay-per-click advertising (PPC), our highly skilled team is fully equipped to assist you!

Call us today at 252.814.2150 or drop us a line to see how we can help elevate your brand!

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5G Wireless & Its Implications for Marketing

What the Emergence of 5G Wireless Means For Marketing

What the Emergence of 5G Wireless Means For Marketing It’s been a decade since 4G – the last generation of mobile network technology – was

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What the Emergence of 5G Wireless Means For Marketing

August 17, 2022

What the Emergence of 5G Wireless Means For Marketing

It’s been a decade since 4G – the last generation of mobile network technology – was introduced. With its arrival, the landscape of digital media and mobile communication was forever altered.

Smartphones and other devices designed to fully utilize 4G wireless technology gave consumers the power of supercomputers in the palms of their hands, enabling them to quickly and easily search the internet for products, services, reviews, and media, as well as find answers to nearly any question imaginable.

In a short period of time, we’ve come to take 4G’s capabilities for granted. It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that many of today’s mobile apps – with their capacity for streaming video and audio and in-app advertising and purchases – could not have existed on 3G.

No previous generation of mobile technology has had the wherewithal to drive economic growth to the extent that 5G promises. Much like the advent of 4G made it possible for services like Uber and Lyft to launch, 5G is likely to spark a brand-new wave of tech titans.

5G also gives every indication of opening up more opportunities for the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), connecting everything from your house lights to your garage door and even your toaster to the internet. This translates into more people and more devices spending more time connected to the internet, increasingly consuming more content.

While it could take as long as a decade to realize the full potential of the technology, 5G is projected to cover up to 65% of the global population by the end of 2025, fielding as much as 45% of global mobile data traffic. When 5G wireless networks and devices finally start to take root, they will fundamentally change customer behavior and open up new marketing opportunities for organizations.

What Is 5G Wireless?

5G, the fifth-generation cellular wireless network, is a cloud-based network that connects people on mobile devices to the internet remarkably faster than previous networks. While 4G requires cables and infrastructure to operate smoothly in a neighborhood, 5G’s cellular towers enhance cloud-based signals, eliminating many cable-related needs.

Whereas preceding wireless networks were only truly capable of powering mobile devices up to the size of a tablet, 5G will be strong enough and fast enough to effortlessly power computers, televisions, and even smart devices.

5G technology carries with it the potential for download speeds up to 100 times faster than 4G; very low latency (the time it takes for a network to send a data packet after it’s requested from a receiving device); higher network capacity (the ability to connect far more devices to a network simultaneously); and faster message transmission, due to supercharged connectivity.

The possibilities of 5G are limitless and could transform the digital marketing landscape in more ways than we can conceive of.

How 5G Wireless Will Change Consumer Behavior

The expansion of 5G will be powered by the introduction of 5G-compatible iPhones and Android phones in the near future. This will likely spawn a huge wave of smartphone upgrades. Along with being on a faster network, these devices will feature better-quality screens, faster processors, higher-resolution cameras, and other improved components.

Once customers have acquired these compatible devices, wireless carriers will begin vying for these customers by building out their respective networks. This build-out will take some time, but 5G should be an everyday experience for the majority of Americans within the next 3 to 5 years.

Faster internet speeds on 5G-supported devices will make surfing the internet, watching videos, and online shopping much more attractive on mobile. This will likely motivate consumers to use their mobile devices even more often than before. Already, 37% of web traffic and 56% of revenue is from mobile devices, according to Smart Insights. As 5G expands to more communities, these numbers will certainly escalate even further.

With better and faster data exchanges, 5G will also lead to enhanced location accuracy. Having relevant data in hand to increase targeting accuracy for any ad, search page, or web page experience means improved results for both consumers and brands. Consumers will enjoy a better experience and marketers will reach a more targeted audience. While this won’t necessarily change the tactics that local marketers use to connect to their audience, it will increase the chances that the consumers they reach are the right ones.

What 5G Wireless Means for Marketing

A Solid Online Presence Is Essential

With higher loading speeds and dependable, super-fast connections, people will be able to consume more online content, faster. In fact, early users of the 5G network have reported using four times more data than they did previously. Consumers are likely going to be spending more time browsing, scrolling, and swiping on the internet and less time viewing traditional content like cable TV, newspapers, and magazines. More screen time translates into more opportunities to reach your target audience.

If your brand doesn’t currently exist on all the relevant platforms, now’s the time to establish and develop a solid online presence. If you haven’t already launched a website, this is a crucial first step. Set up and optimize your business profiles on all the major social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Consider creating marketing videos aimed at increasing brand awareness. Starting a company blog is an excellent way to build a community and provoke conversations among industry peers.

Digital Ads Will Be on More Screens & Surfaces

With 5G and advancing Wi-Fi technologies, wireless internet is going to be noticeably faster and more widespread, even in rural locations. Due to the higher network speeds, visual and media in digital ads could be much more advanced.

Currently, digital ads can be seen on smartphones, websites, and occasionally on screens at shopping centers and airports. Super-fast wireless connectivity means high-end screens could be located anywhere an internet connection exists. Quite literally, any surface has the potential to become an interactive digital marketing ad platform. Faster speeds could even open the door for functional holographic ads.

Super-fast wireless connectivity means that high-end screens could be located anywhere an internet connection exists. Faster speeds could even open the door for functioning holographic ads. In a world where literally any surface has the potential to become an interactive digital marketing ad platform, advertisers can dramatically increase the number of locations and methods by which they can reach potential customers.

Augmented Reality (AR) & Virtual Reality (VR)

For years, marketers have deemed immersive technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to be rife with potential for paid advertising. While some major brands have played around with VR and AR for some time, opportunities in these areas have been constrained based on Wi-Fi access.

One of the chief reasons why VR, AR, and other forms of extended reality (XR) haven’t yet become widespread in popularity is because these technologies demand significant bandwidth, less latency, and greater speed than 4G is capable of providing. The expansion of 5G networks will allow advertisers to utilize this format with more reliability and less lag.

Augmented reality inherently relies on immersion. A lag or stutter can shatter the illusion. In order to maintain the suspension of disbelief, the AR experience needs to be utterly convincing, real-time, and executed seamlessly. As internet speeds accelerate, delivering on these requirements is becoming progressively easier.

Low latency and high system capacity will improve overall consistency, helping to bring smooth, immersive experiences into mainstream reality, and offering a wealth of opportunities for marketers.

In the near future, we can reasonably expect to see brands launching innovative and compelling messaging using high-quality, interactive creative imagery overlaid on practically every surface imaginable. This innovative marketing content will likely be viewable not just when wearing standard AR-enhanced glasses, but also in store windows, on walls, in car dashboards, and on next-generation mobile devices that also function as projectors.

Internet of Things (IoT) Will Reach Its Full Potential

The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the concept of connecting any possible device to the internet. This goes beyond the obvious connected “things” like computers, cell phones, smart TVs, cameras, home security systems, and wearable devices (Apple Watches and FitBits, for example), and extends to more commonplace items like thermostats, lighting fixtures, household appliances, doorbells, and even barbecue grills. All of these and more can be controlled through devices such as smartphones or smart speakers.

While many IoT devices are capable of functioning on 4G networks, connections between devices generally can’t rely on transferring large amounts of data because there simply isn’t enough bandwidth. With the increased bandwidth that 5G networks will bring, the number of connected items will skyrocket, and the connection between these items will become more efficient and seamless.

As adoption of 5G continues to increase, the amount of data generated by IoT devices will also grow exponentially. Marketers will have to learn to separate the valuable data from the “junk,” but once they’re able to reliably pinpoint the good data to use on a large scale, the possibilities are endless.

What benefits can marketers derive from this treasure trove of data?

Understand audiences more deeply in order to better personalize their messaging
Generate contextual and location-based ads that are hyper-targeted to reach their ideal audience
Create timely, relevant content for prospective customers at each stage in the buying journey
Listen to the needs of their customers based on their behavior
Make real-time adjustments to marketing campaigns based on ongoing data analysis

Going forward, advertisers should be ready to interface with users across a variety of different devices using a vast array of ad formats.

More Interactive Advertising

Up to this point, buffering and other technological limitations have impaired the accessibility of interactive ads.

At present, advertisers are tasked with finding a happy medium between producing compelling creative content and minimizing webpage load times. High-definition or interactive digital display ads lengthen the amount of time it takes for a page to load, which can cause some website visitors to skedaddle before they even see the ad.

5G download speeds will be fast enough that marketers will no longer be limited with regard to the quality of creative features on a webpage. 4K and live videos will be commonplace across the internet, even on mobile.

Since interactive ads won’t negatively impact a website’s performance, the sites will be significantly easier to navigate. Improved website performance could potentially boost click-through rates and decrease bounce rates as well.

Marketing Processes Will Be Improved

Reporting and data mining that once took hours or days for marketers to complete might only take a few minutes or seconds with 5G. Analytics, applied to every phase of the marketing process, can help predict where demand will be for particular products, optimize pricing to gain a competitive edge, and identify consumer purchasing patterns and behaviors.

With faster data communication between devices, marketers will finally have access to real-time analytics. This opens up the possibility to maximize and modify marketing campaigns in real time using artificial intelligence (AI) and other marketing automation tools.

Greater Personalization & Hyper-Localized Targeting

As internet speeds increase and mobile connectivity reaches deeper into more rural and remote areas, the number of internet users is likely to grow at an even faster rate than before. With the proliferation of users, marketers will also see a noticeable increase in the amount of valuable data they are able to collect. With more detailed information in hand, marketers will be able to deliver hyper-localized content and multifaceted campaign strategies. Hyper-localization makes personalization and targeting increasingly important. With this data, marketers will be better able to:

Tailor ads by demographics, consumer behavior, and specific device usage
Improve segmentation, customer experience (CX), and customer journey
Generate customized calls to action, personalized emails, and location-based homepages
Build meaningful relationships between the brand and the consumer

Expansion of Mobile Marketing

Over the past decade, screen time on mobile devices has significantly increased. With users’ eyes glued to their cell phone screens, mobile marketing is more vital than ever.

Marketers understand that there’s a discernible difference between how people use a computer and a smartphone. Desktop search inquiries can be more complex, whereas smartphone queries are generally simpler and more direct. Bearing this in mind, marketers will need to fashion content that’s more appropriate for mobile devices.

This content will likely be centered around screenless searches – voice search and digital assistants, for example – as well as micro-moments (when people reflexively consult a device, typically a smartphone, to act upon a need to learn, do, discover, watch, or buy something). Consequently, this content will be more conversational in tone and framed to answer frequently asked questions to aid users in acquiring information on the go.

Mobile ecommerce sales in the U.S. represented nearly 40% of total retail ecommerce sales as recently as 2018 – and it’s anticipated that these numbers will keep climbing. Despite this unprecedented growth, U.S. consumers are nonetheless encountering considerable difficulties while shopping online.

Consumers’ greatest frustration emanates from latency – in a recent survey, 42% of users referenced low-performing websites or apps as their biggest inconvenience. As network speeds accelerate with 5G, zero latency will essentially eliminate the number-one problem for mobile shopping.

Now is the time for companies – and marketers – to gear up for the progression of 5G by streamlining shopping apps and enriching the customer experience.

Video Advertising Will Increase

Video is already the most consumed content on the internet, as well as a fast-growing segment of digital marketing. While 4G networks are relatively fast, lag issues still creep up when streaming videos. Due to limited bandwidth, pages load slowly, preventing many marketers from doubling down on video as a central focus of their efforts.

With heightened connectivity and accelerated internet speeds, the use of video content, streaming, and mobile video consumption is expected to skyrocket. Page load times will dramatically decrease and buffering time will be reduced to virtually nil, creating a nearly seamless streaming experience for users.

5G networks will allow users to stream high-quality videos faster than ever before, contribute to better overall quality (such as 4K video), easily support longer-form and data-rich videos, and enhance live video capabilities.

Consequently, video advertising will become more prevalent online. Marketers will focus on producing unique, high-quality video content as a primary component of their advertising strategies. Consumers should expect that the quantity of video ads they see will rise; however, these same users may be more open to video content if they find it to be particularly relevant.

As recently as 2018, users reported having viewed a combined 1 billion hours’ worth of YouTube content each day, substantially more than the next leading platforms combined. Rival social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat have all rolled out emergent video platforms in an attempt to seize a portion of YouTube’s viewership for their platforms. As the breadth of video-streaming networks continues to expand, marketers will work on diversifying and gearing their efforts toward each specific platform.

Decreasing Use of Ad Blockers

Currently, an estimated 47% of consumers routinely use ad blockers. One of the biggest reasons for this is that ads can significantly slow down a page’s load time.

With the higher speeds and lower latency that 5G will bring, the use of ad blockers is likely to decline. This means that marketers will be able to serve more ads to more people, much faster than before.

Faster load times and a better user experience (UX) will ultimately lead to more positive relationships between brands and consumers as well.

Richer Content for Websites & Emails

More mobile bandwidth would seriously diminish concerns about website load times, allowing businesses to use more images, animation, and video. Just because they can, though, doesn’t mean that they should – busy and frenetic web designs can be confusing to visitors. However, 5G does allow for richer content with fewer worries.

5G technology would decrease concerns about email load times as well. Marketers could be more confident about using retina and 4K images in emails, and could even use larger-sized animated gifs with more frames.

Voice Assistants Will Be The Norm

Whether scheduling activities or creating lists, people are now using voice assistants for anything and everything they please. Sales of smart speakers, such as Amazon’s Alexa, have also boomed in recent years.

Smart speakers and voice assistants demand rapid access to vast amounts of data in order to accurately encrypt a verbal command and return a useful response. 5G technology will allow these tools to function even faster and be more helpful. In addition, the data transfer speeds available from 5G networks will enable you to take your smart speaker with you wherever you go for even greater versatility.

One of the biggest marketing impacts of 5G will be that consumers can have actual voice conversations with mobile devices, instead of merely issuing a few voice commands and interacting at other times by thumb-typing or screen-touching.

As voice assistants become more omnipresent, marketers will look for new ways to leverage this developing technology. Mobile advertising could eventually become entirely slanted towards voice conversations.

How to Keep Up in a 5G World

It’s understandable if your company isn’t quite ready to explore the possibilities of interactive advertising, augmented reality, or virtual reality. However, you should still keep tabs on the latest marketing technologies in order to be “in the know” about what the bigger brands are doing. This can help you identify which opportunities might be more accessible to you in the future, or come up with similar strategies that you might be able to recreate without the high-priced technologies.

If you haven’t already, you should also work on building up your digital and online marketing tactics. The ongoing improvements of Wi-Fi and the expectations of 5G have demonstrated that there’s a business case for being hyperconnected. If the majority of your customers weren’t online frequently already, they certainly will be in the coming years.

Make sure you’re actively engaging with consumers on the most popular social media channels for your industry. Build a robust website awash with digital content such as blog posts, marketing videos, and other relevant information.

If you’ve already got an amazing online presence, consider exploring newer mobile platforms that could thrive in the 5G era. You might not be able to afford to create an AR advertisement, but you could experiment with creating content that utilizes AR or new-media filters on apps such as Snapchat, TikTok, or Instagram.

In a 5G world, marketing will be distinctly data-driven with messaging served to individuals, not the general public. At every micro-moment of decision, you’ll be seeking to gain influence. Thus, you will need solid marketing technology in order to capture and analyze data and respond in real time. Accomplishing this goal will demand investment and meticulous planning. Utilizing a customer data platform is a great place to start

FINAL THOUGHTS

While the move to widespread 5G coverage will be a gradual progression, the latest generation of wireless technology stands as a colossal creative and strategic opportunity for marketers. Integrating technology into the marketing realm was already bound to happen; but with the realization of 5G on a massive scale, digital will indeed begin to dominate.

Amidst this rapidly changing landscape, marketers must work to establish closer relationships between consumers and brands through more relevant and compelling communications and experiences. 5G will allow marketers to find new and innovative ways to communicate with their existing customers, based on better location accuracy and other techniques.

Marketing professionals would also be wise to invest in new skills and strategic planning in order to fully leverage the new technology and its infrastructure. By keeping an eye on key digital marketing metrics and monitoring customer behaviors closely, marketers can quickly identify major shifts and adapt accordingly.

As with any new technology, unexpected pitfalls may arise, such as data breaches and identity theft. Marketers must ensure that comprehensive security and privacy procedures are in place to safeguard their own assets and those of their clients.

Overall, the addition of 5G and even improved Wi-Fi networks will be great for businesses with an online or digital presence – and marketers who run many of their daily processes online.

There’s definitely a lot to unpack, but as 5G takes shape and becomes part of our collective reality, we’ll continue to discover new ways to harness the technology and enhance the consumer’s experience.

If you’re looking for a digital marketing and creative services team to deliver precise marketing solutions to help grow your business, look no further than HighClick Media. We provide comprehensive digital media and online marketing solutions for businesses of all sizes. Our talented team of creative thinkers, innovators, and digital marketers bring skill above and beyond the ordinary to every project, resulting in explosive business success. Call us today at 252.814.2150 to see how we can help elevate your brand!

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Why Shop Local?

June 11, 2018
Jason Hill Jessica Pruitt

Why Shop Local?

It’s become something of a fad for folks to hop on social media and encourage their friends and neighbors to “Shop Local.” There’s a lot of good logic behind the mantra, though.

First, let’s look at the numbers.

Small businesses with fewer than 100 employees account for 99% of all businesses in the United States. Locally owned businesses employ over 77 million Americans and are responsible for creating 75% of all new jobs. Nonprofits receive 250% more support from local businesses than from nationally owned chains.

Still not convinced? Consider this!

Smaller-scale, locally owned businesses contribute to creating communities – like yours – that are more prosperous, more entrepreneurial, more connected, and generally a lot better off!

Here’s another startling number, and it’s a doozy! Approximately 1 in 12 small businesses closes every year, with low sales being the primary cause. Imagine your favorite 12 businesses in the community and decide which one you could live without. Tough choice, huh?

Saying “Shop Local” is all well and good, but we have to actually take the time and spend the money to support our local businesses with both our presence and our dollars. If not, we are contributing to a loss of our community and maybe even its identity.

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1) Strengthen the Local Economy

For every $100 you spend at a local business, $73 stays in the local economy. Conversely, for every $100 you spend at a non-locally-owned business, only $43 will return to the local economy. When profits stay local, the community’s wealth, tax revenue, and standard of living increase. When you shop local, you’re individually stimulating the local economy – and in turn, helping shape your community’s unique character and personality.

2) Invest in the Community

Local businesses are owned by your friends and neighbors who live in the community. Because of this, they’re less likely to leave and are more personally invested in the community’s future. Locally owned establishments tend to support each other, working with other local businesses such as banks, service providers, and farms to fulfill their needs. This helps both businesses and the residents of the community – like you and your family! In times of economic downturns, local businesses are more likely to work harder to stay open. Local ownership means that important decisions about the business are made by people who live in the community and can personally feel the impact of those decisions.

3) Support Community Groups

Small businesses donate significant portions of their profits to nonprofits, events, and teams within their communities. Big businesses often donate to charities and nonprofits as well, but this money doesn’t typically go back to the community where you live. When funds are donated to local nonprofits, they go directly towards helping you and your family, friends, and neighbors.

4) Keep Your Community Unique

One-of-a-kind businesses help give your community its distinct personality. This exclusive experience can make your city or town a desired destination for tourists or visitors passing through. The more interesting and unique your community, the more it will attract new neighbors as well. Entrepreneurs and skilled workers, in particular, are increasingly likely to invest and settle in a community that actively strives to preserve its distinctive character.

5) Diversity of Products

Big-box stores are beholden to national sales plans and marketing strategies. Thus, they generally don’t stock their stores with products that are highly sought after within a specific region. Local business owners choose products based on what they know their customers want, often carrying unique items and handmade goods from local artisans. Community shops and farmers’ markets are stocked with locally grown produce that’s fresher, longer-lasting, and often more flavorful than that which you’d buy at the supermarket.

6) Better Expertise

Small business owners are passionate, well-informed, and highly knowledgeable about the products they’re selling. They often hire employees with more specific product experience as well, which better equips the business to educate potential customers and “story tell” about the brand. Because they know their customers personally, business owners can easily adjust their inventories to include the goods and services local people want to buy.

7) Nurture a Close-Knit Community

When you shop at neighborhood businesses, you’ll likely run into friends and family more often, which can help unite the community as a whole. Cities and towns with a higher number of local businesses are proven to enjoy stronger social ties and greater participation in civic affairs. Local ownership of business means residents with deep roots in the community are actively involved in development decisions that shape our lives and local environment.

8) Personalized Customer Service

Maintaining positive relationships with community members is important to local businesses. Employees have a vested interest in the products or services they’re selling, and this drives them to go the extra mile to deliver personalized support and ensure customer satisfaction. Business owners are usually directly connected to every employee in the store, and this personal approach often means that any problem you have is taken seriously. Owners of local businesses are often easier to get hold of than decision-makers at a large chain store, so any customer complaints that may arise are usually resolved quickly. Other drawing factors for local businesses include a less-crowded environment and frequently shorter lines, meaning less stress and hassle when it comes to getting what you need from the business.

9) Reduce Environmental Impact

Because local businesses make more of their purchases locally, less fuel for transportation is required. They typically set up shop in town or city centers, which helps contribute to less sprawl, traffic congestion, habitat loss, and pollution. Independent businesses often have a smaller physical footprint than larger companies, and they generally utilize far less packaging than big-box stores as well.

10) Promote Entrepreneurship

Creativity and entrepreneurship are the foundation of the American economy. By supporting local entrepreneurs, you get a higher level of service and help make your community a better place to live.

11) Create More Job Opportunities

Small businesses create jobs where people live, so community members like yourself, your friends, family, and neighbors can work closer to home. This cuts back on commute time, which helps keep employees happy and improves retention and overall job performance. The increase in jobs for local residents will have a positive domino effect, as local stores will need to partner with other local residents to help with accounting, printing, and other essential services. Local businesses also contribute to higher-paying jobs for your neighbors. When you shop locally, you are helping create jobs for teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers, and many other vital professions. During economic downturns, locally owned businesses tend to retain more of their employees, as compared to big-box retailers which decrease the number of jobs under the same circumstances.

12) Put Your Taxes to Good Use

In addition to generating more tax revenue per sales dollar, taxes paid by small local businesses are widely used to support vital public services such as schools, libraries, parks, street repairs, trash collection, and police/fire departments. By shopping locally, you are actively contributing to these and other local programs that directly benefit your friends, family, and community!

13) Increase Competition

Unfortunately, big-box stores have a long history of driving mom-and-pop shops out of business. With less competition, the big-box stores can charge higher prices. With a multitude of local businesses within your community, all stores will need to keep their prices competitive in order to gain your business. Having lots of small businesses in the community also guarantees a much broader range of product choices, many of which are carried specifically to fill the needs of local customers.

Final Thoughts

Shopping locally is, hands-down, one of the best and easiest ways you can help improve the community in which you live. Patronizing small businesses in your neighborhood has endless positive and long-lasting effects – not only for the businesses but for everyone in the community!

What’s your favorite local business to shop at on a regular basis? Drop us a line here to let us know or call us at 252.814.2150!

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Emoji Marketing: 3 Brands That Did it Right

August 17, 2022

Emoji Marketing: 3 Brands That Did it Right

Happy World Emoji Day!

Yep, you read that right. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’re already aware of today’s “holiday.” It’s a day to celebrate the tiny cartoon images on our devices that most of us use every day! Emojis have been in our lives for a long time. Beginning as components of chatroom conversations in the ’90s as emoticons, emojis have reshaped the way we communicate.

“Yes, they are cute and fun and kind of addictive, but they also improve our capacity to make our intended meaning known.” ~ Psychology Today

Whether or not you’re a fan of these little digital icons, there’s no denying that more and more successful brands are jumping on board with emoji marketing. And the brands that are doing it right present their emojis in ways that are both impressive and memorable.

If your business hasn’t jumped on the emoji marketing bandwagon yet, keep reading for examples of brands that pulled it off flawlessly.

Deadpool’s Emoji Billboard

Hilarious + Creative = Genius! Capturing the attention of fans, three simple emojis were used to spell out “Deadpool” to promote the new movie. This marketing campaign reportedly played a role in Deadpool breaking box office records for an R-rated movie. An emoji that appears to be smiling poo is not something you see on a billboard every day. This campaign is proof that doing the unexpected can totally pay off!

WWF’s #EndangeredEmoji Twitter Campaign

In 2015, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) developed the #EndangeredEmoji campaign with the goal to save animals from extinction. Targeting Millennials by using a social media platform and alternative communication methods proved to be a great idea. A fresh audience flocked to this emoji campaign, leading to 559,000 mentions and 59,000 sign-ups during the first month of the launch.

McDonald’s “Good Times” Emoji Marketing Campaign

McDonald’s produced a simple and lighthearted campaign to tell a short story using only emojis. They start by acknowledging a potentially bad day and showing empathy. They follow up with humor and the suggestion that visiting their business will turn your bad day around.

Final Thoughts

As businesses evolve alongside their customers, using these new technologies is vital for connecting emotionally with their target audiences.

However, for every successful emoji marketing campaign, there have been other, less-than-successful attempts made. So, before you decide to incorporate emojis into your marketing campaigns, make sure they flow with your overall marketing strategy.

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Pride Isn’t Just For June

August 17, 2022

The transparency demanded of brands by social media today means that attentive consumers can keep tabs on a brand’s values and behavior year-round.

This shouldn’t be a channel that’s merely activated in February for Black History Month, or one day a year for Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Juneteenth – it needs to be perpetual.

Brands that fail to acknowledge this run the risk of their messaging – for Pride Month, for example – being seen as insincere or strictly performative, particularly by younger demographics.

MarTech recently sat down with Adriana Waterston, SVP of Insights and Strategy for Horowitz Research, to discuss this issue.

Gen Z’s Unflinching Support for LGBTQ+ Rights

Horowitz Research recently conducted research on Gen Z – born roughly between 1997 and 2012 – a generation that many brands are finding it hard to connect with, due to the breakdown of the media ecosystem. The agency discovered that 28% of Gen Zers surveyed self-identified as LGBTQIA.

“That’s a substantial proportion,” noted Waterston. “The story of Gen Z,” she said, “is one of allies and being inclusive. The big message from our data is that for brands to really engage with Gen Z audiences, the tokenism of Black History Month or Pride Month or Asian and Pacific Islander [Heritage Month] – that kind of pandering engagement during these marketing months just really falls short.”

The younger generation especially, she added, is concerned with the brand’s voice, values, and social responsibility all year round. “If you’re keeping your company headquarters in a place that’s going after LGBTQ+ rights and trans rights, and yet you come out with fancy statements during Pride Month, it’s going to come off as disingenuous,” Waterston asserted.

There may be even greater cynicism among older audiences, she stated. “Marketing works one way, business and politics work another. These young people – maybe it’s a real cultural shift, I’m not sure. Are these young people going to support brands they align with politically when they’re a little older and have other considerations? I don’t have a crystal ball.”

A New Cultural Consciousness

Despite a common perception – right or wrong – that the LGBTQ+ audience is a coveted demographic for brands, with ample disposable income, the community has still been somewhat marginalized over time. Why is that?

“I think it has a lot to do with the way brands think about marketing and how they spend their marketing dollars,” explained Waterston. “It’s not just LGBTQ+, it’s multicultural and diverse in general. Brands would look at numbers like, less than 5% of the U.S. audience is LGBTQ+ and think, this is not a sizable enough audience for us to market to year-round – forgetting that it’s also about the allies, about the families, about tapping into the zeitgeist – a cultural sensibility of inclusiveness and progressiveness.”

With regard to Gen Z, the matter becomes even more intricate, suggested Waterston. “There’s so much fluidity. Older generations are just now learning that gender is perhaps not just binary. Young people today were born into this sensibility, and that makes it complicated for brands. People don’t feel they have to hide their preferences.”

Essentially, whether the Horowitz Research study points to an actual upsurge in LGBTQ+ numbers in the Gen Z demographic is open to debate; what it does show is a greater inclination for individuals to openly identify with that segment of the population.

Here, a correlation between the LGBTQ+ community and the Black Lives Matter movement can be drawn. The more willing people are to be outspoken on an issue – even as allies – the more liable they are to call for consistent commitment from the companies they purchase from.

Three Practical Insights

First, as already attested, brands must be mindful of diverse audiences not only at specific times of the year but all year long.

Second, having diverse viewpoints in the room when marketing decisions are made creates opportunities for authentic engagement.

Third, “brands need to start thinking more creatively about engaging with audiences beyond traditional advertising. For example, with these young people, we saw how powerful something like TikTok is,” added Waterston.

“It is about rethinking all of your marketing approaches,” Waterston said, “and it’s part of the whole conversation that’s happening in this country. It’s not just about LGBTQ+; it’s about diversity overall. The marketing world has, for way too long, been very binary, meaning that white and straight is called the general market, and everything else is not. The reality is that what is white and straight is not only not the general market, but is actually a much smaller portion of the market than you would have thought.”

Diversity, argued Waterston, needs to be the norm. And if truth be told, she added, “a lot of brands realized that what happened in 2020 was a wake-up call. We’ve been busier than ever because brands have started to figure out that they don’t know what they don’t know.”

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An earlier version of this article appeared at martech.org.

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4 Essential Digital Marketing Elements Your Business Needs

June 11, 2018

4 Essential Digital Marketing Elements Your Business Needs

1. Branding

This is so important because it shows your customers how you’re going to accommodate them. Your brand is your business name, logo, tagline, personality, and more! Most popular brands evolve by adjusting to the times. This allows them to meet the ever-changing needs and expectations of the clients and customers. If nothing else, you need a brand name, a target audience, and an idea of how your brand personality is going to connect with your target audience.

This is a good example of brand evolution. Starbucks is continuously updating their brand and services, presenting a fresh take on a company we’ve known for decades.

2. Website

If you’re a newbie, you probably don’t have a huge website budget yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an awesome website. Ideally, your site should be simple and easy to navigate. Fast load times are also vital, or you might be losing people before they even see your site!

You will also want to make sure that your website is mobile-optimized, meaning that if someone wants to visit your site from a phone or tablet, they’ll still get a great browsing experience.

3. Content

Content covers all the things. Anything that educates your customers about your business is content. Potential clients are going to visit your website to see if and how your content is relates to them and their needs. The best content should be non-intrusive and inspire your customers to come to you.

4. Advertising

A strategically planned-out ad can help your business grow substantially. And the best part? You don’t need a ton of money to get started! Advertising is key – don’t forget it!

If you’re just getting started, my suggestion to you is remarketing to people who have already visited your website. They’ve already shown interest, and all you need to do is seal the deal! Digital advertising is a great way to drive traffic to your site and convert prospects into customers.

There you have it! Four essential digital marketing elements that every business needs to have in order to set you up for success!

If you wish to have more traffic, leads or sales, then it’s time we talk!

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Is It Time for a Website Overhaul?

October 15, 2020

Is It Time for a Website Overhaul?

Technology has been advancing at a rapid pace over the past several years, and there’s every reason to believe that it’s not going to slow down anytime soon.

What’s more, social media has evolved into a digital marketing hub, which has escalated the competition for businesses to remain relevant.

In order to contend in today’s market, your organization may be due for a website overhaul, as there are hallmarks that consumers expect in terms of accessibility, new content, and an engaging experience.

If your website hasn’t been updated recently, it may be hurting your business both in leads and credibility.

Consider these critical indicators in determining whether it’s time for a website overhaul:

1) Your Website Is Not Mobile-Friendly

More than ever, people are using their smartphones and other mobile devices to connect to the internet. Accordingly, you need to make certain that your website is compatible with a variety of screen sizes without undermining the quality and layout of your site.

The overall appearance of your website on mobile should be congruent with the desktop version to guarantee that customers are capable of accessing links and navigating the page from their tablets or smartphones.

Having a website that isn’t optimized for different screens can adversely affect your search engine rankings, since Google prioritizes responsive websites in their search results.

If you haven’t already configured your website to function the same on mobile and tablet device screens, you should modernize the design of your website without delay.

2) Antiquated Content & Lackluster Visuals

No matter what type of business you’re operating, your website needs to have an inviting visual design. Mismatched fonts and out-of-date imagery and content can make your website seem unappealing to customers. Revamping your website aesthetic can give you an edge over your competitors.

When assessing the present design of your website, ask yourself these key questions:

Are the images displayed on your site an accurate visual representation of your brand? Poor-quality, stretched, or run-of-the-mill stock photos are a dead giveaway that you’re ready for a redesign.
Is your website content easy to read and comprehend? It’s critical for your viewers’ overall experience to achieve the proper balance of text, background, and visuals.

Is your website too cluttered and disorderly? Having incongruous fonts, lengthy paragraphs, or compressed photos can make it hard for viewers to navigate your site.

3) Invalid, Inaccurate, or Irrelevant Content

Do you really want to occupy “prime real estate” on your website with content of little worth to your brand or the message you’re trying to convey? Your content should clearly communicate what your business is about: its core principles, the products and services you offer, and how to get in touch with you. Here are a few clues that your content might need to be refreshed:

There are products/services listed on your site that are no longer offered.
Your most recent blog or news article was posted over a year ago.
Your website contains immaterial content that doesn’t correspond with your brand.

4) You’re Not Putting Social Media to Good Use

As previously discussed, a majority of people use their smartphones and tablets to access the web. They also spend a LOT of time on social media!

Two reasons why you should be taking advantage of this popular resource:

Social Media Can Help Grow Your Brand

Facebook and Instagram are excellent avenues for sharing more innovative content, advertising your wares, and engaging with customers directly. By linking your social media profiles to your website and vice versa, you can create more traffic to each platform, which is likely to grab customers’ attention more effectively.

Consumers Prefer Brands That Are Active on Social Media

Making personal connections with customers online helps create loyal customers and generate better feedback. Plus, it’s a surefire way to identify what your customers are looking for – this, in turn, can help you answer their questions and make informative content that they want to interact with.

Your Professional Website Redesign Is Only a Phone Call Away!

At HighClick Media, our professional web designers are experts in website redesign! We love solving hard problems with creative solutions! Our website redesign process integrates marketing, design, technology, and digital strategy, to give you the best product possible. We believe that great design inspires website visitors to take action and to take notice of your company. Partnering with us as your web design agency ensures you that you are receiving the most comprehensive web design strategy possible. Call us today at 252.814.2150 to schedule a consultation with our web design team!

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Expand Your Brand for the Ecommerce Explosion

November 30, 2020

Expand Your Brand for the Ecommerce Explosion

Prior to 2020, the retail industry was projected to continue its gradual shift toward digital and mobile-first purchasing within the next decade. Nearing year’s end, the future has already arrived…a bit earlier than anticipated.

Thanks to social distancing and stay-at-home measures, ecommerce expansion has escalated from 16% of all U.S. retail sales in February of this year to 27% by April, based on data from the Bank of America and the U.S. Department of Commerce. The way that consumers shop progressed ten years in just a couple of months. And it happened before our very eyes!

Some organizations were better prepared than others. Presently, every business – regardless of its scope or size – has the chance to revamp its ecommerce approach.

In this article, we’ll explore four ways that you can transform your brand in order to better connect people with products online:

Redefine Loyalty

While ecommerce brands are notorious for their pricing wars, customers these days are seeking more than simply a good deal – it’s the total value that they want. In a recent global survey carried out by Ipsos, two out of three respondents stated that the way businesses act in response to COVID-19 will influence their spending. Half of all participants asserted that they are inclined to pay more for a product if they can be assured of its quality and safety, according to research by Nielsen.

Having the proper approach to customers can help you further deliver that value. Nearly two-thirds of consumers surveyed assert that exceptional customer service is critical when deciding where to shop online, according to a Kantar study commissioned by Facebook. By being transparent in updating order details and shipping timelines, you can greatly enhance the customer’s experience.

Problem-solving is another great way to build loyalty with customers. Platforms that allow real-time messaging can help make transactions smoother and more personalized. In addition, your willingness to issue refunds, process reshipments, and engage one-on-one with customers can help contribute value to your brand.

Advancing the common good, through nonprofit donations and partnerships, can also help. By demonstrating to customers how their purchases give back to the community, you can foster a sense of community and positivity.

Build for Boomers

Baby Boomers aren’t generally regarded as the savviest ecommerce users. Regardless, their mobile and online purchases have increased 85% year-over-year, based on research from Facebook IQ. Given the magnitude and median income of this demographic, Boomers could very well signify your next big opportunity.

Nevertheless, 78% of respondents in that same study said that they encountered challenges while holiday shopping on mobile devices – which means you’ll have to come up with the proper user experience (UX) strategy in order to engage Boomers.

Major points of conflict include too-small fonts, slow-loading sites or apps, hard-to-understand product info, and too many screens or steps to complete transactions. UX personalization can help improve shopping experiences for these customers.

Consistently poll different groups of people who use your site or app, so you can pinpoint the main barriers to purchasing and make adjustments if necessary.

Promote Agility

In a recent survey from GlobalWebIndex, 80% of respondents report having delayed a major purchase due to the coronavirus outbreak.

You simply can’t afford to wait for the market to bounce back – you have to expedite it. But how? By capitalizing on the opportunity to embrace an agile organizational structure.

Agility allows you to bring your senior leadership team into alignment and make informed marketing decisions in real-time.

Adapt to “FOGO”

That’s “fear of going out,” for the uninitiated. Only half of the people surveyed worldwide are ready to return to stores right now, according to GlobalWebIndex data.

Ready for another marketing acronym? Okay, here we go. Compared to 2019, there has been a 208% increase in BOPIS (that’s “Buy Online, Pickup In-Store”) purchases, with over a third of them coming from first-time BOPIS shoppers, based on data from Adobe Analytics. Consumers are also more receptive to contactless shopping than ever before.

FOGO is a particularly relevant topic if your business involves a sizable brick-and-mortar presence. A number of retailers have effectively fashioned solutions that keep in-person interaction to a minimum, such as mobile payments, self-service checkouts, contactless returns, and improved browsing experiences.

Even if brands known for their large retail presence don’t run their own stores, they are beginning to take the concept of FOGO as a sign to create offerings that can be ordered exclusively on the internet

Final Thoughts

Don’t settle for “business as usual.” The best brands are established in times of crisis. Pursuing the questions that appear unanswerable today might lead to solutions that could essentially create new opportunities to propel your business for years to come.

If you’re looking to expand your brand by integrating ecommerce capabilities into your website and social media pages, the digital marketing experts at HighClick Media are more than happy to help you along on your journey. Call us today at 252.814.2150 or drop us a line here to see how we can help elevate your brand!

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16 Critical Elements of Great Website Design

November 15, 2021

16 Critical Elements of Great Website Design

Thanks to advanced technology, building a website today can be extremely simple. However, a website design that pairs impeccable functionality with stunning visuals is still challenging. It goes without saying that websites are now a fundamental part of a business’s online identity.

No business can hope to survive, let alone thrive, in today’s cutthroat market without an attractive, easy-to-navigate website. Far too many businesses fail at building a substantial online presence for their brand due to subpar website design.

So, why do some websites fail to attract and hold traffic where others succeed?

Certain elements of website design contribute the most to building visitors’ interest in a site. Including these elements on your website gives it a beautiful visual appeal along with flawless functionality and authority. These are also the components that are most often botched during development.

Let’s take a closer look at 16 critical elements for building a great website:

Color Schemes

The color scheme of a website is seldom paid attention to when developing a website. However, you should know how important a role it plays in influencing a visitor’s behavior. Therefore, it’s important to use a color scheme that will best appeal to your visitors while also representing your brand well.

For instance, if you visit the fast-food giant McDonald’s website, you’ll be greeted with a color scheme that combines red, white, and yellow. These colors have been synonymous with the brand for ages.

We suggest first choosing the dominant color that best represents your brand. You can then choose an analogous color scheme that complements your dominant color choice to highlight certain sections of your site, like call-to-action (CTA) buttons.

White Space

Open any website today and you’ll find that a majority of these websites possess white space that divides certain sections of the web pages. These spaces lend an immaculate and accessible design to your site. They make the content or CTA buttons on your site easy to identify and read for visitors.

Some websites also use white space to give certain aspects of the site more emphasis than others. For instance, white space can be used to make certain “special deals” the focal point of a page.

Make sure you’re consistent in spacing the gaps between sections of your site. We recommend beginning with the navigation and then moving your attention to the content of your site. A grid-based layout can help you design a clean interface that maintains consistency across the entire page.

Easy Navigation

Sites that make it complicated for their visitors to navigate normally experience higher bounce rates.

As such, it’s imperative to facilitate simple navigation by giving users an easy-to-use and intuitive website. The website should offer users simple routes to navigate to certain fundamental aspects of a site, and recommended pages, along with a way back to the original page.

We suggest using parallax scrolling as a navigation system, which includes arrows that make a website’s user interface (UI) easy to interact with. Therefore, you must place a strong emphasis on simple navigation if you want visitors to spend more time on your site.

Distinct Typography

Using unique typography to present content on your site is an ideal way to distinguish yourself from other similar sites online. The fonts you ultimately choose should complement your brand while communicating its message to visitors. It’s also important to consider a font that makes your site look professional without appearing bland.

We suggest using a font size of at least 16 pixels to make your site’s content readable on mobile and desktop devices. You can use different but complementary fonts to highlight the headings and subheadings on the site. Finally, use contrasting color schemes to match your text with the background perfectly. Pairing darker tones with lighter colors will do the trick just fine.

Outstanding Visuals

This goes without saying, but certain visual cues on your site will give any website a distinct edge over similar websites online. Populating a webpage with high-resolution images and beautiful illustrations can make your site more compelling to visitors.

Of course, you can’t use just any random visuals on your site. They should align with what your brand stands for.

Use stunning banner images. You can populate your page with custom-made images, which can also be used to highlight certain key focal points of your site. Try to avoid using too many stock photos on your pages.

Site Usability

Aside from beautiful design, you also need to create a site that provides users with a satisfying user experience (UX). Most developers make the critical mistake of compromising a site’s usability in favor of its overall visual design. It’s imperative to optimize a site in order to facilitate smooth interaction between the site’s elements and visitors. A subpar UX design could result in your website’s bounce rate blowing through the roof.

You can enhance the user experience by using animations, readable and engaging content, simple navigation, and more interactive elements.

High-Quality Content

Having high-quality content is integral to optimizing search engine rankings for your site and thus generating more traffic to your site. It’s also absolutely essential to populate your site with quality content in order to keep your visitors engaged. Top-notch content that’s relevant to your brand can persuade visitors to spend more time on your site, explore other areas, or make a purchase.

We recommend dividing your content based on its relevance. Always keep relevant information about your website, product, or service at the top. Follow it up with content that explains your services or highlights features that set you apart from competitors.

Finally, use an FAQ section to answer questions that a visitor may have about your service.

Compelling Calls to Action

A website exists to persuade a visitor to take certain actions on it. CTA buttons on a site trigger this response from visitors.

As such, you need to place CTA buttons strategically throughout your site to persuade visitors to perform desirable actions on the webpage.

The call-to-action messages themselves must be persuasive. They should explain what you want visitors to do in a few words.

“Buy Now,” “Sign up Free,” “Contact Us,” etc. are all examples of CTA buttons commonly used by most websites.

Make sure your landing page leads users to all the CTA buttons present on the page. You can utilize contrasting color schemes, content, and white spaces to highlight a CTA button.

If you have a variety of CTA buttons on your page, determine which type is more important and use it more prominently.

Mobile-Friendly Design

It is a well-known fact that the majority of websites receive most of their traffic from mobile users. With over 7 billion active smartphone users around the world today, not optimizing your site for mobile devices means losing out on such a massive audience. Suffice it to say, mobile optimization is one of the first things you need to do when building a website.

You need to utilize a custom web design that responds and adapts to various mobile screen sizes automatically.

We recommend using Google Search Console or other free tools like Pingdom or BrowserStack to check whether your site is mobile-friendly.

SEO-Friendly Elements

As you may know by now, search engines like Google take many aspects of a site’s user experience into consideration when ranking a site. As such, a developer needs to consider search engine optimization from the very beginning of a website’s design process. Elements like simple navigation, scannable text, loading speed, and mobile friendliness contribute to the overall user experience.

A problem with any of the above elements will result in a user having a poor experience with your site, eventually increasing its bounce rate. Google will take this high bounce as a sign of bad UX and ultimately plummet your site in search engine rankings.

It’s important to consider how each element will contribute to your site’s SEO. We suggest working with an SEO expert, who will monitor and assess all crucial elements of your site while it is in development.

Right Usage of Ads

You’ll find many websites online that have successfully monetized their websites by displaying ads on them. If used appropriately, display ads can be a great way to earn some revenue from your website. However, such advertisements – if used incorrectly – can aggravate your visitor’s user experience. In short, advertisements have the power to make or break your site.

As such, we discourage using too many ads on websites as it can harm the user experience. You don’t want your website to look unprofessional, which is exactly what will happen if your webpage is littered with ads.

The most effective way to advertise on a site, in our opinion, would be combining banner ads with affiliate marketing. Make sure your ads integrate organically with your site. They shouldn’t feel out of place and interfere with the content on your site.

Website Security

Online security should be an integral part of any website. Security and privacy have often been major causes of concern for individuals surfing the web. Security alerts popping up when someone tries to open your site is a surefire way of turning potential website visitors away forever.

Internet security should be given as much focus as the design and overall functionality of your site. It should be mandatory for your website to implement an HTTPS protocol. This will help protect a user’s information, lend some much-needed credibility, and build trust among prospects.

We suggest buying SSL certificates from reliable hosting service providers. These are cheap to acquire and can be integrated seamlessly with your site.

Integrating Social Media

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have billions of active users from all around the world. So it only makes sense to integrate social media into your site’s design plan. You should have social media buttons that instantly redirect your users to your site’s official social media channel. You can also have buttons that allow users to directly share certain content or products from your website on their private channels.

Having social media buttons strategically placed on your website is a great way of indirectly marketing your site, opening doors for people to leap directly onto your site from their respective social media profiles online.

Adding Internal & External Links

A proper link-building strategy can prove to be a great way of enhancing the brand authority of your website. It is important to learn how to build internal and external links to help boost your website’s performance. For instance, you can direct users to certain content on your site and improve its SEO performance by using appropriate internal links.

Proper link-building research requires a good strategy. We suggest finding out how your competitor’s websites are employing their link-building strategy. Draw inspiration for sites that are using the strategy with productive results.

Comments Section

We’ve already stressed how important it is to make your site as interactive and engaging as possible. Aside from content, you can add a comments section to your site, which allows users to leave their two cents below a particular content or product information. This can be a great way to receive feedback, which can be used to improve your service.

If you’re running an ecommerce store, we recommend adding a review section similar to what is found on sites like Amazon and eBay. A dedicated comments and review section will make your site more interactive and improve brand loyalty.

Achievements & Endorsements

This is perhaps the most effective and widely adopted way of building trust among customers. It is in your business’s best interest to flaunt your past achievements on your website for all to see. Displaying your achievements can go a long way toward building a solid reputation for your business and brand.

We recommend having a dedicated section for testimonials, displaying positive comments from at least 4 to 5 past clients.

We also suggest highlighting the names of all the popular brands you’ve served. If you’ve received endorsements from authoritative brands, add them to your site as well.

Final Thoughts

While these 16 elements can seem a bit overwhelming, they’re essential to building a website that not only looks fantastic but functions flawlessly as well.

Are you ready for the good news? You don’t have to do it on your own!

HighClick Media is a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in professional website design. Our talented web designers will craft your business website with lots of TLC and plenty of technical prowess! We can build you a brand new website from scratch or spruce up your existing site.

Interested? Reach out to HighClick Media at 252.814.2150 or drop us a line today to see how we can help elevate your brand with a world-class website for your business.

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Guest blogger Joseph Schneider is the Director of Marketing at Haitna, a digital marketing firm based in Texas.

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Tag: Marketing

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Encourage Returning Website Visitors Using Remarketing & Retargeting

Measure and Analyze User Activity & Website Traffic

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Final Thoughts

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PROS:

In-House Marketers Have a Deeper Understanding of the Business

An In-House Marketing Team Is Focused On Your Brand Only

In-House Marketers Are Available All Workweek Long

CONS:

In-House Marketing Can Be Inconsistent and Lackluster

An In-House Marketing Team May Have Limited Training Time

In-House Marketers May Run Out of Fresh Ideas

Companies Must Foot the Bill for Retaining an In-House Team

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PROS:

Professional Marketers Have Specialized Skill Sets

A Marketing Agency Can Offer a Fresh Perspective

Consistency and Speed of Work Are Hallmarks of Marketing Agencies

Marketing Agencies Are Cost-Effective Over the Long Term

Outsourcing to a Marketing Agency Gives Your Company a Competitive Edge

CONS:

Partnering with a Marketing Agency Can Incur Higher Costs Over the Short Term

Marketing Agencies May Lack Your Knowledge of the Industry

It Can Take Time for Agencies to Get Up to Speed On a Company

You Can Expect Lots of Meetings, Especially Early On

Regular Communication with a Marketing Agency Can Be Challenging

Final Thoughts

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What Is 5G Wireless?

How 5G Wireless Will Change Consumer Behavior

What 5G Wireless Means for Marketing

A Solid Online Presence Is Essential

Digital Ads Will Be on More Screens & Surfaces

Augmented Reality (AR) & Virtual Reality (VR)

Internet of Things (IoT) Will Reach Its Full Potential

More Interactive Advertising

Marketing Processes Will Be Improved

Greater Personalization & Hyper-Localized Targeting

Expansion of Mobile Marketing

Video Advertising Will Increase

Decreasing Use of Ad Blockers

Richer Content for Websites & Emails

Voice Assistants Will Be The Norm

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FINAL THOUGHTS

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1) Strengthen the Local Economy

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3) Support Community Groups

4) Keep Your Community Unique

5) Diversity of Products

6) Better Expertise

7) Nurture a Close-Knit Community

8) Personalized Customer Service

9) Reduce Environmental Impact

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11) Create More Job Opportunities

12) Put Your Taxes to Good Use

13) Increase Competition

Final Thoughts

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Happy World Emoji Day!

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