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What is Branding in Marketing?
Branding is the process of creating a strong, positive perception of a company, its products or services in the customer’s mind by combining such elements as logo, design, mission statement, and a consistent theme throughout all marketing communications. Effective branding helps companies differentiate themselves from their competitors and build a loyal customer base. This means that customers expect that your tone of voice is the same over email, your website, customer service, and every other touchpoint in your business. If you rebrand, you need to change your logo, and styling everywhere both online and offline. Make sure you create a consistent brand so that your customers revel in your omni-channel presence. Branding in-store can be very different to online branding as in store you have to worry about positioning of products and props that can effect how a customer experiences your brand. Branding in-store is more experiential as people can walk around and pick things up, whereas customers online are experiencing a two-dimensional scene. Of course, certain elements of branding are consistent both online and in-store. These include consistent imagery and logos. Why is Branding Important? A unique brand can have a huge impact on your bottom line by giving you a competitive advantage over your rivals and helping you acquire and retain customers at a much lower cost. In eCommerce, where new companies (and therefore, new competitors) are springing up every day, an established brand can be an invaluable asset in bringing customers and generating profit. Regardless of whether you’re investing time and effort into crafting a compelling brand or paying no attention to it whatsoever, your business still has a brand. However, it may be completely different to how you intended to be seen. By carefully constructing your brand through stories, relationships, marketing messages and visual assets, you have the opportunity of shaping your customers’ expectations and creating a unique bond that goes beyond the buying-selling relationship. Good branding is strategic, while marketing is tactical. When you establish the higher objectives and clearly define your brand promise, you can start crafting a marketing plan that’s geared towards achieving those goals. The Importance of Branding in eCommerce. Branding is a complex process that requires careful planning and calculated approach. Ideally, you should have your branding strategy worked out before you launch your online store to avoid working backwards to try to aligned your store with customer expectations. A strong brand is easy to relate to and draws on values that resonate well with the target audience. For an eCommerce shop, a strong brand can also be a safety net protecting a business from having to compete on price. So how do you go about building a brand for an online shop? Here are the key steps in eCommerce branding:
Something as simple as saying thank you to your loyal customers can go a long way in strengthening your brand image. It’s a surefire way to build long-term relationships with your customers and your brand.
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We all know the importance of a high ranking when it comes to internet searches, but the components of those rankings can often be overlooked. Many web creators throw around a lot of SEO buzzwords and talk about boosting rankings, but how often do they get into specifics? Here at Swift Digital Marketing Agency, we dig deep. We know what it takes to achieve and maintain a great ranking, and we use this knowledge to give our clients rock star results! Importance of Page Speed Page speed is just one example of a ranking component that we've mastered. Google actually dings pages that load too slowly, causing them to drop in rank, even if they are excellent by every other metric. Additionally, your visitors will find interaction with a sluggish interface frustrating to deal with. This will, in turn, harm your engagement metrics causing your ranking to decrease even more... (see where we're going with this?). Don't let something as straightforward as page speed cause your rankings to drop. No one wants to see a spike in abandonment rates for any reason, especially something that is so easy to fix! Let us help you measure and increase your loading times, and make your site more attractive to search engines and prospective customers. You can count on Swift Team as your SEO partner. We use clean code and techniques that greatly increase page speed, giving your rankings and UX a boost. Work with us and see your page speeds, rankings, and engagement metrics outshine the competition month after month! Submit this Form to get a call from us or call Swift Digital Marketing Agency at (216)339-6041 High-quality web design is essential to the success of any business’s website. Your visitors can perceive trust, authority, security and more just from the look and feel of your website. If it is slow to load, complex to navigate, or hard to read, you may lose valuable visitors and potential customers.
Today’s consumers don’t waste time on poor quality websites. There is so much information, and so many websites popping up every day – if your website isn’t up to scratch, your visitors are just a few clicks away from other competitors. Web design have the considerable task of combining beautiful designs, with functionality and authority, while helping site visitors easily find the information that they need. So how can this be done? And what separates a poor website from a winning one? At Swift Digital Marketing Agency, It begins with nailing the most fundamental aspects of website design – but these aspects are often the ones that are botched the most. The Most Important Elements of Web Design are:
In this article, we’ll cover the most important elements of web design that will help you make the most out of your online presence. 1. White Space Your design should be simple, clean and accessible. White space, or the area between design elements, gives your site room to breathe and makes elements easier to find for readers. White space is not always white, it’s just the name for spaces between elements or content. White space is being used more and more as websites evolve. The use of big spaces and line spacing in the text helps each button and each word stand out better. Space can also be used to increase the feeling of the importance of an item, creating a focal point for the user’s attention. In general, similar elements should have consistency in spacing. Start with elements such as the navigation and move on to develop your content on the page. Using grid-based layouts keeps your designs tidy and maintains balance and consistency across the pages. 2. Colour Schemes The colour palette on your website will directly influence your visitor’s opinions of your site. When choosing a colour scheme, you should pay attention to your industry and brand, and discern the colours that best represent your business. For example, while a healthcare company might want to use shades of blue or green to signal health and wellness, a local florist may choose black and white to contrast with the vibrant colours of their products. Once you’ve chosen a dominant colour, you should consider how your colour palette should look. You could choose an analogous colour palette, with a few colours that are closely related, or complementary [contrasting?] colours, say, for when you want to draw the audience attention to a particular button or piece of content. 3. Unique Typography When choosing typography for your website, the same considerations of industry and branding should be made as for colour schemes. The font you choose will help communicate your message to your consumers. You’ll want to strike the right balance between professionalism and freshness. Whether you’re picking between serif or sans serif fonts, find something a little different that can distinguish your site from others. It should be easily readable, on both desktop and mobile. Generally, this means at least 16 pixels. You can also pick a complementary font to identify headings and accents, but don’t go crazy on sizing adjustments, or you’ll overwhelm the body text. Finally, you should use a colour scheme that contrasts your text and your background – pair light tones with dark ones, and avoid combining two very bright colours. 4. Content Hierarchy There’s no denying the importance of a page’s content – it is one of the driving factors of how people reach your site via search engines. Creating high-quality content is of the utmost importance for successful websites, but where you place content on a landing page is equally important for turning your users into conversions. When deciding on content hierarchy, you’ll want to put the most relevant information to the user’s search at the top. You should immediately establish a connection with the customer, providing a solution to a problem. Next should be an explanation of your service offering and any unique features that set you apart. Any content around why your business is better than competitors, or how you can offer them something different should be added next. And finally, you should answer any additional questions they might have about the service, before concluding with a summary. 5. Simple Navigation Complex site navigation can be frustrating to users, and make finding information too difficult. Simple navigation should be easy to identify, easy to use, intuitive, and shouldn’t overwhelm users with a variety of routes to similar information. Use simple navigation as the framework for your website build and content. Your navigation should provide users with a few things: knowledge of where they are on the site, knowledge of what else is on the site, a way to go back, and directions elsewhere. Simple navigation also includes how users scroll. For example, sites with parallax scrolling usually include arrows that make the site more user friendly. The easier it is to navigate a site, the longer people are likely to engage with it. 6. Mobile-friendly Design Mobile-first. Mobile-first. Mobile-first. Repeat that seven times and never forget it. In this increasingly mobile world, a site that isn’t mobile-friendly is already falling behind. Mobile traffic has overtaken desktop traffic and shows no signs of slowing. Your web design should perform equally well on different platforms. While most WordPress templates are mobile-ready, a custom design will need to be either on a responsive template that will adapt to various screen sizes or will need a mobile-only site that is used when a non-desktop user accesses your site. 7. User-Friendly Experience While a great user experience isn’t always on your visitor’s radar, bad usability on a site is immediately recognisable. Your website should be beautifully designed, and easily usable. User experience (UX) design is less about the visual design and more about how the site is used. UX design is about optimising the interaction between your users and your website, whether this is through animation, navigation, easy-to-digest content, or responsiveness. You’ll want to leave your user with a pleasant taste of your brand after their interaction. With so many options on the web, this is more important than ever. After all, one bad experience could cause users not to return. 8. Engaging Calls-to-Action Getting a customer to take action on your site is the main role of most websites, whether the action is to purchase a product, get information, or provide contact info. To ensure this, calls to action should be placed throughout the page, and they should be obvious. The landing page design should lead users to that action. Using techniques such as contrasting colours, spacing, and the content will guide your users to the right action. The calls-to-action themselves should be highly engaging, and say exactly what you want them to do, whether that be “Buy Now”, “Contact Us” or “Sign Up Free”. If you have a variety of actions that you’d like to target, consider the most important one that a customer could take, and use that CTA the most prominently. 9. Stunning Visuals Customers love to see visual cues. They’re more engaging and will help draw your users’ attention. Whether you use high-quality images or illustrations, the visuals you use should give your users a feel of your product and style. Visuals can also be used to draw attention to a particular area of the page, and help visitors focus on what you want them to, without them even realising it. A visually striking banner will immediately draw attention, while custom images throughout the page can help users more easily find the information they’re looking for. P.S. Bespoke images are important, and beware of using too many stock photos, or else your site could lose its authenticity. 10. SEO-boosting Elements Search engine optimisation should be considered from the beginning of web design, as a lot of the goals go work in tandem. Search engines consider many aspects of user experience as ranking factors. Elements such as website speeds, site navigation, mobile-friendliness, and easily scannable text all contribute to how users interact with your site. If your site isn’t providing a satisfactory experience, this usually leads to high bounce rates and low dwell times, which are signals to Google of bad user experience, and in turn, results in lost rankings. It’s crucial to any website’s performance to consider how design elements will affect SEO, as the two have a great influence on each other. If you’re looking for a team of experienced web designers to improve your website, find out more about our web design and web development services. Or if you just want to have a chat about web design, get in touch. Social media is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. People discover, learn about, follow, and shop from brands on social media, so if you’re not on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, you’re missing out! Great marketing on social media can bring remarkable success to your business, creating devoted brand advocates and even driving leads and sales.
What is social media marketing? Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that leverages the power of popular social media networks to achieve your marketing and branding goals. But it’s not just about creating business accounts and posting when you feel like it. Social media marketing requires an evolving strategy with measurable goals and includes:
Social media marketing also includes paid social media advertising, where you can pay to have your business appear in front of large volumes of highly targeted users. Benefits of social media marketing. With such widespread usage and versatility, social media is one of the most effective free channels for marketing your business today. Here are some of the specific benefits of social media marketing:
The bigger and more engaged your audience is on social media networks, the easier it will be for you to achieve your marketing goals. Call Swift Digital Marketing Today! (216)339-6041 In this post, you’re going to learn exactly how to create and implement an effective digital marketing strategy, step-by-step.
So, if you want to learn how to use digital marketing to grow your traffic, this strategy guide is for you. What is a digital marketing strategy? A digital marketing strategy is a plan of action that describes how to use one or more online marketing channels to reach your target audience. It has a list of steps and specific digital marketing goals. Having a digital strategy is important because it will help you orchestrate the different online marketing strategies so that they all work towards achieving your business goals. Together with his team, they will make sure that every marketing activity is part of your digital marketing plan. How to create a Digital Marketing Strategy These are the steps to follow to create an effective marketing strategy.
1. Specify measurable business goals The first step in creating a digital marketing strategy is to specify your business goals. In other words, to determine what you want to accomplish with digital marketing. Any goals you set have to be measurable and well-defined. Everything in a digital marketing campaign is measurable (from start to finish) and you need to take advantage of this and form a digital marketing plan that has specific milestones and targets. Some typical goals are:
While the above is a good starting point, they are still vague. A better version would be: Raise brand awareness by: Increase organic traffic by:
A good way to come up with measurable goals is to use the top-down approach. Start by specifying your goals in business terms and then translate that to digital marketing goals. Here is an example to understand this better. A typical step could be, “Publish 3 new blog posts per week”, which needs to be broken down further to specify which/topics keywords the blog posts will target and what would be the expected outcome in terms of traffic increase. Experienced digital marketing specialists know that this is not always easy to calculate because digital marketing is a dynamic industry and changes all the time. But, having a detailed plan will help you adjust your strategies so as to get closer to your goals as possible. The bottom line is that you need to have a digital marketing plan to follow and not start running campaigns on different channels without knowing what you want to achieve. It goes without saying that your plan has to be realistic, taking into account the competition and complexities of your industry. Also, to be able to analyze data and make informed decisions, you first need to track it correctly and accurately so, having a good analytics system in place is more than essential. 2. Identify your target audience The second step is to identify your target audience. In other words to specify in detail who you want to target with your campaigns. Some marketers, place this as the first step in the process and this is not wrong. What is certain is that this is an exercise you need to perform in the early stages and before finalizing the next steps of your marketing strategy. What does identifying your audience means? Specifying in detail the characteristics of people that might be potentially interested in your offerings. In your audience identification, you should include things like:
Learn as much as you can about your audience The exact details depend on the industry you’re in and the products/services you are trying to promote. A good way to start crafting your buyer personas is to analyze the data you already have available. Digg into your Google Analytics reports, Facebook audience insights, Google Ads reports, and start creating your customer profiles. 3. Understand users needs and search intent Once you know the profile of your target customer, the next step is to use different techniques and try to understand their needs and how they express this when searching for information using a search engine or a social network. There are two ways to approach this process. The first method is to take the typical digital sales funnel and identify what your customers might need at each stage. Digital Sales Funnel The second method is to take the different customer profiles created above, and come up with a separate sales funnel for each. This is my recommended method because it makes it easier to set up and run dedicated digital marketing campaigns for each customer profile. Let me give you an example to understand this better. So, by analyzing each buyer persona separately, you can come up with a more accurate plan of how your content, products, or services can help them solve their problems and needs. Search Intent In the digital marketing world, the needs of users are expressed through search queries. When a user types a search query in Google, it has a specific intent and if your content/products or services do not satisfy it, your digital marketing strategy will fail. That’s why it is important to perform keyword research from the very beginning and capture all topics, keywords, and phrases throughout the buyer journey, from awareness to conversion. Social media networks don’t reveal the ‘searchers’ intent’, what happens then? It’s true that users browsing Facebook may not have a specific intent in mind but they have a particular profile. To increase your chances of targeting the right type of audience, you can analyze the profile of your search visitors (using Google Analytics) and using custom audiences to find matching audiences (Lookalike Audiences) on Facebook. Always use any available data that you have as your starting point for research. The results will be more accurate than using data that is external to your website. Resources to Learn More About Digital Marketing
The next strategic step you need to make is to create a library of content assets. You know your audience and their needs, now it’s time to create various types of assets to use in your campaigns. A digital asset can be a blog post, infographic, image, video, podcast, cover image, logo, and anything else you can publish on your website or social networks. Content Types In the digital marketing world, this is what content marketing is all about. Content marketing is important because it’s the process used to decide what kind of content to create, when, and where to publish it. I prefer to execute this step in the beginning and before running any campaigns because it’s more efficient to have a pool of content assets ready in advance rather than having to do this every time you’re about to start a campaign. When you follow the steps in the order described in this guide (set goals, create customer personas, identify needs, and search intent), then you have all the information you need to work on your content assets. It’s also easier to assign the content creation part to the different members of your team to work in parallel. Content Marketing Strategy Plan 5. Start with SEO as early as possible A strategic decision to make that can positively impact your digital marketing efforts is to start with SEO as early as possible. SEO is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies but it has a caveat. It takes time to work. Unlike other digital marketing strategies, when you start an SEO campaign, it may take 4 to 6 months to generate any results. This is a long time to wait so most marketers tend to focus on other digital channels first (like Facebook Ads, Google Ads). That’s a good approach but the common mistake is that they forget about SEO and only re-visit SEO after they realize that they cannot build a successful digital marketing campaign based solely on paid advertising. So, a better strategy is to allocate a portion of your marketing budget from the very beginning on SEO related tasks. In parallel, you can start working on your paid campaigns and other channels. This way, you’ll reach a point sooner where most of your traffic and sales will come from SEO and rely less on paid ads. In business terms, this means an increase in revenue and profit and this is exactly the goal of a successful digital marketing strategy. How to get started with SEO SEO is a huge topic. Search engines take hundreds of parameters into account before they decide which webpages to show in the results for a particular query. To make it easier to handle, SEO can be broken down into three main sub-processes: Technical SEO, On-Page SEO, and Off-Page SEO. SEO Overview Each process is responsible to optimize your website for a number of parameters that will eventually lead to higher rankings and traffic. SEO is important because the majority of search traffic is distributed to websites that appear in the first 5 positions of the search results. So, if you want to get traffic from search engines, you need to appear in the top positions for search terms related to your business. The best way to get started with SEO is to follow a step-by-step approach: Step 1: Review your technical SEO and make sure that search engines can access and index your content without any problems. This is important since any issues at this stage will be catastrophic for your efforts. Step 2: Optimize your content for search engines. In Step 4 above, you will create content that satisfies the needs of the user. Before publishing, you need to make sure that it’s SEO optimized. This means, giving the right signals to search engines (through your titles, descriptions, headings, etc) to help them understand your content better. Step 3: Promote your website and content. One of the most important SEO ranking factors is how other websites on the Internet ‘think’ of your website. If other relevant websites trust your website and they express this through a backlink, this is a strong signal to Google that your website deserves to be on the top positions. If SEO is something that you haven’t done before for your website, the best way to approach this is to add it to your digital strategy and assign this task to SEO experts. You can also use the resources below to learn more. 6. Explore paid advertising channels When you start an online business, you know in advance that a large portion of your marketing budget will be allocated on PPC marketing (paid ads). But, not all PPC platforms are the same. Based on your previous analysis (steps 2 and 3 above), you need to choose which platforms are more suited for your audience. You can use the table below to get an idea of how the user profile looks for the most popular social networks. Social Media Platforms Demographics. For example, if you have an eCommerce website selling directly to consumers (B2C) then Facebook is probably a good choice. If on the other hand, you are targeting Business executives, then LinkedIn is more appropriate. Run Pilot Campaigns First The best way to find out which platforms to incorporate in your digital marketing strategy plan is to run pilot campaigns. A pilot campaign will not waste your budget and at the same time, it will give you enough data to make an informed decision. A common mistake made by digital marketers is to blindly allocate all their budget on one channel because it’s the trend without testing or considering all of the available channels they can use. Here is a list of the most popular advertising platforms you can use to reach your target audience: Facebook Ads – ideal for all kinds of businesses. Works better for B2C. The best platform to raise brand awareness. Instagram Ads – suitable if you want to reach a younger audience. Twitter Ads – Business oriented. Great for informing your community of updates. Linked Ads – Strictly for business-related advertising. Use it to reach decision-makers. Google Ads – The most reliable platform to get targeted traffic to your website through paid search ads. Google Display Ads – Use it for retargeting purposes and to reach your audience in the various Google products (YouTube, Gmail) and thousands of websites that participate in Google AdSense. Bing Ads – Not as powerful as Google but a good alternative to get more search traffic to your website. 7. Use email marketing segmentation and automation The end goal of a digital marketing campaign is to generate more revenue for a business. But in order to get to your ultimate goal, you first need to consider micro-conversions. Micro-conversions are actions taken by users that are part of the funnel that leads to sales. For example, while one of my goals is to sell my digital marketing course, an intermediate goal is to get people to subscribe to my email list (micro conversion). I consider this an important step because I know from my statistics that a large percentage of people that subscribe to my list, will eventually convert. The same concept can be applied to any business or product. You need to give incentives to users to sign up for your email list and then send them personalized emails that will help them make the final decision, which is to convert by buying your products or services. An important element to make this work is segmentation and automation. With email segmentation, you segment your list into groups of people that share the same interests and send them customized content. For example, people registering to my list to download the SEO Checklist will get different email content than people who register to receive my posts updates. If email marketing is a new concept for you, then you can realize that it involves a lot of work and that’s where email automation comes into play. Here is a visual example of how email automation works. Email Marketing automation example. With email automation, you can orchestrate the whole process to run without intervention and manual work. Your job is to set up the automation campaigns, monitor their performance, and take corrective actions. In addition to micro-conversions, email marketing is a great way to raise brand awareness and build a community around your brand. This is something that can positively influence the performance of all your digital marketing campaigns. Resources to Learn More About Email Marketing
A complete digital marketing strategy should not only take into account the traditional online marketing channels but should also cater to new digital marketing strategies that rise to the surface. To be more precise, at the time of writing this post, there are a number of new channels that you can explore like:
These channels are new and most probably less competitive than established channels. This means you can get better results at a lower cost. Will these help your strategy? The only way to find out is to test them by running pilot campaigns (as explained above). 9. Use retargeting and personalization So far, all of the above strategies are related to how you can reach more people but it’s equally important to follow up on users that already know your brand, but are not yet customers. This is known as ‘retargeting’ or ‘remarketing’. With retargeting, you can show specific ads to users that visited your website (or social network page) but did not convert. How Remarketing Works It’s a very powerful technique that has higher conversion rates and less CPA (cost per action) than other marketing techniques. The ‘marketing rule of 7’ (established in the 1930s by marketers), states that prospects are more likely to convert if they see or hear an ad, at least 7 times. Unsurprisingly, it is a rule that is applicable today, and remarketing is the way to implement this. The most popular platforms to run remarketing campaigns are Facebook and Google Display Network. The concept is simple. You connect your website with Facebook and Google by adding a piece of code provided by the platforms. You then create custom audience lists that include the people who visited your website but did not convert. You then create campaigns and ads that are shown to these users as they browse Facebook or visit other websites on the Internet. To make remarketing more effective, you can also add the element of personalization. Instead of treating all visitors as one group, you can add rules to show different ads to people based on the actions they took on your website. For example, you can create a retargeting campaign for people that added an item to their shopping cart but did not checkout. To give them an incentive to come back and finish the process, you can offer them a discount via coupon code. As a matter of fact, retargeting should be a strategy to include in your digital marketing plan from the early stages. This way you’ll maximize the return for any money spend on paid ads or SEO. 10. Work on conversion optimization Another area that needs to be part of your overall marketing strategy is conversion optimization. I can tell you from experience, that 90% of digital marketing campaigns focus on how to get traffic and forget about conversion optimization. What is conversion optimization? In simple terms, conversion optimization is the process to follow to optimize your website so that a higher percentage of your visitors will perform the desired actions. This starts with your website design, content, landing page optimization, email signup forms, shopping cart, checkout process, and other elements that contribute (directly or indirectly) to conversions. One of the techniques to use is A/B testing. By applying a/b testing principles you can measure the effect on conversions by carefully changing parts of your website or sales funnel. I’ll not go into the details on how to perform A/B testing or conversion optimization (you can follow the links in the resources below to learn more), but from a strategic point of view, it’s important to add conversion optimization activities in your digital marketing plan. Here is an example of how a conversion optimization plan looks like: Conversion Optimization Plan You can add it as a step to be executed as part of a single campaign or as part of your general strategy review process. What I advise my team to do is to review conversion optimization after a campaign is considered to be optimized in terms of traffic. In other words, it’s better to try and optimize your campaign to get as many visits as possible with the lower cost and then start testing different landing pages, messages to see which one performs better in terms of conversions. As a rule of thumb, when doing A/B testing, you should focus on specific changes so that you can accurately measure their effect on conversions. Resources to Learn More About Conversion Optimization
11. Evaluate and revise your strategy Digital marketing is a highly dynamic industry. ‘Rules’ change all the time and it’s extremely important that you evaluate and revise your digital marketing strategy to stay current and relevant. Digital Marketing The best way to evaluate your campaign is to do it based on KPIs and other metrics. The most important metrics for any kind of digital marketing campaign are:
If you have a good analytics system in place and can track these for every campaign that is part of your strategy, then it will be easier to make informed decisions. Don’t forget that part of your evaluation should be to look for new channels you can add to your strategy. It’s always a good idea to take a look at your competitor’s strategies and identify which of their strategies you can include in your marketing mix. Key Learnings A digital marketing strategy is a plan that describes in detail how to use various digital marketing channels to grow your business. To create an effective digital marketing strategy, you start by defining your goals. Then through research, you identify the characteristics and needs of people to target with your campaigns. Once you have this information, you translate that into content marketing assets, having always in mind the ‘intent’ of the user. Creating the right type of content that can satisfy the user’s needs, it’s a critical success factor. Then you start with SEO. SEO is the most effective digital marketing channel but it’s not the fastest one. While waiting for your SEO to generate results, you can start testing paid advertising channels by running pilot campaigns. Once you figure out which channels are more likely to work for the satisfaction of your business goals, you concentrate on those. Besides generating traffic to your website, you also need to incorporate other strategies for converting traffic to customers such as email marketing, retargeting, and conversion optimization. At regular intervals, you should evaluate and revise your strategy to include new traffic sources and trends. Call Swift Digital Marketing Agency at (216) 339-604. We can create a successful digital marketing strategy for your company. The term “retargeting” has been the buzzword of the digital marketing world in recent years. You might have heard all the praises: ROI, incredible conversion rate, and there are even marketers that swore by retargeting as the most effective advertising method nowadays. However, what is retargeting? In this guide, we will discuss the basics of retargeting, and how to easily set up your retargeting campaign in no time at all.
What is Retargeting? First, we should clarify the common misconception regarding retargeting and remarketing. Although they are related to each other, retargeting is not necessarily remarketing, and vice versa. The term “remarketing” refers to the marketing efforts targeted to the same prospects again and again. When you see the same restaurant ads repeatedly on those billboards beside the road, that is remarketing. Retargeting, on the other hand, is a new form of remarketing for the digital world. With retargeting, we are shown repeated online ads on the same traffic for a dedicated time. While retargeting is fairly new, it has grown to be the biggest aspect of remarketing in recent years. Generally, there are three main applications of retargeting:
Why Retargeting? Since retargeting is technically a form of remarketing, we should first understand the benefits of remarketing. Let’s take the classic iOS vs Android debate, for example. No, we are not going to discuss which one is better, however, there is a high likelihood that the one you prefer is the one you are more exposed to. If most of your friends are using Android phones (and they recommended it to you, consciously or subconsciously), you are more likely to be an Android user. The idea is, we are more likely to enjoy what we are familiar with. So how do we build on this with retargeting? Let’s use another example. Let’s say you just browsed on Amazon for a new TV set. Then, for whatever reasons, you decided to stop looking for a TV set that day. A proper retargeting campaign might target you, and when you later on opened your Facebook later that day, a TV ad shows up, effectively reminding you to buy that TV. If you are familiar with the marketing funnel concept, you might understand that with every step of the buyer’s journey, the possibility of a conversion will be smaller. Retargeting, in essence, is an effort to optimize the chance of conversion in each funnel stage. Retargeting is also a very effective tactic to build brand awareness, while a study by ComScore suggested that retargeting can increase site visitation by a whopping 726%. How Retargeting Works There are two popular ways to run a retargeting campaign: through Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. There are other platforms that offer retargeting services, but considering the size of Google Adwords and Facebook Ads, they should be your first choices. Retargeting works mainly with the help of a code snippet in the form of a cookie in your customer’s browser. The cookie will then collect their information and based on that gathered data, you can then target those visitors with your promotion. How about targeting your competitors’ audience? The best method is using keyword-targeting. Here, you can target a certain keyword related to your industry while excluding your own visitor. This is a pretty reliable method, especially if you are in a competitive industry. The second, and arguably the easiest method, is to use social media: for example, we can target those who have followed or liked our competitors. Setting Up Google Ads Retargeting Google Ads offers a built-in retargeting feature, so you can set up a retargeting campaign easily following these steps:
After you’re done, simply copy and paste the retargeting cookie code into the HTML body tag of your site. There you have it, you’ve set up a Google Ads retargeting campaign! Setting Up Facebook Ads Retargeting Facebook Ads are even easier with less necessary steps and Facebook will walk you through every step. Here are 3 things you will need to know before starting a Facebook Ad Campaign, but you can set up your campaign easily through the following steps: First, click on ‘Tools’ in your ad manager, and select ‘Pixels’ Enter your domain name, and Facebook will walk you through all the necessary steps. You will then get your retargeting cookie code snippet. The biggest benefit of the retargeting campaign is higher conversions in each stage of your funnel. It is specifically targeted for those who have shown interest in your brand, product, or your niche, so you know they are shopping. While the concept of retargeting and code snippets might be confusing at first, it is actually quite easy to learn as Google and Facebook have taken the necessary steps to make this comprehensive system easy to operate. However, it takes years of experience to understand where to invest marketing dollars to get the most return, that’s where B2B marketing consultant can help your business on creating content, generating demand, and enabling sales using budget with maximum efficiency. FACEBOOK GOOGLE ADS PIXE REMARKETING 2022 may have been the year that startup companies finally began to embrace digitization but so far, real changes—the kind that results in growth— have yet to take effect. The problem is simple: the kind of transformation most companies have so far been able to bring about is only the first step. It’s merely paving the way for growth.
The exciting news is now that lots of software and startup companies have made initial efforts to modernize their infrastructures, they’re poised for real growth. If that’s you — if you’ve recently adopted cloud-based CMS and CRM solutions, it’s time to put them to work and start growing your business. Here are six digital marketing strategies and ideas for startups to help you graduate to that next level of digitization in the year ahead. 1. Content Marketing To make growth happen in 2022, startup companies need to build on their initial efforts and begin focusing their digital marketing strategies on broader horizons. And right now, there’s no horizon more promising and full of potential than the customer experience (CX). Companies who embrace the CX credo — buyers are customers who expect to be delighted — will win in 2020. And what better way to ingratiate your company with purchasing managers than to offer helpful resources that make their job easier. Do this through content marketing. More than three-quarters of startup companies already have a blog. However, there’s a big difference between simply having a blog and putting it to work as part of a content marketing strategy for your startup company. What you need is a data-driven blog. Begin by finding out what your buyers need. There are several tools at your disposal for this. First, you can use keyword tools to find what’s trending in your industry. These same tools will let you know which topics actually have search traffic and which are in demand so you’re not wasting time producing and promoting content that nobody wants to read. Secondly, need is driven by pain, so think deeply about your B2B and B2C customers and what they lack, what causes them to ‘suffer’. Then, supply the kind of content that relieves those pain points. Almost half of the buyers consume online content (3-5 pieces) before reaching out to a sales rep. It should be your content they’re consuming. It should also be well-informed since almost all B2B buyers want the content they consume to include input from industry leaders. Some examples of buyer pain points that you can help alleviate with helpful content:
2. Inbound Marketing/SEO A solid base of helpful content can also be the cornerstone of a successful inbound digital marketing for startups. You’ve done the research and produced great content for your buyers for your content marketing campaign. Now make it do double duty by earning some SEO credit. You’ll need to do some deeper research, however: keyword research that goes deeper and shows you where you could focus your efforts and try to rank. Consider long-tail keywords if your industry is competitive, and write data-driven content that helps your SEO efforts. The trick is to balance SEO content techniques with user experience. SEO content, which employs strategic placement of keywords throughout the content, can come off as awkward. You want good, relevant, resourceful and helpful content that reads well, so keep that balance in mind with all your content. The idea, after all, is to try and get people to create backlinks to your startup website. This can happen in any number of ways, including organically, through guest posting, and via social media promotion. You can check the startup SEO services page to download my SEO growth program that outlines the most common link building and SEO strategies. 3. Social Media Marketing Because of its rich targeting potential and wide reach, Facebook marketing funnels remains one of the most effective ways to generate leads in B2B and B2C world and should be a part of your startup digital marketing strategy. It’s also the least expensive among the other social networks like Linkedin and Twitter. Over 60 percent of startup marketers plan to increase their Facebook Advertising efforts, according to a 2021 report. You’ll need to identify your target persona and the companies you are going after and then create that profile on Facebook Ad Manager. You can also set up a remarketing pixel and target your website visitors and lookalike audiences to make the profile targeted and relevant. That way, you’ll maximize ROI and, depending on your marketing objectives, you can create campaigns that:
Other options that are available on Ad Manager dashboard include:
4. Responsive Web Design, HTTPS, AMPFaced with more buyers who expect a better customer experience, B2B players now need to take their cues from B2C and look for ways to delight their buyers wherever they are in the buyer’s journey. The best place to start is with the company website. Even a quick spin through the startup galaxy of websites, and you’ll immediately know there’s a lot of room for improvement in the Customer Experience (CX). Here are three ways you can consider adding to your startup digital marketing strategy planning:
5. Marketing AutomationB2B customers typically use six different channels in their buying journey. Almost two-thirds of them will be frustrated by their experiences. Since you’re now in the business of ‘delighting’ your customers, you’ll want to upgrade your methods wherever you have a point of contact with your customers and leads. Marketing automation should be a part of your digital making strategy for your startup. Wherever someone may be along the buyer’s journey, you’ll want to help, coax, encourage, and respond to any actions they’re taking in relation to your business. In fact, a major pain point for 40 percent of surveyed buyers is a slow response time from sales reps. Other frustrations included a sluggish reordering process, which troubled almost a third of survey respondents. Automation can help solve those problems and more by spurring communications, offering helpful links, and tying in customized past ordering data for individual customers. In essence, what you’re doing is transforming your business into one that’s customer-focused. B2B buyers want the following:
The added benefit of automating your marketing processes is that it helps with consistent messaging across all your platforms: email, digital ads, and other channels where you interact with your leads and customers. 6. Email Marketing Another natural outgrowth of a strong startup digital marketing strategy is email marketing: exciting and useful new content is a great excuse for an email newsletter. Email marketing magnifies the power of your content marketing efforts when you use carefully selected content aimed at segmented buyers at specific points along the buying decision timeline. Plus, to get more out of your content budget, you can reuse content in lots of different ways. For example, you can redirect leads back to your website through your carefully planned email campaigns that include snippets from blog posts on your website that pertain to the moment. Conclusion It’s no secret that startup companies are still playing catch-up to B2B and B2C companies in the process of digital transformation and marketing strategy. Having embraced the notion that digitization can lead to growth, startup players who’ve transformed their back-end processes and IT infrastructures should now work with a startup marketing agency on implementing marketing strategies for startups outlined in this post. That’s how they’ll begin to capture and delight their prospects who expect a stellar customer experience, just like what they get in the B2C world. Good luck in 2022! DIGITAL MARKETING SEO STARTUP STRATEGY Any marketing that uses electronic devices and can be used by marketing specialists to convey promotional messaging and measure its impact through your customer journey. In practice, digital marketing typically refers to marketing campaigns that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device. It can take many forms, including online video, display ads, search engine marketing, paid social ads and social media posts. Digital marketing is often compared to “traditional marketing” such as magazine ads, billboards, and direct mail. Oddly, television is usually lumped in with traditional marketing. Maximize your digital marketing. Use Swift to promote your brand, reach your target audience, and grow your business. Did you know that more than 3 quarters of Americans go online on a daily basis? Not only that, but 43% go on more than once a day and 26% are online “almost constantly.” These figures are even higher among mobile internet users. 89% of Americans go online at least daily, and 31% are online almost constantly. As a marketer, it’s important to take advantage of the digital world with an online advertising presence, by building a brand, providing a great customer experience that also brings more potential customers and more, with a digital strategy. A digital marketing strategy allows you to leverage different digital channels–such as social media, pay-per-click, search engine optimization, and email marketing–to connect with existing customers and individuals interested in your products or services. As a result, you can build a brand, provide a great customer experience, bring in potential customers, and more. What is digital marketing? Digital marketing, also called online marketing, is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the internet and other forms of digital communication. This includes not only email, social media, and web-based advertising, but also text and multimedia messages as a marketing channel. Essentially, if a marketing campaign involves digital communication, it's digital marketing. Inbound marketing versus digital marketingDigital marketing and inbound marketing are easily confused, and for good reason. Digital marketing uses many of the same tools as inbound marketing—email and online content, to name a few. Both exist to capture the attention of prospects through the buyer’s journey and turn them into customers. But the 2 approaches take different views of the relationship between the tool and the goal. Digital marketing considers how individual tools or digital channels can convert prospects. A brand's digital marketing strategy may use multiple platforms or focus all of its efforts on 1 platform. For example, a company may primarily create content for social media platforms and email marketing campaigns while ignoring other digital marketing avenues. On the other hand, inbound marketing is a holistic concept. It considers the goal first, then looks at the available tools to determine which will effectively reach target customers, and then at which stage of the sales funnel that should happen. As an example, say you want to boost website traffic to generate more prospects and leads. You can focus on search engine optimization when developing your content marketing strategy, resulting in more optimized content, including blogs, landing pages, and more. The most important thing to remember about digital marketing and inbound marketing is that as a marketing professional, you don’t have to choose between the 2. In fact, they work best together. Inbound marketing provides structure and purpose for effective digital marketing to digital marketing efforts, making sure that each digital marketing channel works toward a goal. Why is digital marketing important? Any type of marketing can help your business thrive. However, digital marketing has become increasingly important because of how accessible digital channels are. In fact, there were 5 billion internet users globally in April 2022 alone. From social media to text messages, there are many ways to use digital marketing tactics in order to communicate with your target audience. Additionally, digital marketing has minimal upfront costs, making it a cost-effective marketing technique for small businesses. B2B versus B2C digital marketing Digital marketing strategies work for B2B (business to business) as well as B2C (business to consumer) companies, but best practices differ significantly between the 2. Here's a closer look at how digital marketing is used in B2B and B2C marketing strategies.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. A B2C company with a high-ticket product, such as a car or computer, might offer more informative and serious content. As a result, your digital marketing strategy always needs to be geared toward your own customer base, whether you're B2B or B2C. Take a look at your current audience to create well-informed and targeted online marketing campaigns. Doing so ensures your marketing efforts are effective and you can capture the attention of potential customers. Types of digital marketingThere are as many specializations within digital marketing as there are ways of interacting using digital media. Here are a few key examples of types of digital marketing tactics. Search engine optimization Search engine optimization, or SEO, is technically a marketing tool rather than a form of marketing in itself. The Balance defines it as “the art and science of making web pages attractive to search engines.” The "art and science" part of SEO is what’s most important. SEO is a science because it requires you to research and weigh different contributing factors to achieve the highest possible ranking on a serch engine results page (SERP). Today, the most important elements to consider when optimizing a web page for search engines include:
In addition to the elements above, you need to optimize technical SEO, which is all the back-end components of your site. This includes URL structure, loading times, and broken links. Improving your technical SEO can help search engines better navigate and crawl your site. The strategic use of these factors makes search engine optimization a science, but the unpredictability involved makes it an art. Ultimately, the goal is to rank on the first page of a search engine’s result page. This ensures that those searching for a specific query related to your brand can easily find your products or services. While there are many search engines, digital marketers often focus on Google since it's a global leader in the search engine market. In SEO, there's no quantifiable rubric or consistent rule for ranking highly on search engines. Google and other search engines change their algorithm almost constantly, so it's impossible to make exact predictions. What you can do is closely monitor your page's performance and make adjustments to your strategy accordingly. Content marketing As mentioned, the quality of your content is a key component of an optimized page. As a result, SEO is a major factor in content marketing, a strategy based on the distribution of relevant and valuable content to a target audience. As in any marketing strategy, the goal of content marketing is to attract leads that ultimately convert into customers. But it does so differently than traditional advertising. Instead of enticing prospects with potential value from a product or service, it offers value for free in the form of written material, such as:
Content marketing matters, and there are plenty of stats to prove it:
As effective as content marketing is, it can be tricky. Content marketing writers need to be able to rank highly in search engine results while also engaging people who will read the material, share it, and interact further with the brand. When the content is relevant, it can establish strong relationships throughout the pipeline. To create effective content that’s highly relevant and engaging, it’s important to identify your audience. Who are you ultimately trying to reach with your content marketing efforts? Once you have a better grasp of your audience, you can determine the type of content you'll create. You can use many formats of content in your content marketing, including videos, blog posts, printable worksheets, and more. Regardless of which content you create, it’s a good idea to follow content marketing best practices. This means making content that’s grammatically correct, free of errors, easy to understand, relevant, and interesting. Your content should also funnel readers to the next stage in the pipeline, whether that’s a free consultation with a sales representative or a signup page. Social media marketing Social media marketing means driving traffic and brand awareness by engaging people in discussion online. You can use social media marketing to highlight your brand, products, services, culture, and more. With billions of people spending their time engaging on social media platforms, focusing on social media marketing can be worthwhile. The most popular digital platforms for social media marketing are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, with LinkedIn and YouTube not far behind. Ultimately, which social media platforms you use for your business depends on your goals and audience. For example, if you want to find new leads for your FinTech startup, targeting your audience on LinkedIn is a good idea since industry professionals are active on the platform. On the other hand, running social media ads on Instagram may be better for your brand if you run a B2C focused on younger consumers. Because social media marketing involves active audience participation, it has become a popular way of getting attention. It's the most popular content medium for B2C digital marketers at 96%, and it's gaining ground in the B2B sphere as well. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of B2B content marketers increased their use of social media this year. Social media marketing offers built-in engagement metrics, which are extremely useful in helping you to understand how well you're reaching your audience. You get to decide which types of interactions mean the most to you, whether that means the number of shares, comments, or total clicks to your website. Direct purchase may not even be a goal of your social media marketing strategy. Many brands use social media marketing to start dialogues with audiences rather than encourage them to spend money right away. This is especially common in brands that target older audiences or offer products and services not appropriate for impulse buys. It all depends on your company's social media marketing goals. To create an effective social media marketing strategy, it’s crucial to follow best practices. Here are a few of the most important social media marketing best practices:
To learn more about how Swift can help with your social media strategy, check out the comparison of our social media management tools versus others. Pay-per-click marketing Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a form of digital marketing in which you pay a fee every time someone clicks on your digital ads. So, instead of paying a set amount to constantly run targeted ads on online channels, you only pay for the ads individuals interact with. How and when people see your ad is a bit more complicated. One of the most common types of PPC is search engine advertising, and because Google is the most popular search engine, many businesses use Google Ads for this purpose. When a spot is available on a search engine results page, also known as a SERP, the engine fills the spot with what is essentially an instant auction. An algorithm prioritizes each available ad based on a number of factors, including:
PPC ads are then placed at the top of search engine result pages based on the factors above whenever a person searches for a specific query. Each PPC campaign has 1 or more target actions that viewers are meant to complete after clicking an ad. These actions are known as conversions, and they can be transactional or non-transactional. Making a purchase is a conversion, but so is a newsletter signup or a call made to your home office. Whatever you choose as your target conversions, you can track them via your chosen digital marketing channels to see how your campaign is doing. Affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing tactic that lets someone make money by promoting another person's business. You could be either the promoter or the business who works with the promoter, but the process is the same in either case. It works using a revenue sharing model. If you're the affiliate, you get a commission every time someone purchases the item that you promote. If you're the merchant, you pay the affiliate for every sale they help you make. Some affiliate marketers choose to review the products of just 1 company, perhaps on a blog or other third-party site. Others have relationships with multiple merchants. Whether you want to be an affiliate or find one, the first step is to make a connection with the other party. You can use digital channels designed to connect affiliates with retailers, or you can start or join a single-retailer program. If you're a retailer and you choose to work directly with affiliates, there are many things you can do to make your program appealing to potential promoters. You'll need to provide those affiliates with the tools that they need to succeed. That includes incentives for great results as well as marketing tools and pre-made materials. Native advertising Native advertising is digital marketing in disguise. Its goal is to blend in with its surrounding content so that it’s less blatantly obvious as advertising. Native advertising was created in reaction to the cynicism of today's consumers toward ads. Knowing that the creator of an ad pays to run it, many consumers will conclude that the ad is biased and consequently ignore it. A native ad gets around this bias by offering information or entertainment before it gets to anything promotional, downplaying the "ad" aspect. It’s important to always label your native ads clearly. Use words like “promoted” or “sponsored.” If those indicators are concealed, readers might end up spending significant time engaging with the content before they realize that it's advertising. When your consumers know exactly what they're getting, they'll feel better about your content and your brand. Native ads are meant to be less obtrusive than traditional ads, but they’re not meant to be deceptive. Influencer marketing Like affiliate marketing, influencer marketing relies on working with an influencer–an individual with a large following, such as a celebrity, industry expert, or content creator–in exchange for exposure. In many cases, these influencers will endorse your products or services to their followers on several social media channels. Influencer marketing works well for B2B and B2C companies who want to reach new audiences. However, it’s important to partner with reputable influencers since they’re essentially representing your brand. The wrong influencer can tarnish the trust consumers have with your business. Mobile marketing Mobile marketing is a digital marketing strategy that allows you to engage with your target audience on their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This can be via SMS and MMS messages, social media notifications, mobile app alerts, and more. It’s crucial to ensure that all content is optimized for mobile devices. According to the Pew Research Center, 85% of Americans own a smartphone, so your marketing efforts can go a long way when you create content for computer and mobile screens. The benefits of digital marketing. Digital marketing has become prominent largely because it reaches such a wide audience of people. However, it also offers a number of other advantages that can boost your marketing efforts. These are a few of the benefits of digital marketing. A broad geographic reach When you post an ad online, people can see it no matter where they are (provided you haven’t limited your ad geographically). This makes it easy to grow your business's market reach and connect with a larger audience across different digital channels. Cost efficiency Digital marketing not only reaches a broader audience than traditional marketing but also carries a lower cost. Overhead costs for newspaper ads, television spots, and other traditional marketing opportunities can be high. They also give you less control over whether your target audiences will see those messages in the first place. With digital marketing, you can create just 1 content piece that draws visitors to your blog as long as it's active. You can create an email marketing campaign that delivers messages to targeted customer lists on a schedule, and it's easy to change that schedule or the content if you need to do so. When you add it all up, digital marketing gives you much more flexibility and customer contact for your ad spend. Quantifiable results. To know whether your marketing strategy works, you have to find out how many customers it attracts and how much revenue it ultimately drives. But how do you do that with a non-digital marketing strategy? There's always the traditional option of asking each customer, “How did you find us?" Unfortunately, that doesn't work in all industries. Many companies don't get to have one-on-one conversations with their customers, and surveys don't always get complete results. With digital marketing, results monitoring is simple. Digital marketing software and platforms automatically track the number of desired conversions that you get, whether that means email open rates, visits to your home page, or direct purchases. Easier personalizationDigital marketing allows you to gather customer data in a way that offline marketing can't. Data collected digitally tends to be much more precise and specific. Imagine you offer financial services and want to send out special offers to internet users people who have looked at your products. You know you'll get better results if you target the offer to the person's interest, so you decide to prepare 2 campaigns. One is for young families who have looked at your life insurance products, and the other is for millennial entrepreneurs who have considered your retirement plans. How do you gather all of that data without automated tracking? How many phone records would you have to go through? How many customer profiles? And how do you know who has or hasn't read the brochure you sent out? With digital marketing, all of this information is already at your fingertips. More connection with customersDigital marketing lets you communicate with your customers in real-time. More importantly, it lets them communicate with you. Think about your social media strategy. It's great when your target audience sees your latest post, but it's even better when they comment on it or share it. It means more buzz surrounding your product or service, as well as increased visibility every time someone joins the conversation. Interactivity benefits your customers as well. Their level of engagement increases as they become active participants in your brand's story. That sense of ownership can create a strong sense of brand loyalty. Easy and convenient conversionsDigital marketing lets your customers take action immediately after viewing your ad or content. With traditional advertisements, the most immediate result you can hope for is a phone call shortly after someone views your ad. But how often does someone have the time to reach out to a company while they're doing the dishes, driving down the highway, or updating records at work? With digital marketing, they can click a link or save a blog post and move along the sales funnel right away. They might not make a purchase immediately, but they’ll stay connected with you and give you a chance to interact with them further. How to create a digital marketing strategyFor many small businesses and beginner digital marketers, getting started with digital marketing can be difficult. However, you can create an effective digital marketing strategy to increase brand awareness, engagement, and sales by using the following steps as your starting point. Set SMART goals. Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (SMART) goals is crucial for any marketing strategy. While there are many goals you may want to achieve, try to focus on the ones that will propel your strategy forward instead of causing it to remain stagnant. Identify your audience. Before starting any marketing campaign, it’s best to identify your target audience. Your target audience is the group of people you want your campaign to reach based on similar attributes, such as age, gender, demographic, or purchasing behavior. Having a good understanding of your target audience can help you determine which digital marketing channels to use and the information to include in your campaigns. Create a budget. A budget ensures you’re spending your money effectively towards your goals instead of overspending on digital marketing channels that may not provide the desired results. Consider your SMART goals and the digital channel you’re planning to use to create a budget. Select your digital marketing channels From content marketing to PPC campaigns and more, there are many digital marketing channels you can use to your advantage. Which digital marketing channels you use often depends on your goals, audience, and budget. Refine your marketing effortsMake sure to analyze your campaign's data to identify what was done well and areas for improvement once the campaign is over. This allows you to create even better campaigns in the future. With the help of digital technologies and software, you can obtain this data in an easy-to-view dashboard. Swift's digital marketing analytics reports will help you keep track of all your marketing campaigns in one centralized location. Digital marketing creates growth Digital marketing should be one of the primary focuses of almost any business’s overall marketing strategy. Never before has there been a way to stay in such consistent contact with your customers, and nothing else offers the level of personalization that digital data can provide. The more you embrace the possibilities of digital marketing, the more you'll be able to realize your company's growth potential. TAKE YOUR BRAND TO THE NEXT LEVEL A great website shows the world who you are, makes people remember you, and helps potential customers understand if they found what they were looking for. Websites communicate all of that through color, shape and other design elements. Learn how to make your cosmetics website tell your brand’s story.
f you own a business, you need a website. But I’m going to guess as you’re reading an article on how to create one, you probably already know that. by 2ché for sparkingmatt. What you’re realizing is that while using the internet is a pretty straightforward task, designing, building and creating a website is pretty flippin’ complicated. You want it to look nice. You want it to be easy to use. You want people to be able to find it on Google. You want it to actually help you convert visitors into clients… But how do you do all that? And more importantly, how do you do it right? Our Ultimate Guide to Web Design will walk you through the process of getting a website step-by-step:
What you need to know to get started Learn who’s who in the world of web design and development When you design a logo for your brand it’s pretty easy to hire one person to do the job and have it turn out great. That’s not necessarily the case when creating your website. While there are individuals or agencies out there that offer an end-to-end solution, it’s not unlikely that you’ll end up working with more than one person on your adventure to build a website. Here are a few of the characters you may encounter on your journey: Web designers are, well, designers. They take your ideas and turn them into a pretty (or badass) mockup that shows what your future website will look like. This is typically done in Adobe Photoshop or a similar type graphics program. UX (user experience) or UI (user interface) designers focus on how your layout design impacts your users. For example, they’ll help you decide where to put buttons to get more people to click them, or how to structure your navigation to make your site flow as seamlessly as possible. (There is a difference between UX and UI. This article explains it well.) Oftentimes, there is overlap between UX/UI designers and web designers; if you’re looking to save money, it shouldn’t be too difficult to hire a freelancer that has both skill sets. Web developers—also sometimes called engineers or coders—are magical folks who have learned to speak computer. They take the pretty (or badass) mockup your designer made and translate it into a coding language so it can be displayed on the web. To further complicate things, there are many different coding languages out there, and most developers specialize in one or a few. Front end developers specialize in the things we see when we look at a website (e.g. rendering images, text, animations, drop down menus, page layout, etc). Back end developers on the other hand specialize in what’s going on behind the scenes and are necessary if your website needs to communicate with a database. (If you’re going to have a shopping cart, user profiles, or want to be able to upload any content on your own, you’re going to need a database.) SEO specialists, content strategists, and copy or content writers may also be experts you want to consult as you build your website. They can help you figure out what needs to go on your site to help the right people find it (via search engines) and decide to buy once there. Acquire a domain name and hostingJust like if you were opening a brick-and-mortar business, the first thing you need to do when you’re building a website is to rent a location. When you get web hosting you’re renting server space at a data center, much like this large one in Nevada. Web hosting is the physical space where the assets for your website will live. All those images and text and databases actually require a physical server to host them. While you can buy your own and put it in your office/house/garage, the vast majority of people and businesses rent hosting space through a company. Hosting (like rent) is typically paid monthly. For most businesses it will be in the $5-$20/month range, but could be much higher if you have large data needs. Here’s a list of recommended web hosting companies, but you may want to check with your web developer before purchasing (as they may have a preferred vendor). Your domain name is what people type into their browser to get to your site (e.g. 99designs.com). Typically it is your business name. To get a domain name, you register it with a domain registrar. You will have to pay a small fee (generally less than $10/year) to purchase and retain the name. Most hosting services also serve as domain registrars; that’s generally your best bet as it’ll be the easiest to setup. Finally, you will need to point your domain name to your servers which basically tells the internet that when someone types your domain into their browser, it should look on this server warehouse to find the right pictures and text to display. While this process isn’t complicated, it can be confusing. This is a step you can try to DIY (the support team at your web host or domain registrar can help you) but is also something your web developer can easily help you do. Think about structure and gather the content for your websiteYour web designer or developer is not going to write the about page on your website or take photos of your products for your store. You’re going to have to provide all of the content as well as provide the general structure of the site. For structure you’ll want to think about what pages you need, common ones include:
Each of these types of pages will need to be laid out and designed, and each one will need to have content on it. You don’t necessarily need to have content finalized at this stage in the process, but you do need to have an idea of what content you’ll want on your site and a plan for how you’ll get it. Do you need to set aside time to write copy (or hire someone to do it for you)? Should you hire a photographer to take product photos? You will need to provide all custom imagery (like your logo or photos of your team) for the site, but a web designer can probably help you source stock imagery if you want. What is stock imagery? (And how to use it right.) Pro tip: your designer (especially if they have UX/UI experience) may have some great ideas for content and structure you haven’t thought of. It is likely worth having a discussion with them early in the process. Determine what functionality you need When someone visits your website, what do you want to happen? Are they just getting information about your product or service, like a phone number or opening hours? Do they need to be able to purchase goods? Is their main goal to read blog articles or learn a skill? Are they filling out a form for a quote? Should they be able to create user profiles and upload their own information? Your functionality needs are going to determine how you can get your site developed and who you need to work with. They will also have a huge impact on your budget, so you’ll need to have it sorted out in order to get accurate quotes. Understand what a CMS is and decide if you need one A CMS (Content Management System) is a database and web application. Essentially, it allows users (like you and your colleagues/employees) to upload content to go on different parts of your site. If you want to be able to regularly edit text or change photos on your website and you don’t know how to code you will need a CMS! There are a lot of CMS options out there. There are fantastic out-of-the-box options for common use cases (e.g. WordPress for blogging, Shopify for hosting an ecommerce site, Six for building out a profile). But if you need advanced functionality (like you’re hoping to build the next Facebook or Uber or 99designs) you’re going to have to have it custom developed. How to get your website created Template sites and builders Hire freelancers for a custom solution If you want to have more control over the look and functionality of your site, your best bet is to hire one or more freelancers to help you build it. This is great for getting exactly what you need at a fair cost, but will likely require you to be more hands-on. We recommend searching through designer profiles to find someone whose style matches what you had in mind. Alternatively, if you want to get lots of design ideas. We’ll help you write a brief. Designers from around the world will read it and send you their ideas for your site. You give feedback to refine the designs, and ultimately choose your favorite(s) as the winner. Keep in mind you may need to hire both a designer and a developer for your project, though there are some freelancers who do both. Make sure you clarify up front so you can budget (both time and money) accordingly. Pros:
Drawbacks:
Hire freelance designers for a hybrid solutionIf you want a custom look, but don’t want to invest in completely custom development, you’re in luck! It’s possible to start with an out-of-the-box template solution, and customize it with your own unique template. Note, this is also possible with several other template sites (for example, you can create custom templates or modify existing ones for Shopify or Squarespace) so if you would rather use one of those platforms, that’s also an option. Note that in any of these cases, the design still does need to be translated into code, so make sure you ask if your designer can do that, or know that you will have to hire a developer. Hire an agency for a custom end-to-end solution Web design and development agencies are experts at what they do. They will not only be able to guide you to help you make the right decisions, but they’ll be able to take you from wireframe to fully developed site. Of course, all of that comes at a premium cost. This is a great option for companies with complex needs, or those for whom cost is less of an issue. Pros:
Drawbacks:
How to design a custom website in 7 steps 1. Determine what you need and hire a designerHave you got your domain name figured out? Do you know what functionality you need? A list of the pages you want designed? Do you have a plan for gathering all of the custom content you need to fill out your website? Awesome! Time to hire a designer. To find the right one, you’ll want to look through portfolios. Think about your brand’s personality and determine if the designer is a stylistic match. (For example, do you want something edgy and modern or fun and playful?) It’s generally a good idea to look for designers who have experience in your industry, or with the specific type of site you’re looking for. If you’re a photographer, look for designers who have galleries in their portfolio, if you sell goods, look for one who has experience with other ecommerce companies. Time to hire a designer Want more construction contracts and booked projects? It all depends on having a great construction website. Your website is not an online brochure—it’s your 24/7 virtual sales rep, capable of generating a massive amount of leads and sales. Regardless if you’re in commercial or residential construction, your target audience expects a seamless, engaging website experience--75% of consumers have judged a company’s credibility based on its website design. If your website is outdated, doesn’t attract traffic, doesn’t convert visitors into leads, or simply isn’t up to your satisfaction, you need professional construction website design services. Swift Digital Marketing Agency specializes in designing websites for construction companies that not only look great but also rank well in search engine results and convert your visitors into clients. Let us help you redesign your website and turn it into your number one sales and marketing tool! CONSTRUCTION WEBSITES Construction Website Design Services Proven to Increase Leads & Sales Want more construction contracts and booked projects? It all depends on having a great construction website. Your website is not an online brochure—it’s your 24/7 virtual sales rep, capable of generating a massive amount of leads and sales. Regardless if you’re in commercial or residential construction, your target audience expects a seamless, engaging website experience--75% of consumers have judged a company’s credibility based on its website design. If your website is outdated, doesn’t attract traffic, doesn’t convert visitors into leads, or simply isn’t up to your satisfaction, you need professional construction website design services. Blue Corona specializes in designing websites for construction companies that not only look great but also rank well in search engine results and convert your visitors into clients. Let us help you redesign your website and turn it into your number one sales and marketing tool!
Our Custom Construction Website Design Services From small general contractor website designs to large construction company websites, we have the website services for you.
What Does it Take to Have a Sales-Driving Construction Website Design? Wondering why your competitors are outperforming you? It most likely has something to do with their website and what’s on it. The best construction websites are visible in search engines, mobile-friendly, fast, secure, and have an optimal user experience.
Our web design services aren’t one size fits all—there are no cookie-cutter solutions, at least not from the best companies. A good website design agency will help you figure out the best type of website for your business. What’s important is that your website is beautiful, thoughtfully laid out, and lead-focused. SHOULD I USE A TEMPLATE OR HAVE MY CONSTRUCTION SITE CUSTOM-DESIGNED? Choosing between a template and a custom-designed construction site will depend on your needs and your budget. Most small businesses will do just fine with a proven template, but if you have a large company, have specific needs, or want a website that doesn’t look like any of your competitors’ you should go for a custom website. WHAT’S THE AVERAGE LIFESPAN OF A WEBSITE? Your website is not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing asset. You need to continually update it to keep up with the modern customer’s expectations. When you’re building construction websites you always need to keep in mind that the average website has a life expectancy of 2-5 years, so be sure to pick a design and platform that won’t be too difficult to update.
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN PACKAGES:
Flexible, Powerful: Our Custom Full-Service Digital Marketing Company. There’s no one right way to do digital marketing for businesses. In fact, even the right marketing strategy for your business might not be right all the time.
As your business needs to change, whether seasonally or permanently, your marketing strategy should change with it. That’s where our custom full-service digital marketing comes in! This premier service is our most comprehensive, flexible, and data-driven digital marketing solution. We work directly with you to develop a Custom Marketing Plan with monthly campaigns designed to achieve your goals and operate within your budget. No cherry-picking services – instead, we recommend and execute the tactics we believe will deliver the best results. How Does Custom Digital Marketing Work? Custom Full-Service Digital Marketing is a 2-Phase program: Planning and Execution. It works because we take the time to learn about your business, understand your market, review your existing web presence, and then develop a full marketing plan. Phase 1: Discovery and Planning Before we can do our best work, we need to learn as much as we can! Phase 1 includes:
Phase 2: Execution and Consultation With your plan in place, we execute the approved campaigns, facilitating all setups, reviews, and approvals needed on a monthly basis. This ongoing service includes:
Cal Swift Today: (216) 339-6041 
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