A Conversation on Lead Conversion: Conversion Rate Optimization

We have continued to talk about conversions because they are an easy way to track and understand your target audience. Learning about how they move to your page or how often they visit your page can give you serious insight to your customer base and consumer needs. The first steps for effective conversions is to 1) define your conversion (i.e. pdf download, online purchase, form submission, etc.) and 2) understand how to track the conversions properly. After you have established these two, you can then focus on conversion rate optimization. One of the easiest ways to do that is through your web design.

Web design can be the most useful tool you have on your marketing strategies tool belt. In order to make the most out of your conversions and lead generation, your web design must be implemented as such to easily navigate users to, from, and around the pages you want them to be on. This type of web design specifically focused on conversions is known as Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). CRO is the “art and science of getting people to act once they arrive on your website,” says Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners and author of the book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions. But how do you get people to act on your website, and more importantly, act the way you’d like them to? Well, this involves a combination of strategies and a series of tests. “It typically involves elements of visual design, copywriting, user experience, psychology, testing out different versions of your website content, and the neuromarketing to influence people to act,” says Ash.

Now, it may seem like you need to perform a complete overhaul on your website. Although we aren’t discouraging this strategy if other tactics don’t work, we believe a lot can happen from just small changes to your current site. In fact, Highrise was able to boost their conversion rate 102% just by adding images of people smiling to their website. That’s a pretty impactful number that came from minimal design change.

Below are a few tips for changing or adding to your web design to increase conversion rates:

  • Keep forms simple. Shorten your request info form, simplify your checkout page, or streamline a survey. We’re all busy and cutting something from 5 minutes to 3 minutes really can make a huge impact on your number of conversions.
  • Stand out. Try changing button colors, locations, or sizes then A/B test to see which button renders more traffic or clicks. We suggest you start small here and not overwhelm your audience, especially if they are used to a button being in a certain place on your website.
  • Be straightforward. Your call-to-action should be just that; you need to direct users to exactly the action you’d like them to perform, while also laying out the benefits of performing said action. Be direct about their incentives for viewing a particular page on your website or submitting their email to subscribe to an email.
  • Give it time. Make sure you give these changes the proper amount of time to set in so you can track them. We usually say you’ll know whether it was successful or not after a month of running this new campaign or look. If after that isn’t giving you the results you were hoping for, start looking at other strategies to implement.   
  • Know when to stop. Not every strategy you try will work, and that’s okay. You need to understand when to reevaluate the strategies and try again. Don’t be afraid to take risks with your design changes to enhance conversions, but also evaluate and track them to make sure they’re bringing you the expected or desired results.

Overall, optimizing your conversion rate provides your business with an exact and trackable way to identify what aspects of your web design are or are not working. Utilizing some of the tactics above and conducting tests on your design integrations will make a huge impact on your conversion rate and the success of your website. This insight into the types of colors, CTAs, etc. that attract your clients will only help your other marketing strategies grow and become more successful.

The only way to ensure your campaigns and strategies are the most successful they could be is by partnering with a skilled and experienced team of marketers. Squid Ink Creative is the small digital marketing agency that packs a punch and has the innovation and determination your business needs. We help you find your leads and convert them. So, just how many conversions are you missing out on? Find out by scheduling a meeting with our team today, and don’t forget, it’s free!

/by

A Conversation on Lead Conversion: Tracking Conversions Effectively

Measuring a campaign’s success is the best way to decide which efforts are working for your business and which ones to look at again. This can be especially difficult to keep track of when running multiple campaigns and not knowing how best to measure any of the campaigns individually. A great way to measure any digital marketing effort is to look at and track your conversion rates. In order to achieve optimal results, we have laid out a few steps to keep your lead conversions moving forward with conversion tracking.

Find your definition of a conversion.

As you may recall, our previous blog in the series focused on identifying conversions. Now to recap, we wanted to quickly define what a conversion is and why it’s important. A conversion is an activity your company has designated as being valuable online activity for your site. Every company measures success by different margins and that is no different when it comes to measuring conversion rate success. Remember to have a clear definition of what a conversion means for your business and follow these conversions closely.

Conversion tracking 101.

Conversion tracking is one of the strongest reasons that digital marketing has become so popular. You can trace a successful conversion back to whatever you did to bring that customer to your website. This can be online tactics like display banner ads, where you will be able to tell what message, design or targeting method worked the best. Or it can be offline, like a TV commercial, where you can see how many people looked up your website during the time slot in which a commercial ran. This is only possible, however, if you have properly set up the tools that track these actions on your website and collect this data.

Whether trying to track organic or paid views, it’s important to know what tools you have available to you and what information you can gather based on what you’re trying to achieve. There are multiple conversion tracking assistants, and each one offers their own unique ways of allowing you to track, view, and collect data on your investments. A few services available are Google Ads and Analytics, Bing Webmaster, LinkedIn Conversion Tracking, and Facebook Pixels.

Deciding which tool(s) to use mostly depends on where you and your customers are. If you have a large following on Facebook, or if you are looking to establish your presence on LinkedIn, then that will significantly impact which tools to utilize. Set your conversion goals, identify where you’d like to track them, and start monitoring them accordingly.

The most popular tool for website data collection is Google Analytics. When a customer converts on your website, Google offers a way to look back and see the different means by which people came to your site before then. This is known as a conversion path.

Conversion paths.

A conversion path is the combination of all the ways a person visited a website from their first visit until their conversion.

Mary is a homeowner who sees a photo of a screened-in porch on Facebook that was posted by Acme Home Contractors and shared by her friend Anne. She clicks to Acme’s Facebook page, and from there goes to their website acmehomecontractors.com from the link on their Facebook page. She is interested and wants to look into getting her own screened-in patio. Two days later, sitting at lunch on her mobile phone, she does a Google search for “Wichita Home Contractors” and visits 3 different websites from Google, including Acme’s again because she wants to see what kind of materials they use compared to other contractors. After 2 more days and additional research into the competitors, she decides that Acme is who she wants to consider further.  So she puts acmehomecontractors.com into her browser on her desktop machine from her home computer, visits the website and see that she can upload pictures of her yard, desired dimensions and choice of materials. The next morning, a member of the Acme sales team follows up with Mary and schedules a team to visit her at her house to get the information necessary to complete a quote form.

In this example, the website was acmehomecontractors.com and the goal was completed quote forms, which are considered leads for the Acme sales team. Notice that the goal was not increased sales. Many factors dictate whether a sale is made, many of which can’t be foreseen or affected by the website. The only goal we have is leads for the Acme Sales Team from the website. Let’s explore the Conversion Path that Mary took: Social ⇒ Organic ⇒ Direct.

First Visit Channel: Social – She visited the website from a link on Acme’s Facebook page. This is the sign of a sound social media promotional strategy by Acme because it makes use of influencers, who are useful in creating demand for a product or service. Acme got permission from Anne to post the photos of their work on her patio, and she was excited to share those photos on her own wall, which made it possible for Mary to see it and visit Acme’s Facebook page and then their website.

Second Visit Channel: Organic Search – She visited Acme’s site again by Googling it when she was looking at competitor sites. Acme’s visibility on Google was made possible by following SEO best practices, including local search optimization, which made it possible for Acme to show up within the maps listings on a search for “Wichita home contractors”.

Final Converting Visit Channel: Direct – She visits the site by entering the URL into her web browser. Mary has done her comparisons and liked Acme’s work the most. It was after hours, and she was home from work, so she completed the contact form on the website in the evening which allowed her to upload photos, dimensions and materials within the contact form saved everyone a lot of time.

A conversion path varies significantly from an attribution in that an attribution is usually only looking at how the lead got to your page right before the converted. This is known as a last-click attribution.

Attribution.

Last-Click Attribution

Most goal-tracking is set up by default to track “Last-Click Attribution”, which means that they assign a conversion to whatever channel was used on the visit on which the conversion occurred. In Mary’s case, it would be credited to Direct traffic, because that was the last click.

One of the pitfalls of conversion tracking is that it takes a long time to analyze the entire picture of how your customers interact with you online. In our example, Mary’s conversion path was Social ⇒ Organic ⇒ Direct. When Acme considers where to allocate their online marketing budget, they may be tempted to ignore social and organic search engines because the conversion came from a direct visit, which might make them think that word of mouth is sufficient, and they can therefore not spend any money elsewhere because people will talk about it and give the website URL to their friends. But this isn’t the case. Social media and organic search contributed just as much if not more than the final direct visit did. If Acme wanted to increase the number of leads generated from their website, they need to gain insight on what channels contribute to conversions the most, then focus spends and efforts on that channel.

Google Analytics has a report called the Top Conversion Paths report that allows you to see all of the unique conversion paths for conversions on your website. Here is an example from Google:

If you have defined your conversions appropriately and set up the tracking to gather data about those conversions, you should get a better picture of how your customers behave. And when you understand how your customers behave, you will be able to properly optimize your website to enhance your conversion rate (stay tuned for the next blog in the series on optimization!). With that, you know what your digital marketing mix should look like.

Conversion tracking and identification is crucial to the overall success of your digital marketing campaigns. That is why Squid Ink is ready to get their tentacles in your business’ digital marketing strategy and design a unique, customized plan that fits the special needs of your organization. Schedule your obligation-free meeting today to start understanding your online customers and conversions.

/by

A Conversation on Lead Conversion: Defining a Conversion

Defining your conversion point and tracking your conversion rates is the best way to ensure any of your marketing efforts are producing the kind of results you hoped for. That’s why we wanted to start a series on lead conversions as far as defining them for your business, ways to effectively track them, and optimizing your website to enhance your conversions. To start, we wanted to define a website goal and how these connect to conversion points.   

Find the goal to complete, aka the “Conversion Point”

A goal describes the steps necessary for your customers to complete a profitable transaction.  These are fairly standardized, but must be unique and specific to your needs. In fact, there are many articles about what makes a goal, including an article from Mindtools.com about SMART goals, a concept developed by George T. Doran in 1981. A discussion of goals should be a fundamental piece of your discussions with a digital marketing agency.

Goals are also referred to as “conversions”, so when we refer to conversions, we are referring to the goals we want people to achieve when they are on our site.

Examples of goals are:

  1. Completing a contact form that goes to a sales team member or into a CRM software.
  2. Logging in to check in a bank balance or take a class.
  3. Booking an appointment with a doctor.
  4. Creating a new account.
  5. Viewing the portion of the page with an office address, business hours and NAP information. NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone number.
  6. Completing a purchase.
  7. Signing up for an email list.
  8. Clicking to browse a specific page on your site or microsite.
  9. Completing a form or survey.

Not every transaction has to involve revenue, but does add monetary value to the company.  Therefore, when you define your goals, you should come up with a value of what that conversion offers to you. As another example of a conversion, an e-Learning company partnered with Squid Ink views a conversion as downloading a course syllabus from their page. This is something unique to their industry, but still shows them valuable information. Like previously mentioned, it is important to find and define your own meaning of a conversion. In fact, the most common formula is as follows:

Conversion Value = Average Order Value * Average Close Rate of Leads

Now, let’s put this into tangible terms. For example, let’s say your average order value is $100. Here is how to calculate conversion value for a form submission or a phone call using hypothetical close rates of leads gathered using these:

  • If you close 50% of the form submissions you get online, the conversion value can be calculated as $50.  
  • If you close 1% of phone call leads, then the value of a phone call to a number you use on your website has a conversion value of $1.

Once you calculate this value for each of your goals, you can set that as the conversion value when you set up your conversion tracking, which we will discuss in the next portion of our series. Remember to have a clear definition of what a conversion means for your business and follow these conversions closely. This can be done easily by taking advantage of tracking tools, which we will discuss more in depth in our upcoming blog, A Conversation on Lead Conversion: Tracking Conversions Effectively.Does that all sound a little overwhelming to take on by yourself? Well, you don’t have to do it alone. Squid Ink’s team of digital marketing gurus can help you understand, define, track, and optimize your lead conversion in a snap. Whether you need assistance strategizing, implementing, executing, or any combination, Squink Ink can offer their knowledge and skill-set for a number of projects to help keep your lead generation and conversion rates moving forward. Schedule a consultation with Squid Ink to start seeing the impact that defining and tracking goals and conversions makes on your profit margins.

/by

Questions You Should Ask A Digital Marketing Agency

Squid Ink - Digital Agency Questions

As you may recall, we designed and dedicated a blog all about what a digital marketing should be asking in order to provide you the best service possible. Now, we have a blog entirely dedicated to you and what questions you should be asking of your digital marketing agency. With certifications and technology that can bring your company advantages that other agencies can’t, it’s imperative you get all the information on what exactly they can provide and how this benefits your business.

Question #1: Has your digital team earned any digital marketing industry certifications or recognition?

The landscape of digital marketing is constantly changing, therefore it is important for digital marketing agencies to stay current on trends and tools. Paid search advertising is a powerful form of online marketing. Search advertising channels such as Google and Bing offer certifications to agencies that use their channels, and there are multiple reasons for this:

  • They want advertisers to have positive experiences when advertising on their sites so they continue to use them on a regular basis. A negative experience can cause companies to stop using search ads, and therefore miss out on the value of search advertising.
  • They want to make sure that agencies acting on behalf of advertisers are using all features available to deliver the highest ROI.
  • Digital marketing can be overwhelming to companies, and certifications are an important way to establish trust between an agency and advertiser.

Recognized industry certifications:

Google Partners – Offers multiple certifications and even specializations for agencies to display their expertise in the many tactics that Google offers for PPC advertising. Fun Fact: Squid Ink is a Google Partner!

Bing Partners – Accredited Professionals must renew their accreditation on a regular basis to maintain their credentials.

Interactive Advertising Bureau – Membership guarantees the agency is up-to-date on the latest trends and ins and outs of all things digital trends.

Individual Certificates – Individuals within an agency can hold special accreditations such as Google Ads Certifications in Search, Display, Video, Mobile, Shopping advertising and Mobile Site Optimization through Google. If an agency claims that individuals have certifications, make sure that the appropriate team members that will be handling your needs have these certifications.  Unfortunately, some agencies will make unrelated staff take exams or keep active the profiles of team members no longer under their employ.

Question #2: Do you work with any technology vendors?

Hope is not a strategy (well, at least not a good one). You should never launch a digital campaign without a way to track it. Every tactic you use should come with data on how well it worked compared to your goals and objectives, which should always be created before a campaign is launched. Transparency of data is one of the major advantages of digital marketing. For everything you need to track, there is a technology solution that has been created for that purpose. Many of these solutions work with agencies, who deploy the technology on behalf of their clients. Some advantages to this include:

  1. You don’t have to learn the software
  2. You can often save money on a monthly subscription
  3. An agency has the resources to tailor a package to your unique needs
  4. You can be informed of trends that affect your industry before your competition
  5. A long-term plan that includes technology packages can introduce or improve discipline in your digital marketing so you don’t abandon digital marketing before it has time to generate a positive return
  6. Agency expertise most often gets you more transparency and more reliable data faster than if you tried to do it yourself

BUT

Adding marketing technology into your marketing toolbox is not a decision to be made lightly. Here are some things to consider when asking a digital agency about their use of these tools:

  1. There is a time & labor factor for implementing and integrating solutions into your marketing workflow.  These fixed costs must be factored into your acquisition costs, and can extend the time it takes for your digital marketing to have a positive ROI.
  2. Technology vendors often pay an agency a commission in exchange for client referrals or subscription sales. An agency may offer a standard bundle that consists of multiple vendors that they have created to be deployed in as little time as possible, thereby increasing the amount of money they can make from the relationship. Make sure you know what you are paying for, why you need to pay for it, and what you will get in exchange.
  3. Digital marketing offers the ability to turn a campaign off on short notice, without minimum buys or time commitments. Adding marketing technology means that you have to be ready to stick with a campaign even if it starts slow.

Ready to jump head-first into digital marketing campaigns with an agency that employs all the right techniques and then some? Squid Ink Creative provides businesses the guidance and support they need while utilizing the most advanced forms of digital marketing technologies. Digital marketing is not something to discount and needs just as much planning and strategy as your daily enterprise. Schedule your free appointment and come see how we plan to make your digital marketing dreams a reality.

/by

Questions That An Agency Should Be Asking You

Questions An Agency Should Ask You

Working with an agency, whether it’s your 1st time or 51st time, can be distressing. Mutual understanding and transparency are key to a successful working relationship, but how do you know you’re all on the same page and nothing is being looked over? That’s why we decided to do a quick 2-part series with guidelines on what an agency should be asking you, and what you should be asking your digital marketing agency. Today, we are diving into what an agency should be asking you. It’s important to understand whether or not you’re getting the complete service you deserve. By being aware of these necessary questions, you will know if your digital marketing strategies are in good hands. Also, be sure to stay tuned to our blog for the next portion of the series on what you should be asking your digital marketing agency.

  1. Have you ever worked with a digital agency before?

This is going to save a lot of time at the beginning of the relationship because it cuts down on tasks that have already been completed. This may seem rudimentary, but important nonetheless. The tools, tactics, and insights of digital marketing can often change by the day, so using new strategies could be the best option for your business. But, at the root of it, the agency needs to know whether or not you have utilized another digital agency before because there could be remaining pieces from the previous relationship that affect you in the future.

For example, old tracking code such as Google Analytics or Facebook Pixels could remain on and slow down your site. Other people outside of your organization or the contracted agency could have access to your data. Even if they don’t ever view your data again, those old code “snippets” on your website that run third-party tools will begin to slow down your website over time. This could mean bad news for your website, because, according to their official blog, Google uses page speed as a factor when they decide which pages to rank in the search engine result pages (also known as “SERPs”). Eliminating unnecessary tools is often an overlooked task, and your digital agency should be able to identify these for you upfront.

  1. Do you sell to the end-user of your product?

If the answer is yes, then all digital marketing tactics are on the table. But, if your answer is similar to “no, I use distributors, retailers, and other intermediaries between me and the end-user,” then your marketing objectives should work a little differently. At some point your team should discuss the possibility of hosting a co-op or reimbursement program for your distributors, where you offer either tactical support or monetary reimbursement of appropriately targeted and approved means, like pay-per-click advertising on Google. The price of many digital marketing tactics is often determined in a competitive auction in real-time at the very moment an ad should appear. If you are competing with your distributors or retailers for a particular ad impression, not only are you driving your costs up, but you are also making for a difficult time for the people on whom you rely to get customers of their own.

There is merit to the notion that you should be driving end users to your brand by any means necessary, no matter how they are meant to purchase it. A rising tide lifts all ships, so helping your distributors helps your end users, because they could be conceivably driving leads with little to no effort or expense on their part. That is certainly an attractive value proposition when trying to find new distributors or retailers. But, someone needs to make sure you aren’t competing with your distributors, and offers you a well-defined strategy that takes into account objectives, goals, and the competitive landscape that can keep this from happening by reporting regularly on what end users and distributors alike see online.

  1. Do you have a sales territory or other limitation on where your product or service can be sold?

For example, if you can’t sell products in Dallas, TX, then there is no reason to optimize your page or engage in any tactics that would target or make it be more visible to people in that city. Why is that important? That means that you don’t have to allocate the resources necessary for national search engine optimization (SEO) to compete with larger brands for online visibility in that city. You can instead focus your efforts on local search optimization for the cities where you can sell.

Even if you don’t have sales territories, we strongly encourage you to select a region where you think there is most opportunity and then focus your efforts there. That is where your involvement in this strategy process is crucial, because you know that better than any agency.

  1. What is your business’s version of an incentive?

Incentives are an important part of the lead generation process, but a lot of businesses believe that incentives only mean discounts off the cost of their product or service. That’s not necessarily the case. Incentives are anything that you can offer that would bring value beyond what they could get by considering a competitor. There are other common examples of incentives, like giveaways or invitations to events. But if you don’t really have anything like that, think about what else you can offer.

Some other great examples of incentives are:

  • Whitepapers
  • Case Studies
  • Access to exclusive content
  • Social Media mentions (because everybody, customers and vendors alike, are always on the lookout for organic social media audience growth)
  • Sneak peeks at new products or services
  • Customer spotlights that offer backlinks, which they could in return link on their own websites. Links to your site on other pages are crucial towards Google deciding where to rank a site. You cannot charge for backlinks without penalty, but part of “backlinking” is building a relationship with people related to your business, so this is a very strong incentive that you are able to offer.

Work with an agency you can trust.

The most important thing we could emphasize in this article is to find an agency you can trust to ask the right questions and get the job done. Are you ready to start utilizing a marketing agency, but you’re not quite sure where to start or who to go with? Why not try Squid Ink? We are an all-encompassing marketing firm that offers services from creative video-assistance to executing complex digital marketing plans and everything in between. Whether you need us for one project, or you want a full-time team of marketers that you can easily integrate into your company, Squid Ink is the answer you’re looking for. Schedule your consultation today to see the plans we have in store for you (remember, it’s free!).

/by

The ABC’s of Web Development

Web development can seem like a daunting and overwhelming task, whether creating a new page or revamping an old one. Design trends constantly change and keeping up with them can consume hours of employee time. With a skilled marketing team and a few key concepts to keep in mind, your website can be shiny and polished, all while having the functionality your customers and leads desire. It’s important to have your website feature audience-based content, be direct in the layout and design, and collect and track data like keywords to achieve the highest quality webpage for the lowest amount of headache for both you and your customers. Read on to learn more about these three concepts and how Squid Ink can provide you the best web development and web management solutions.

Audience-based content

Many businesses make the web development mistake of creating their website for themselves, when, in all reality, you are creating a business page for your customers. You are using the website not just to promote your brand, but to help your leads understand your values, your products, and that you are the kind of company with whom they should do business. Relating your products to their needs and explaining how you solve their problems or fill their needs creates a relationship of trust and understanding.

This level of trust is created with a website that features a pointed and direct tagline and an easily navigable user interface. It’s generally advised to put a quick tagline at the top of your page. Something that relays your purpose and values, while still being short, sweet, and direct. With the fast paced environment we all live in, we understand that our leads don’t have time to continually sift through information just to see if you have what they’re looking for. Something that draws them in and keeps them on the page is most important. This pointed style of marketing may get your page overall less views or shorter frequencies from those who do view them, but that works in your favor. The faster someone can see what you offer, the quicker they can decide whether or not you fulfill their needs. If you’re getting less views, but overall more lead conversions, then you are following exactly what Account Based Marketing strategies are all about. This pointed content should be in obvious places on the page and an easy hop from one topic to the next quickly and efficiently.       

Be easy on the eyes and the user

Have you ever experienced going to a new grocery store and not being able to find bread because the aisles and shelves weren’t arranged the way you anticipated? Do you remember how frustrating that was? Web development is no different. That’s what it’s like for your leads and potential clients every time they find themselves on your website for the first time if you don’t follow an intuitive layout. Although having a flashy, exciting, and aesthetically pleasing website is desirable, you also need to remember that a easy-to-follow layout is most important (and yes, you can do both). Make searching and maneuvering through your web-page simple. Help guide users through the pages of content and seamlessly navigate them to highlights and articles from your business. A great way to make content easily accessible is to link different pages in multiple places (see our homepage, for example). Not only should you have tabs at the top of your homepage, but keep specific products or offerings at the forefront and have them be the focus of your homepage. You know what your targets are looking for, so why not easily point out specific links to highlight what you do best? Identifiable and linkable content guides your leads and allows them to see what they want and need. Not only does this help your customers, it also helps you see who’s staying on your site and track where they’re going.

Collect and track data

Website engagement and keyword tracking can be a huge insight into who is looking for your products. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of many ways you can reach those looking for what you have to offer. Web development does not stop when the site launches. Monitoring search engine results are important, and Squid Ink goes beyond just Google AdWords or Analytics to do it. As a Google Partner Agency, Squid Ink maintains certain qualifications and performance benchmarks required by Google that serve as proof of our commitment to continuous improvement and stellar performance for our clients. When you choose Squid Ink, you choose assurance that your website is being properly designed, cared for, and managed. Squid Ink offers your company the knowledge and skill-set of proper SEO and tracking techniques with personalized attention to detail that will make your website as unique and distinct as your company.

How we can help

Your website can be the greatest tool in your arsenal for lead generation. But remember, a flashy design isn’t always the only thing to focus on when considering the best web development strategy for your organization. Understanding your client’s needs and creating an easily navigable space for them to explore your company will take you farther than any graphics ever could. Thankfully, with Squid Ink, you can achieve both without breaking the bank or devoting all your resources to take on the task. Our excited and dynamic team is ready to help your web development reach new levels and new clients. We provide all the in-house resources needed to build and maintain a successful online business persona. Come see how we design and optimize your website by scheduling your free meeting today!

/by

Insight On How To Effectively Appeal In Your Web Design

With our fast-paced economy and high-tech lifestyle, it’s not surprising that this is leaking into the way we do business. Leads are making faster decisions and using more mobile options as the source of all their information for your business. Companies want answers without having to read through pages, or even paragraphs, of text. Your website can either be your greatest asset or your worst enemy when it comes to your B2B marketing strategy, and we want to make sure you achieve your web design goals.

Think of your website as another tool on your belt in your multi-faceted marketing plan. It highlights your products and their features while also showing how you want your brand represented. Keeping up with the latest in web design trends not only shows that your company is tech-savvy and updated, but it also shows you’re willing to change and adapt for your customers’ needs and/or wants. Your viewers have high expectations, and when you only have 10 seconds to capture their attention, you have to make those 10 seconds count. Integrating interactive content or using proper video-based components can bring your website to life. Now, here are 3 easy ways to achieve the dynamic-effect your leads are looking for without cluttering your design.

Background videos

Adding a video to the background of text or other website content is an easy way to add dimension and movement to your website. Videos offer something interesting for your viewers to look at and it helps tell your story. Whether or not you choose to add audio is up to you, but letting people see first-hand the way you envision your brand gets them closer to your products and more interested in what you have to offer. Keeping your audience engaged and on your page will ensure they’re hearing your message, without any additional effort from your other marketing strategies.

Active chat features

We understand this isn’t for everyone, but in many cases having a feature where customers can freely ask questions through an all online chat with one of your company experts is just the kind of specialized and immediate attention they are looking for. Chats combine interactivity with the instant results they desire. A phone call can be too time consuming or feel full of obligation when your viewers only need to know 1 or 2 things. A good alternative to a phone call is an email or question submission form, but even a response from one of these can take too long for your potential clients. With instantaneous results, customers no longer need to wait or wonder if their message got to you; they see your responses right in front of them mere minutes after they sent their inquiry. This builds a solid rapport with potential clients. If they know you’re there for them even before their investment in your company, they know you’ll have your attention afterwards, too.

Pop-up CTA’s

This may seem daunting or scary, but when done properly, a pop-up call-to-action can add to your lead generation without having to direct your customers to another page. Be sure to make it voluntary, though.  Unsolicited pop-ups can incur an SEO penalty that could affect your search engine rankings. However, If they can click on an image or text button that will pop-up a simple form, they get to input the information you are looking for without them leaving the content they want to see. Navigating a new website can be tricky and allowing users to organically find your contact forms without having to go the extra step of finding your form page means they’ll be that much more likely to fill it out. Pop-up CTA’s can be tricky, but if they’re properly integrated and don’t interfere with your overall message, they can render effective results.

Squid Ink offers motion and video support along with graphic and overall website design assistance. Get advice or have us create your website and make sure all these elements flow without detracting from your brand. Whether you’re looking for video additions, or more complex elements like pop-ups or live chats, we’ve got you covered. The fact of the matter is, your website needs movement and dimension because that’s what your leads expect. Come chat with us to become the dynamic and interactive brand your leads are looking for.

/by

RANGE 54 Case Study

Range 54, a Wichita shooting range, was selected to be one of 100 ranges in the country and the only range in Wichita to reveal a new Glock model on August 26, 2017. That honor reflects the premium level of service that Range 54 offers their customers, and vendors recognize this. There was little time, however, to bask in that honor. The reveal date for the chosen ranges was less than 2 weeks from the time notification of the exclusive selection. This event could have been promoted with social media posts that included images, event times and contest details.

Read more
/by