Not so long ago, websites were purely used to deliver product and services information to target customers…
But they have morphed into a point-of-sales platform where businesses leverage their website for sales. Selling products or services on websites has become de rigueur and most businesses have jumped on board this money spinner of an idea, and why not? With consumers doing most of their shopping online, it makes perfect business sense to ensure your products and/or services are sold on your website.
Since businesses began seeing their website as a sales tool, another realization dawned upon them – their website is also a great marketing tool. Building a website is not only about ensuring your brand reaches a wider audience, but also about making sure that this audience is convinced about the merits of the products or services of your brand and persuaded to buy them.
Yes, your website can be turned into a lean mean marketing machine. The kind that drives not just online sales but offline sales as well!
But this is easier said than done isn’t it? There are plenty of articles out there with great tips about turning your website into a successful marketing tool, but it requires a lot of effort to put these tips into action.
What I’ve realized, quite painfully, is that you can turn your website into a marketing powerhouse, but it requires one hell of an effort. You’ve got to put your heart and soul into the process and it still might not work.
Over time, I have learnt the hard way that there are some tips that can be applied to all websites. So these are the one size fits all kind of tips and there are others that can only be applied to certain websites.
So, here’s my list of tips that fall into the one size fits all category; these are the kind of tips that all of you can incorporate irrespective of your business domain and your website’s audience:
1. Call to action images
Have you looked at your images with call-to-action tinted glasses? Yes, each and every image on your website can be a call to action.
When you are choosing images for your website, don’t just think ‘high quality’, ‘unique’, ‘relevant’, also think ‘actionable’. You want your images to reflect the products or services you are selling, but why not go beyond this limited perspective; use images as an action trigger.
If used well, images can boost site conversion rates and if they aren’t, all they will do is act like a decorative element for your site and at best add heft to your brand messaging.
The images on most fast food chain websites are an ideal example of images that persuade people to take action. They use mouth-watering product images that are typically a part of a deal they want to market. More often than not, the image also carries the deal cost and a fantastic tagline.
That’s what marketing is all about isn’t it. Make the target customer aware of your product or deal and make them want to purchase it.
2. Primary focus on trust elements
Nothing sells like trust. It is the single most important website quality that will make it an all-powerful marketing machine. If consumers trust your brand, they are more likely to recommend it to their friends, family and associates.
So how do you go about building trust on your site? Very often it’s the little things that help build trust on your site.
While product images, prices, detailed product information, extremely visible contact info, list of clients etc. are extremely important elements that drive website credibility, there are some other super-important elements that are given the short shrift by business owners.
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