How to attract customers to your website

• Sue Blatchford
• 29 January 2008

There's a common misconception
about websites that if you build it they will come! But the truth is that if no one knows about your website and you don’t undertake any form of marketing, the site is not likely to get any substantial traffic. 

Small businesses often invest a lot of energy, time and funds into building a great website, however they often neglect to invest in marketing it. 

Another common error is thinking your website is an offer in itself. It's not. Even if you have an online shop you still need to use the fundamental elements of marketing to run successful online campaigns, or your website will be the online equivalent of the pub with no beer. The basic structure will be there, but no one will visit and they certainly won't spend any money.

Step 1. What is your promotion?

Even if you have numerous products and services, select one or a small group to feature in an online promotion and choose products or services that are timely (Christmas, Mothers Day, mid-year sales, $25 off purchase, free delivery etc); choose products with strong online opportunities, or products that offer the best profit return for your business. Start with popular products with the largest market potential and test different versions and mixes of the offer. 

Step 2. What is the target audience you want to reach?

Understand clearly who you are aiming to target with your online promotion. Develop a profile of activities and websites that your target audience is likely to visit. Look for opportunities or partnerships you can develop with ‘niche’ or complimentary sites. 

Step 3. Clever creative that converts to sales

Online is fickle. You have a very short window of opportunity to capture your audience because if you lose their interest for a second, in one click they could be gone. Build specific web pages for your promotions – these are generally referred to as ‘landing pages’ (the first page potential customers land on after they’ve done a search). Make sure the creative supports the primary goal of the promotion. 

Tips for creating effective landing page promotions: 

• 
DO make sure the product or service you’re offering is immediately apparent in the headline

• 
DO include summary lists of features and benefits 

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DO focus on one primary goal, and limited secondary goals

• 
DO give your potential customers opportunities to buy more – you might want to up-sell after the customer has   chosen to transact

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DO make sure the site, page, offer and ecommerce gateway are working and test them all regularly throughout the course of the campaign

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DON’T make creative copy too clever or confusing

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DON’T have lots of hyperlinks off the page. Try to reduce any distractions you have on the page so that your visitors can stay focused on the core goals of your current promotion

• 
DON’T make your forms and transaction processes (buying and ordering) complex

• 
DON’T just drive traffic to the home page of your website unless there is a strong offer and call to action there. Home pages are unlikely to convert as effectively as specific offer pages.

• 
DON’T confuse your potential customers! Establish what your core offer or goal is:

• 
Online sales

• 
Lead generation

• 
Enquiries

• 
Subscription

• 
Donations

• 
Downloads

• 
Branding 

Your customers have found you: now what?

A lot of online marketers miss the opportunity to maximise online opportunities with their existing customers or subscriptions database. Look to constantly grow your database so that you can market directly to your existing customers and subscribers. Be vigilant in adhering to online privacy laws and ensure all of your subscribers have easy opt-in and opt-out options. 

Weekly or monthly newsletters with regular product discounts and specials have proven to be highly successful for online promotions once a strong database has been established. 

The Google Analytics dashboard (opposite page) illustrates traffic volume peaks for a site that sends out an email newsletter every Thursday. You can see that the website traffic peaks every Thursday for the month of October. 

Step 4. Do the maths!

Before you dive in to online marketing campaigns, get out a calculator or open a spreadsheet and work out how much you can realistically afford to spend on your campaign and what you need to achieve to make it profitable. 

For example, if you were to budget $500 for paid search: 

1. How many leads or sales would you need to generate to get a good return on investment? 

2. What percentage of the visitors could you realistically expect would take up your promotion? This is known as your ‘conversion rate.' If you have a clear understanding of your product’s profit margins you can get a good idea of how to manage your online promotions so they are cost effective and profitable.  

Step 5. Test, learn, record and compare

No matter what approach you undertake for online promotions ensure you have tracking code installed on your banner ads and offer pages. Evaluate traffic sources, time spent on pages, keywords used to find your offers (if applicable), where people clicked on the pages and how well the pages converted.

After each campaign take the time to document the key learnings of that campaign so you will have consistent data collection to be able to compare and grow the most profitable online promotion avenues for your business. 

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water

If you attempt a paid search campaign or other online marketing promotion that doesn't work or is not profitable; don’t loose heart as there is a lot to learn and understand and it can be quite complicated. Seek the advice of an experienced marketing professional and get back on track. #