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Web Design isn’t just a concept of making a website pretty. There’s a lot of hidden depth behind the trade, from SEO and responsive design through to functionality and marketing tools. A freshly done website does more than “wow” visitors, but also makes sure that the visit itself is seamless, targeted, and ultimately helps you drive sales.
We like to think of web design as the “online salesperson” that helps sell products through your brand. Even if your informational website doesn’t have e-commerce functionality, its ability to reach the visitor makes it an all-important touchpoint that will drive retail sales. Even if you’re not selling, you’re promoting the brand, which ultimately helps sell your product.
Like with all good sales strategy, your website needs to be supported by marketing. Your website works for you in more ways than one, so there are many KPI’s and facets to consider. We’ll walk you through our top 3 marketing functionalities that impact, or are impact by, proper web design. Tweak your website to be the best “online salesperson” it can be!
1. Remarketing
Tools such as AdRoll are used in remarketing campaigns to drive visits into sales. These tools typically require you to add a SmartPixel to the site pages that you want to flag for retargeting (typically every site page). One typically places the SmartPixel in the footer of the site to save time, amongst other reasons. Unlike other online marketing tools, the goal of remarketing is not to increase visits to your site but rather to increase the conversion rate of your site itself.
What does remarketing look like?
Web design comes into play when your remarketing tool links to different areas of your site. Say for example, you sell a variety of clothes during the summer season. A visitor lands on your site, searches for boots, and leaves. When a remarketing tool kicks in and shows your past visitor an ad for snow jackets, the ad can lead directly to your product directory of snow jackets. The same thing can be done for online sales, special deals, and other offers.
Good web design will keep your visitors engaged and interested, but remarketing pushes that visit further into a sale. Once a remarketed visitor is guided to your landing page, BAM! Web design takes place to encapsulate the user experience and make a sale. Marketing and web design. Working hand-in-hand!
2. Conversion Optimization
If you’re interested in website traffic, chances are that you’re used to using Google Analytics. But are you using Google Analytics to its fullest extent? On top of tracking simple KPI’s such as traffic and length of visit, try adding some conversion metrics into the mix. Using a combination of Google Analytics and Google AdWords integration, you can estimate the effectiveness of your website in its ability to turn visitors into customers.
It’s important to measure website traffic, but traffic means nothing if visitors are not converting.
3. Customer Journey Path
Perhaps the most powerful use of Web Design analysis for marketing is mapping out the customer journey. The Customer Journey is the entire process by which a visitor decides to purchase your product. It goes something like this:
- Need Creation (I’m hungry/Winter is coming/My laptop broke)
- Product Discovery (Let’s google some businesses) < This is where SEO (organic) and PPC (paid) take place
- Product Comparison < This is where Branding and Web Design takes place
- Product Purchase (I like your product the most!)
The product comparison stage is the most important stage of the customer journey. This is also where Branding and Web Design work their magic, having a hand-in-hand relationship with your customer’s perception of your product. Customer Decision-making is the deal-breaker in this process. While marketing works to drive numbers to your site, web design works to turn those visits into sales. By mapping out the customer journey through tools such as Google Analytics, you can essentially pinpoint the exact marketing campaigns you need.
Use the customer journey path to identify metrics that work and don’t work for you, tracking numbers such as visits over time, time spent on page, the ratio of visits:sales,
- Do you have low traffic and low sales? PPC Marketing is the most straightforward plan here.
- Do you have high traffic and low sales? Remarketing gets you the most bang for your buck.
- Do you have a lot of bounces on your site? Your ads are not reaching the right people, and you need to update the copy/creatives.
- Do you have a lot of page views in one area but not the other? Use that to your advantage in remarketing, or use a similar tone to drive content on other pages.
Web design and marketing go hand-in-hand, and both should not exist without the other. Interested in crafting a truly unique marketing experience for your visitors? Visit us at our marketing agency in downtown Vancouver, or give us a quick email. We’d love to talk about how we can bring value to your business! We always have chocolate.