Most small businesses have websites, but aren’t realizing the full value from them. In today’s modern world of internet searches and e-commerce, you need to be “found” online. You need to be discovered through organic searches made by potential customers looking for you. Understanding the value your website can bring to your business, and how to turn it into a marketing and sales machine, is key to driving new business.

In this article, we give a short overview of how to design a marketing-driven website and some tips on generating traffic. As you’ll discover, there are many channels and avenues that you can use to engage potential customers. And one of the new exciting ways that businesses are seeing success is through an unlikely source: Business texting. 

Website Marketing 101

20 years ago, most businesses set up websites because they believed, “that’s just what everyone does.” It was seen as simply a brochure that lists basic information. They may not have realized the value in building an effective website, nor understood anything about SEO (search engine optimization) or SEM (search engine marketing.) The world has undergone a digital transformation and businesses are now dependent upon search engines to drum up new business. They’re advertising on social sites to catch potential customers where they hang out. A website is now a critical piece of your business marketing strategy. Your website is a tool to convert potential customers who have found you via social media, word-of-mouth, advertisements, internet searches, and more.

Your goal should be to drive as much traffic as possible to your website, keep visitors there as long as possible, and collect contact information. Why? Because digital marketing requires intense engagement with visitors to understand what they’re looking for and when they most likely want to make a purchase.

Your website needs to be a hub for content, resources, information, and community. By supporting your visitors with valuable content, you’re demonstrating your credibility and authority in your particular industry, which makes selling products or services that much easier to sell. The added bonus of building a strong web presence is that search engines will favor your site over others, raising your score to eventually appear on the first page of results (the gold standard of SEM.)

Are you sold on the value of your website yet?

If so, then you understand why it’s so important to drive traffic to your site. Once you’ve captured your audience’s attention, you have ample opportunity to market to them, to nurture their interests, and to keep them coming back time and again until they’re ready to convert to being your customer.

Business Texting Versus Other Ad Channels

Traditional digital marketing uses various channels to advertise and/or create “click worthy” content to drive traffic to a website. Depending on your industry, you may want to advertise or promote content such as blog posts, guides, infographics, etc. on social media sites such as Instagram or LinkedIn. On your website, you need to build landing pages where you can promote specific products or services with the goal to gather contact information using a form.

Is Social Media Advertising Worth It?

Social media conversion rates are pretty unremarkable and have an industry standard of between 2-5%. This means that marketers would need to pay for and publish an enormous amount of advertising pieces to gain any real traction with prospects. And while social sites allow for targeting of demographics based on job roles, industries, age ranges, location etc., it’s still taking a “spray and pray” approach to marketing where quantity is favored over quality. Considering the expense of advertising on social sites, it’s difficult for many small businesses to justify the ROI.

Email Marketing is Becoming Obsolete

Email open rates have held steady across various industries for the past decade with an average of around 20%. This isn’t bad, but remember that an email recipient can easily scan a subject line and either delete the email entirely or ignore it, without the email being opened. This means that your emails can easily get disregarded before they’ve had a chance to make an impression. And with the inundation of marketing emails that most people receive, yours are likely to end up in the trash. Again, this means you’re faced with producing quantity over quality to get your message across.

Business Texting is More Reliable

When considering the amount of time and resources many companies put towards their email and social marketing strategies, they aren’t getting the most bang for their buck. Now consider that nearly 100% of people are likely to open a text (and read it within the first 5 minutes of receiving it!)

This is why marketers are paying attention and are seeing business texting as the next big thing in digital advertising to drive website traffic. What’s even better is that once you’ve started engaging one-on-one with customers via text, they’re more likely to keep communicating that way. This allows you to open up conversations that can drive leads to your site and improve sales.

How You Can Use Business Texting to Drive Traffic

Traditional marketing can be expensive. Social media ad campaigns and pay-per-click campaigns on search engines can be cost prohibitive to many small businesses. Business texting is relatively inexpensive and it offers more bang for your buck. Whereas traditional marketing is broad and generic, business texting can be targeted and specific. You can choose to send highly personalized messages directly to prospects and existing customers and drive them to your site.

By embedding links and pictures in business texting communication, you can reach out directly with highly attractive and click-worthy messages. Perhaps you’ve launched a new product. Text a picture and a call to action with a link to a product page on your site. Or else text a prospect an exclusive offer for a limited time and include a link to a landing page with a form embedded. 

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There are many opportunities to open conversations with your potential customers and improve customer service to existing ones. Contact or text us at 757-818-8010 today to learn more about how you can build business texting into your marketing strategy to improve sales conversion rates, drive website traffic, and super-charge your customer experience.