Successful Integrated Websites from Purpose Media

At Purpose Media we recognise that most businesses sell through multiple sales channels. The recent growth in web activity means that the Internet has to be seen as an important way to reach existing and potential customers.

Our 10 years experience of dealing with a wide variety of businesses, selling their services and products online, means that we are ideally placed to advise you on the best way to achieve a significant return on investment on your web activities. While this is generally thought of in terms of direct sales a web site can also be an effective way to generate new business referrals for a company that sells services.

Purpose Media has 4 core services. These are:

• Website Design: Creating attractive, eye catching designs that engage with customers and direct them in a way that suits the web merchant
• Website Development: Bespoke development so that the web site dovetails with your existing business activities
• Sage Integration: Making sure your multi-channel business can function with maximum efficiency
• Website Marketing: Devising marketing activities to suit your business that complements existing marketing plans

Return on Investment

Our main interest in web technology is in its potential to deliver commercial returns for our business clients. We rely heavily on objective assessments of site performance to determine what activities will deliver the best returns for your business. Again our experience helps our clients to avoid common mistakes, keeping them ahead of their competitors. Wherever possible we look to connect our sites into other systems like Search Engines and Social Networking platforms to leverage the power of these networks, to provide much needed traffic to our client’s website.

To find out how we could help you call Matt Wheatcroft or Rob Marshall on 01623 600694

The chart shown below is real life data from one of our clients and it shows how the number of visits from offline sources, paid for search engine advertising and the organic search engine results has varied over the life of the site.

Offline marketing strategy

It is worth noting that this business is working with a marketing budget and has been pro-active identifying offline marketing opportunities that can be used alongside online activity. You will see that shortly after the site first opened for business in 2008, the majority of the site visits were generated through offline marketing activity. This offline activity combined with bookmarking by site user has seen the traffic from this source continue to grow over the past 2 years. This has been achieved with regular updates to the site with both content and evolutionary design changes playing their part in this growth.

Paid for search

Google Adwords campaigns were first undertaken in 2009 and due to the success of this technique additional keyword phrases were targeted throughout the year. The tactical nature of paid for search engine advertising combined with excellent analytics reporting tools, means the cost effectiveness of the campaign could be monitored to ensure a return on investment was achieved. The list of paid for search keywords has continued to expand and the more productive phrases have been pursued more aggressively, over the past two years. This has seen a 33% increase in traffic between 2009 and 2010.

Organic search

The holy grail of any search marketing is to reduce advertising spend while growing search traffic. While this sounds counter intuitive it can be done by successfully optimising the web site so that it ranks well in the organic search results. If successful this strategy can have remarkable results as shown in figure 1 above. In year 1 the traffic sourced from organic search increased by 325% while in year 2 it increased by an astounding 643%. In terms of revenue the organic search produces approximately 3 times the volume produced by the next largest contributor.

How can Purpose Media help you?

If you would like to enjoy similar growth in your online business then call Matt Wheatcroft at Purpose Media to discuss your ideas.

The brief: To develop an eCommerce website solution capable of launching the ‘all-in-one’ into the marketplace via World Wide Web. The site needed to be:-

• Appealing to the consumer and geared towards generating sales
• Functional in terms of being able to manage products that required personalisation
• Easy to administer to ensure ease of updating and management of orders
• Search engine friendly and with the ability to be optimised efficiently

The solution: The Purpose Media team took on the challenge and set about consulting with the client (by telephone and email!) to identify what unique features were required to ensure this unusual product was displayed and marketed effectively. The product proved a point that we consistently make i.e. that the best eCommerce websites are not ‘off the shelf’ but are tailored specifically to a clients business needs and around the product itself.

The job: Our team set about developing a bespoke website structure which incorporated a facility for personalising the garments and the administration area was developed with the knowledge that further development might be required as the demands of the business grew.

The marketing : An initial pay-per-click (Google Adwords) campaign proved successful in generating some business by the simple fact that the product had little competition, however the ‘goose’ was about to lay a ‘golden egg’ in the form of the ‘social networking’ revolution.

A growing number of comments on forums and blogs drew the attention of the parental portal website www.mumsnet.com. As mums were busy writing about their purchases news was spreading fast and the result was increased website traffic (visitors) and more SALES!

The business: We would like to compliment our client on her sheer determination to make her business succeed as well as acknowledge that it was her willingness to work in partnership and take on board advice and recommendations offered by our team, as well as our development and search engine expertise that has ensured the success story which is the ‘all-in-one-company’.

Did it work?  Oh Yes, and more…. To date the All In One Company has generated just tens of thousands in direct sales via the website alone in 7 months (November 2008 to May 2009). The website also generates over 6,000 unique visitors per month.

All this from a strange but truly brilliant idea… and there’s still more idea’s in the pipeline – “watch this space”.

www.the-all-in-one-company.co.uk

With this in mind you have to look at the range of services available to help your website move up the search engine rankings and generate more traffic. Core search engine techniques & best practice are the easiest and cheapest way to keep in touch, but there are additional services available that compliment these and will produce even better results. These include:

Best Practice (Organic SEO) – This is one of the most important areas in website design and successful marketing. Your website has to work for you and this method of simple “best practice” can be the most cost effective marketing you will ever take part in. I would always suggest using XML site maps, Keyword rich URL threads and using different Meta Titles, Descriptions and Keywords on every single page. This method combined will allow the search engines to rank each and every page on their own merits and always update the search engines on a daily basis every time you add, amend or delete a web page. This method has proven to work for all of our clients. 

Blogs & Blogging – Blogs are fast becoming a fundamental part of website marketing more so on a daily basis. Blog posts are extremely search engine friendly and can travel up the search engines within hours or days of creating a new blog article. A lot of people still don’t really understand what blogging is all about and to be honest it’s really simple. You have to think of blogs as a good old fashioned news section on your website but 100 percent more powerful in terms of visibility and search engine optimisation. You can use blogs for informal information and formal business information either way just make sure the articles are relevant and that you are targeting specific keywords that will benefit your business and website. Blogging is a must in today’s market place and I would advise you create a new article once per week, if not at least once a month.

Pay Per Click management – PPC is now becoming a little old hat in the world of internet marketing but that doesn’t mean isn’t still affective and because it’s proven and it does work. It’s how you manage your campaigns effectively and efficiently that matters. If you get your campaign management wrong it could cost you a small fortune with little return. However, if you get this correct it can prove to generate income on a regular basis, put your website at the top of the first page on major search engines and generate income and profit for your website, which at the end of the day it’s all about “Return on investment”. PPC comes in many forms, the main providers of PPC are Google Adwords and Overture which most people are aware of. You need to consider this method very seriously as part of your marketing plan, but you must consider your approach for campaign management to manage your expectation and budget.

Email marketing – This is an absolute must in terms of marketing, you have to keep in touch with your existing current and potential customers to keep your business & services in their mind on a constant basis. I would suggest marketing to your customer base on a monthly basis to simply keep in touch. You can actually approach this in a number of ways i.e. Offers, Discounts & Latest News etc… this can be approached as a impact flyer or soft sell informative approach. Either way you are keeping your business at the forefront of your industry and in their mind and that’s what matters. E-Mail flyers are proven to work and generate interest on a number of levels, but you do have to keep your information fresh each time and there is a fine line between informing people and annoying them with SPAM. If you approach this in the correct manner, you will do well and that’s fact.

Marketing Plans & Strategies – Short & Term goals – Planning is key to any successful marketing plan, you have to look forward to what you are trying to achieve in the first place and then set out a number of achievable short term and long term goals. When planning a marketing strategy it depends on the actual market place to are targeting, the numbers you are looking to attract in terms of visitors and income generation. Then you have to look at a realistic budget to get this retiurn you are looking for, this is so important. Every business is different because everyone has different objectives, budget and goals. It’s all about creating a marketing plan and strategy that works for your business. I would advise that you take professional advice with your marketing plan to ensure you know about all the different ways to market for your particular business and ensure you take advice on managing your own expectations and budget.

Social Networking – Social Networking is one of the latest growth area’s in internet marketing and is changing way business websites attract new potential customers & visitors. The likes of Facebook, My Space & Bebo plus lots more have a vast amount of subscribers on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. You have to consider that social networks carry a vast amount of power in the current internet market place. Over 90 million people subscribe to Facebook alone, all these users will be internet users and linked to a number of friends anything from 10 to 500 +  contacts per user. You need to make your website accessible to Social Networks to ensure users can share your website pages with like minded contacts. Social Networks are one of the cheapest ways to generate free viral marketing campaigns. You can also use social networks to advertise your business directly by creating business profile pages and encouraging people to join your groups. This is not always for every business but it’s something that must be explored first to find out if it can be a benefit, otherwise you might me missing a trick.

Micro Sites – These are great additions to your main website and allow you to try something different to attract new visitors or keep existing customers interested to get them to return. Micro Sites can work in a number of ways from competitions, data collection to informative additions. We have recently undertaken a number of Micro Sites for a number of companies that have proven to be a success on a number of levels in terms of generating traffic in a different way to their main website and also creating viral competitions. Micro Site have to be created with Purpose in mind and need to have pre-set defined targets and goals. The nice thing about micro sites are that you can try something different to conventional website design and function and methods.

Video & Rich Media – It’s an old cliché that “a picture speaks a thousand words”, but let’s be honest it’s very true.  What with broadband and the internet moving on, becoming more fast and efficient year on year Video is now becoming a chosen media on websites.  If you think about a video within a website it can sit in a relatively small space on the website until required and look really good from a dynamic design point of view and say a thousand words in small allocated area on the website. In order to stand out from the crowd it’s important you get across the point of why you are different to others and the services that you are able to provide. A video could offer an easy way of being different and adding that personal touch from you and your business to your current and potential clients. There are now also a number of video related search engines and social media networks that allow for Video media which can ultimately drive traffic back to your website. You have to ensure that your videos are to the point, delivered in the correct manner and more importantly looks professional and portrays your business in the way you want or require.

Affiliate Marketing – This method of marketing as been around for a while now, but it is generally an unexploited resource for a lot of SME’s and serious website owners. Affiliate marketing in general terms means “Partnership Marketing” allowing your business to be seen on other websites either free of charge, or most likely for a fee, working along the lines of Pay Per Click (CPC), Pay Per Accusation (CPA) or Pay Per Thousand (CPM). There are now hundreds if not thousands of affiliate networks around offering to help businesses generate more traffic and more importantly income generation via your website.  The “key” to success in the Affiliate marketing game is to find a network that can cater for your specific business requirements, industry or market sector. Once you have found the correct company to work with, you then need to check out the set-up costs if any and the long term commitments if any. Affiliate networks are a fantastic way to market if you get it working correctly for you. You can place your branding, products and website in front of people without any competition from like minded competitors. It’s up to the Affiliate marketing companies to find perfect complementary websites to sell your products for you. The better the standard of website your are advertising on the more you are likely to see and the more the Affiliate marketing and partner website generates in income – Creating a Win–Win–Win scenario…. But we careful you don’t offer too much percentage of sales or pay too much for PPC, you have to do your maths first ensure you are still profitable.

Behavioral Targeting – Big Brother is watching you… you may have noticed in the news over the past few weeks / months that “Behavioural Targeting” is becoming more and more popular in the marketing arena and more so in the internet marketing arena. If you agree with it or not, that’s a matter of opinion, of which we are all entitled. For businesses it really is something you need to consider, techniques for behavioural targeting are becoming more and more advanced every day, looking at internet marketing based on times of day, gender, geographical area and much much more. From a business point of view it could be the most perfect form and cost effective way of marketing for small and large businesses. The likes of Tesco and Matalan to name but two have been monitoring their customers and target audience for years creating an extremely powerful operation for marketing, trends and buying power. With this technology becoming widely available to the smaller businesses and serious website owners, you can now play a part in this revolutionary marketing arena. 

Editorial & Contextual Marketing - Public Relations (PR) is a massive part of marketing and generating credibility for your business and brand.  There are now many ways in the world of internet marketing to link your website or website content into forums, blog articles and other websites using “editorial and contextual” marketing techniques. It’s all about knowing where to look in your industry, sector or target market because you want your website and website content only to appear on relevant and credible websites. This form of marketing can be both free or paid for but if the website you are using to advertise your content is well known and drives lots of traffic it can be very beneficial to say the least. The quality of content is “key” to ensure it is used, and I would always recommend using a PR expert to help you write the content and deliver it in the correct manner.  Editorial, Contextual marketing and PR in general are always something every business need to consider. When employing experts you may consider the cost to be expensive, but if you get the correct advice think of the coverage and creditability gained. Compare that to how much you may spend on brochure’s, yell pages adverts and other marketing it might actually work out being a lot cheaper and beneficial than you think!

The best results are produced with a sustained and consistent marketing effort. Purpose Media can help you with this by continually promoting, analysing and maintaining your search engine rankings.

If you need help with your website or marketing plan we would be more than happy to arrange an appointment or to have an initial chat to discuss your requirements. For further details about website and marketing from Purpose Media contact Kathy or Matt on tel 01623 600694 or email info@purposemedia.co.uk.

Here are some interesting figures coming out of the report.

• Around half (49%) of all eight to 17 -year-olds with internet access have a profile on a social networking site.
• Ownership of a home computer has risen from 29% in 1998 to 70% in 2007
• Web use is higher among men than women but, overall, 34% listen to the radio or watch TV on the web and 12% use file-sharing sites.

When you look at the figures it’s no wonder that Internet sales have risen steadily over the past few years. You just have to consider that the youngsters of today will be the ‘business owners’ and ‘buyers’ of tomorrow to appreciate that the trend for buying on-line and generally ‘doing business’ is likely to continue.

Ref: BBC News article entitled ‘Third of men ‘live with parents’.

In terms of the Internet, sales figures have seen persistent growth compared to the High Street demonstrating a continuing and growing confidence in the Internet as a way of sourcing products and services. Marketing is the key and it is vital to be seen and remembered so that your business can make the most of any opportunities that do present themselves. Here are a few tips or considerations that might help:

• Is your logo and brand strong? You want to be remembered so make it happen.
• Does your website reflect your current products and service? An upgraded site is a worthwhile investment if it brings in more sales! (Return on investment)
• Does your website function in such a way that compliments the way you do business? By reviewing how your internal systems relate to your website you may be able to develop integrated solutions or set up additional reporting that will help save duplication and therefore save you time and money!
• Are you pro-active in your marketing activities? Pay-per-Click activities can kick start your enquiries and social networking can help with viral marketing (blogs/youtube and facebook are fast becoming working business tools)
• Do you make the most of potential business coming through your door already? Don’t assume that customers know what other services you offer-tell them (cross-sell/up-sell)

Internet marketing can prove challenging and expensive but also a vital tool for getting your website in front of the right people. If you are selling products, either to the end user (retail) or to the trade (wholesale) then don’t under estimate the power of the Internet, but also don’t assume that success is guaranteed.

Marketing holds the key for sustaining business and developing future sales growth so rather than view new leaflets or websites as a cost consider what messages they can carry and to how many people you can influence and inform. Recent adverts on our local radio station Trent FM have included some major car dealers and companies promoting their websites. The value of advertising even when times are hard will keep your brand in the spotlight.

Other ways to market yourself include:

• Networking! Join a local networking group to help create awareness of your products or services. Join a BNI group for example for regular breakfast meetings or perhaps attend or exhibit at a local event by your local Chamber of Commerce or Business Link.
• Advertising! Consider who your local audience is and the best way to communicate with them whether that is paper based (leaflets/flyers), newpaper / magazine advertising or interactive solutions like radio advertising, television advertising or internet based advertising.

Most of all never under estimate the value of referrals and leads from customers,business partners and associates. Word of mouth will always be one of the key ways of generating more business and testimonials are the icing on the cake. So what are you waiting for. Get out there! Be seen! Do business!