Using Web Design to Boost Your Marketing Strategy
When you think of marketing strategies, your mind probably goes straight to how you can advertise and brand your business. The truth is, your marketing strategy’s success is influenced by a variety of factors — including your website. Having a solid website improves your marketing strategy by bolstering your presence, perception and trustworthiness to potential customers on the internet.
First Impressions
Whether or not you’re an online business, your customers’ perception of your brand is extremely important to a successful marketing strategy.
Have you ever heard about a business, decided to research it and not been able to find anything? It’s unsettling. Not having a website for your business presents the illusion that you’re trying to withhold or skew information. In today’s world, all businesses should have a website. Many companies offer bundled domain and hosting packages that can have you up and running for a week’s time and a few hundred dollars.
Once you have a website, the issue becomes its quality. There are certain design elements, such as contrast and spacing, that are essential to making a website appeasing to people. You want your website to be easy to read and use, but not at the cost of its visual appeal. By implementing a clean, modern website design, you’re giving customers a reason (and the ability) to use your website.
Trustworthiness
Building trust with your customer base is a vital part of realizing your marketing strategy. Customers should have no security-related reservations about using your website.
When browsing certain websites, you may notice the URL begins with “HTTPS” next a padlock symbol. This is an indication of a website’s security certificates, a good indicator of how seriously a company treats the privacy and security of their business and customers. Customers want to feel safe using your website, especially if they’re providing financial information. Having security certificates is recommended not only for their practical purpose, but for their effect on customers’ perception of your brand.
A less in-depth solution to gaining customer trust is to present your business in a professional manner. This means content that’s useful (not spam) and free of spelling and grammatical errors. After all, you probably wouldn’t take a loan from a bank whose website is riddled with spelling errors.
Usability
Perhaps the most important factor of a website is its usability. Usability is crucial to your marketing strategy because it’s the final step in a chain process. A potential customer is only that if they can accomplish the final step; utilizing your product or service. Sure, you can design a beautiful website complete with all the latest in security measures, but what good is that website if your customers can’t use it for its intended purpose?
A good website should encourage (but not force) the user into taking some sort of action. This can be achieved by implementing related index page content and easy-to-use navigation that point the customer in the direction of purchasing your product or service.
If your customers visit your website only to find they’re unable to contact you for more information, they’re probably not going to be your customers for long. The internet allows for such vast availability that most customers can’t be bothered with a website that isn’t immediately usable. Customers (particularly those using mobile phones) will also have an instant aversion to websites that take too long to load.
To learn more about how your website can improve customers’ perception of your business, contact us today at Simplemachine Designs.
