A recent study conducted by Demandbase and Focus proves that a company’s website is a critically important source of new sales leads. The only lead source more effective is referrals and personal connections. The study also found that even when the sales lead originated from another source, nearly all leads end up reviewing the website at some point during the purchasing process.
Posts Tagged ‘powerful websites’
New Study Reveals Your Website Is Key To B2B Sales
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011There’s A Blog And There’s A Website…And Now There’s A Blogsite!
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
LocalDirective is working on a project that we are really excited about. We aren’t quite ready to announce it yet, but we wanted to go ahead and introduce a new concept – the blogsite.
Definition: Blogsite
The term “blog” is a short version of “weblog” which is an ongoing, frequently updated chronicle of information and links. Blogs were meant to allow for quick and easy publication of information. This is different than the traditional website. Updating a website requires technical skills which meant that the process to publish information was slower. However, the power and abilities of a website allowed for robust, interactive delivery of information. A blogsite is a combination of the blog and website where the delivery of information was fast and easy while still maintaining the power of a website.
Our Mission
We were approached by a company that wanted to create a community of like-minded people that facilitated the sharing of information. Since this was meant to be a community, they needed to be able to easily update and share information and allow for other members of the community to share as well. They also wanted to be able to deliver functionality that, due to its complexity, was traditionally delivered through a website. All of this community involvement was a key part of this company’s marketing program so in the end, this project was meant to increase brand recognition and consumer loyalty.
LocalDirective Takes The Challenge
The LocalDirective team carefully reviewed this goal and developed a list of requirements. Then it came time to determine what functionality would be used to build this community. What resulted is the birth of the blogsite.
Do You Need A Blogsite?
With today’s emphasis on businesses incorporating social media into marketing you should, if you aren’t already, be developing your social media strategy. At the heart of social media marketing is the concept of community. You can develop community using traditional social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Or, you could choose to build your own channel as was the case of this company. It is too early to determine whether the community will show the results that are projected, but early indications are that it will exceed expectations!
Keeping Your Customers In Mind During Website Development: An Introduction
Friday, June 4th, 2010Awhile ago, I wrote about the foundational elements of building a strong online presence. One of the three major components is a powerful website. I define a powerful website as one that actually accomplishes its purpose quite well. Operatively, then, a website must have a purpose. Putting on my MBA hat for just a moment, I would like for all websites to have a ‘measurable’ purpose. The world of qualitative assessments is fine if you are choosing a piece of art, but in the world of websites that either work or do not work, quantitative is key. So, please, let’s define a quantitative purpose. Of course, the one that immediately comes to mind is either direct revenue impact OR a leading indicator of revenue impact. Online sales. Phone calls. Form completions. Coupon downloads. You get it.
With that as my “obvious” starting point, I look out into the world of existing websites. Long past my shock, I find this online world very curious, and populated with some real interesting characters. Not to besmirch any of my online colleagues, but most frequently I find these questionable participants in either web development or in SEO. And really, all snootiness aside, I see how this situation occurred. A decade ago, marketers and business strategists were just beginning to grasp the impact of this channel, this media. The main players in this world – at that time – were programmers and developers, and lots of other folks that did not bring a business perspective, nor did they know how to even determine the business questions to ask during the development process.
What they did, and exceptionally well, was to deliver some level of whiz-bangness to web development. I would never diminish the extraordinary ideas they (collectively) develop and implement, much to our awe and amazement.
The problem with this approach, though, is that it often left (and leaves) the real target of a website long behind. That is, the customer. The one who – through purchases – actually funds the website. And this is the fatal error of most websites, even today. If you don’t start with the customer, who they are, how they buy, what they need to make decisions…well, you are going to just end up with another ineffective website.
So now we’ve talked about a fundamental cause of ineffective websites. Next time, I will tackle what it means to keep your customers in mind during website development.
