One of the great things about having a website is that it gives your business a home base — a place where you control the branding, the message and the action items for your customers.
Your website allows you to create and manage the experience you want your customers to have with your products and services.
Though they can certainly provide great business marketing opportunities, your main interaction with your customers shouldn’t be on Facebook or LinkedIn — it’s your website, where you can control the experience or the context.
A lot of people get that — that your website is the place where you customers should go to — but think that putting up a website is enough.
It isn’t. And it’s never going to be.
We’ve talked before about telling your customers to come to your website. You know you can’t rely solely on Google to send traffic to you, or hope that your message will be spread virally on its own.
You have to get your customers’ attention. And you have to do it consistently, or they’ll forget about you.
So what’s the best way to get your customers’ attention?
Be where they are. Connect with them in a way they’re used to connecting. It could be social media; it could be email marketing. It could be Google ads; it could be YouTube. It could be print; it could be mobile. Know who your customers are before you decide the best medium.
Stand out. Do something they’re not expecting, but something they’ll appreciate. I’ve blogged about this before — your marketing is about standing out, not following the pack. When everyone zigs, you should zag; it’s much more likely you’ll get noticed when you’re doing something different than everyone else.
Give them something they’ll value. This doesn’t mean you have to deliver a physical item; it could be an experience or a feeling. This Coca-Cola Life video has nothing to do with drinking soda, but it connects to every person who’s had a kid. Coke is selling the experience of their soda, so they’re giving you the feeling of relating to what’s happening in these people’s lives.
Ask for their attention. This goes back to our Field of Dreams analogy; they won’t come just because you built it. There’s plenty of other opportunities for your customers online; you need to ask for their attention. Make them interact with you. Don’t wait for them to realize you have something of value; tell them about it.