Advertising 101 spends a lot of time on demographics and targeting the correct kind of audience for your products or services. The same thing can be said of your website. Is it hitting the right kind of notes with your target market or does it leave them with an overall feeling of blah? Are you reaching the audience you want to reach or are you casting your net into the sea of the World Wide Web and hoping you catch something?
Are you using all your resources and your company's strengths? If not, your web design company can help you create a website that not only appeals to your target market but keeps your return on investment high. This means going to your design company with a marketing plan in place.
Target Markets Determine Your Website Design
As the client, it is your responsibility to inform your web designer about who your target market is. This can have a significant impact on design elements and site navigation. Your target market is highly dependent upon what you offer and more often than not, your web design company will not do the research for you. But once the groundwork is there, they can help you target the market you want.
A caveat: some web design companies have an in-house marketing specialist who can help you through this part and can often make suggestions. Often, this marketing specialist can help you integrate ongoing campaigns, such as your current print campaign, your email newsletter, the SMS sign-up and more. But it is rare that they will design the entire campaign for you. And here rare really means never.
The first thing your web company can do is create a look and feel that appeals to your target audience and fits your branding without delving into the clichés. But the look/feel of your website is really decided by the potential customer who visits it. A visually stunning yet complex website may leave the older generation in the dust and a static website for a target audience of 18 year-olds will leave them cold.
Customizing For The Product or Service
For example, let us say you sell custom or vintage shaving razors and that is the focal point of your website. It is a high-end product meant to appeal to older men or men who love the vintage way of shaving. Your research suggests that this type of man often works a high-paying job and regularly indulges in designer goods. As a result, your web design company creates a site that has a hint of luxury, of leather and a male sensibility.
Your web design company can help bring the right type of customer to your webpage by creating search engine optimized content to lead people to your site. This also means building links and creating just the type of advertisement that would draw that type of male -- the type who buys antique shaving razors to your site. This means your website will be linked to those of similar persuasion.
This type of site building will not only attract the right kind of man, but the people who know that kind of man: his wife, girlfriend, the subordinate at work who wants to get him something good for Christmas, the mother. By creating content that caters to your target audience, you attract not just the people who buy products for their own personal use, but those who know that these products appeal to people like him.
Streamlining the User Experience
Finally, the web design company can help you reach your target audience by streamlining the user experience. Not just for you, but also for your company. They can make working the website a snap for you, so you can easily upload new content and reach your customers. You can easily get back to them because you have a content management system that allows you to sort through requests and orders. This automates your business, making reaching your target audience even easier.
On the front-end, they can make the experience something a customer will easily return to. This means the website design company will create the sort of interaction a user craves: a simple one, an exciting one and one that keeps them coming back for more.
