Webinars on website design, social media, and marketing strategy fascinate me.
I just spent an hour on a webinar that I thought wouldn’t really apply to me, but hey, Thursday is webinar day so why not? I’m sure I’ll take something away from it. It was called “Q & A with the Masters of Marketing” a pretty lofty name in my opinion, but I decided to tune it.
It quickly became apparent that the majority of audience questions were centered around e-commerce, but the audience had submitted a lot of variety in its questions so I tuned in and learned quite a bit!
Probably the most relevant thing I took away from the entire 1 hour discussion was that there is only one type of e-commerce shipping…FREE! If you aren’t offering “free” shipping and you’re trying to sell a product over the big wide web, beware, your competitors are going to get that sale. That makes perfect sense to me. As a consumer, I even use the filter for FREE shipping in my searches, so why would anyone choose to NOT ship their packages for free. I’m sure there are many reasons (haste makes waste!), but for the purpose of this post, we’ll forego a lenghty discussion.
What I also found engaging was the discussion that centered around startups and when it was appropriate to “launch” marketing efforts.
Here’s where I challenge you: There was one school of thought that said, “Wait until you have a website to drive people to before launching social.” Another felt, “Go ahead and start being social and making connections before your website is ready.” Yet a third said (basically) “Do it in whatever order you want; it doesn’t matter that much.” That really started me thinking about what I tell my own clients–in whatever industry.
What I decided (and your differing thoughts are always welcome) was that, it depends. I know, I know, a cop-out answer.
But I think it does.
One client I have has a strong need to educate consumers about his product before he can begin to “sell” it or see the brand expanded beyond the local area. Without that educational/informational content on his product website, people will have little to go on to learn more, so I’ve advised him to populate the website while quietly launching some social channels and posting regularly to them to prepare for a later growth.
BUT…then I’m talking over the other side of my cup when I tell another client in the lawn care industry to NOT wait until their website is done. I mean, we pretty much all know what “lawn care” is, right? So, yes, he’s going to need a functional website, and yes, he’s going to want to show his “special sauce” on there, but I’ve a feeling his social presence can grow much more quickly with immediate attention.
Finally, when would I go all out as the third source said, “In whatever order you want?” I remember launching a website and 18 Facebook/Google pages all at once because the company was sooooo far behind and really urgently needed everything done simultaneously?
So, I guess it depends…
That’s what I think. What’s your best practice? Website completed first? Go ahead and soft launch with the website functional but not fully populated? Do it in whatever order feels right?
I don’t know. You tell me.
I DO know these wonderful free webinars are brought to you by score.org where you can find both local (https://swmi.score.org/) and remote training resources and templates to help your business grow. Check them out for yourself https://www.score.org/live-webinars.
Let’s talk. I love to discuss marketing strategy hannahgoldcommunications@gmail.com.
