Your Conversion Hub. Your Relevance. Your Branding
Go back 15 years, before social media was as pervasive as it is today, the rationale to explain why you need an outfitter website was pretty straight forward. There was no other option, no other way to be online. Now there are more platforms and channels, and formats. An overwhelming set of choices. These choices are all potential ways for you to meet and greet your future clients and they all have their place, and they can all be part of your digital marketing mix. A simple argument for social media is that if your market is there, then it makes sense for you to be there. And yes, the hunting and fishing market is most definately on social media. our primary caution before you dive head first into every social media channel you can find is that you will get more from doing one social media channel very well, than you will get from doing several poorly.
We have been asked the question many times before, do I need a website if I am on Facebook, and X, and Instagram? Our answer is still a very strong YES. We will offer you our reasoning below.
Your Conversion Hub
Social media is a wonderful sharing platform and great introduction. We like to view social media as a brand awareness opportunity. But keep in mind that social media is a poor lead conversion platform and a poor channel to provide you useful results tracking. Yes, someone interested in your business can send you a DM, to tag you, or call you, and that's great. But social media is a community of interest and a group discussion forum. What a website offers you is the ability to track where your results are coming from. What Marketing activities are generating conversions (leads). A properly built website will include analytics and event tracking that will help you understand where your results are coming from, including the traffic to your site from your social media channels and how much of that turns into inquiries for your services. Imagine knowing how much traffic comes to your site organically (free search traffic), from paid sources, from social media, from your email campaigns and from referral links. Then also to have the stats that show how much of this traffic is converting into something of value (leads and bookings). A basic principle of Marketing is to pursue incremental improvements, by doing more of what works, and less of what doesn't. With your website as your Conversion Hub, you will know where to invest your marketing dollars and your time.
Your Relevance
A website is a wide open opportunity to explain why you should be considered as the outfitter of choice. Most of your market is exploring options. Google searches for your location and the species that you hunt. Being found on Google is a key part of that (see our articles on SEO). But, once you have their attention, once they have seen your website in the search results and clicked on your link, whether that traffic comes from an ad campaign, from organic sources, from social media, or any other, now your website needs to explain why your outfitter business needs to go beyond found to being relevant and considered, then finally chosen. You have ultimate control on your website, to promote your business, to tell your story, to have others tell it for you, to show off your expertise and your experience. This all contributes to your website traffic taking the next step by concluding that you as an outfitter are a relevant contender, that you should be considered in the running for their final decision. A website gives you the latitude through pages, image galleries, blog posts, testimonials, stories, videos, to help the website visitor come to the decisions you want them to make.
Your Branding
A website is your place on the internet to make your digital mark. Your logo, your tag line, your information is shown how you want, as the primary branding. Not as secondary branding to the social media channel. Let's face it, your facebook page is first a facebook page, then it is about your outfitter business. That is the nature of posting your content on someone else's platform. Your website is your brand, is focused on your business and is not a page full of links to other content, to your competition, to other distractions. Social media traffic is often just glancing traffic, scrolling through a topic of interest without any real intent to perform a task or no real intent to engage. A visitor on your site has the ability to dig as deep as the content you provide. Highly qualifies traffic will want to learn as much about your business as they can. Then those that find the content that match with their intent proceed to contact you, they convert from traffic to a lead. A click on phone number link, a click on an email link, a submission of your contact form, all a result of having the ability to show your brand, your offering.
Building Your Marketing Mix
A website is a component of your Marketing Mix. We at Netnotic believe it is the Hub of your digital marketing, where you want to drive your traffic, from all sources, so that you can convert them to a lead by offering your brand and proof of your relevance. Need some help?
If you have any questions?
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