It\’s a must.
Let me be clear. I am not going to talk here about Is Website Important for a Business or Not? I have already discussed the importance of coming online. Also something which Bill Gates said long back puts an end to this discussion.
\”If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business.\”
Bill Gates
Period.
Now what I would to like bring out to is why having a website is very important before starting your digital marketing campaigns. Let\’s understand it.
Website – The Data Mining Machine
Did you here the old saying \”Data is the new Oil\”? You would relate to it once you start using the data. But first let\’s understand what do we mean by Data here.
So when we say you would get data, this simply relates to your organisation, products and services. This is not unnecessary pile of data which makes no sense to your business.
No more is a website just useful for telling your story or mentioning about your location. It goes beyond that and let\’s you know which service or product of yours needs maximum attention. But how do you do all this? Where do you get all this data from?
The answer is Web Analytics (primarily Google Analytics). Let\’s understand what does Google Analytics do.
What does Google Analytics Do?
Google Analytics simply connects your website to a backend tool where you can measure each and every aspect of activities done on your website. You would get answer to all the above mentioned question (in the What does Data Mean? image) on Google Analytics.
Here is a snap shot of Audience Overview page of this website (www.ajaybinani.com) which you are currently reading.
What the little snippet above show\’s us is that in the last week, 24 people have visited the website, of which 19 were new users. They spent on an average 8 minute 23 seconds on the website.
And this is not just 1 percent of what Google Analytics can tell you. Imagine it telling you the products which are your cash cows and pages which are leading for people to exit your website !! This is like a self correction tool. Exiting, isn\’t it? Wait this is not enough.
Measuring performance reports of ads and campaigns
Have you ever thought about how are the ads and campaign which you are running on various digital marketing platforms, performing? You must be seeing their results on individual platforms and making changes as per necessary. How about if you can see performance report of all the campaigns on one platform? You can.
You can link all those social media campaigns and Google Ads to Google Analytics. As a result, you would be able to measure all at one place. Unfortunately, I haven\’t run any campaign to promote my blogs else would have shared with you the screenshot of the same 🙂
Another crucial reason for having a website before starting digital marketing would be Branding and Building Creditability.
Self-Branding & Building Creditability
When I say self branding this means, when you have a website, you can showcase all your products and services on your own website and need not send a client/prospective client to some aggregator\’s website (be it Amazon or Flipkart).
By no means, do I deny the relevance of aggregators. However, in addition to that, it\’s always better to have the same presented on your home website. Plus, as mentioned, we have the data which we can use later for re-marketing.
Regarding creditability, I would give you simple example. How often have you searched for a product on Amazon and when you were unsure, you searched about it on google. And don\’t you develop a level of trust if you find the product backed by a credible website? Says it all.
It need not be an e-commerce website. Even if it be an informative website, but it builds trust within the buyer.
Conclusion
As a result of the primary reasons mentioned above, here are my suggestions in short:
- Build a website before you start spending on digital marketing campaigns
- Link with Google Analytics (or any other web analytics tool) on Day 1
If you already have a website and would like to get it linked to Google Analytics, please subscribe to the page. In my next couple of blogs, I am going to guide on How to Link Google Analytics with your website.
Happy Marketing 🙂
