Are you operating a traditional website as your major marketing asset?

Sometime ago, a business owner reached out to me, requesting my help with marketing their product, which they had previously launched and was planning to relaunch. Like everything else, I needed to ask real questions. Get the data that I could use to make informed decisions and advice according.

So, I asked for information on how the last launch was done, conversion rate, traffic source, the whole nine yards...

I discovered that, by running paid advertising, this company used the wrong traffic source and a linear marketing plan.

If they had reached out sooner I would have advised on a different approach entirely and probably saved them a lot of wasted marketing dollars.

I’ll use this anonymous case study to draw lessons that will show why you need to think beyond executing only a traditional website online promotion model.

Ready? Let's move on.

As you may guess, I launched a full blown web marketing audit with the info I got from our anonymous case study, my goal was to check out the process visitors went through which I’d call the customer journey which will also uncover why a large number of their traffic visits fell through the cracks which resulted in low conversion rate, low registrations and ultimately low sales.

I didn't need to look for long, the answer was staring me right in the face.

This company paid for traffic and took that traffic through a traditional website. Interested prospects were sent to the home page and had to sign up via a contact form or something.

I'm sure a lot of savvy internet marketers reading this will go, 'Oh, yes! that's the problem, you don't send traffic to the homepage... blah... blah... blah...'

Alright! bring it in.

“If you believe that's the problem, you're right, but you're only partly right.”

But first let me state, that this true story is a clear example of why your tradition website could hurt your business and sticking with that model for the long haul will only cause business harm.

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In this post, I'm going to highlight why that is so. What does a traditional website have or don't have that is rendering it incapable to produce great and successful marketing results when used only by itself?

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And as I share this, you'll see all the insurmountable problems this company faced (without realizing it) that resulted to low leads and altogether sales below expectation.

However, I’m I advocating that you don’t need a website?

Absolutely not!

The biggest grossing businesses in the world today do so through a website.

The Amazon’s, Jumia, Marketing Brew, Indie Hackers, Quick Books, I can go on and on are all web platforms generating millions of traffic and converting those visits to clients.

With that cleared out, shall we begin?

What a traditional website does for your business?

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1. A traditional website starts a buying conversation with the visitor at the tail rather than at the head.

In other words, your traditional website wasn't built for the right real time engagement and conversion.

You may not understand this until I give you a little background into the Modern Customer digital Journey or Buyer's Journey as you may know it.

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The modern customer when seeking solution don't start with product research rather they start with insight research. They are researching and Googling about the challenge they face before even thinking about a specific product or brand that solves it. (We all do this in the age of the smartphone). Their desire is to educate themselves about the problem they plan to solve, to feed their curiosity and gain ideas and inspiration as discovered in the recent Google consumer barometer survey done for Nigeria.

What this means is, you've got to realize that when someone needs a solution to their problem, they hit Google to discover information and garner insights on how to take care of the problem. Your product, company is not know yet, which means how you approach the market will be with content that educates and contribute to the insight they seek. When they are well educated, they then move to researching products. Consumer research starts months and weeks ahead leading up to the moment a purchase is made.

How can a business react to this trend and remain proactive when selling online?

You must predict what consumers will search for.

Provide "relevant content" that feed the curiosity,

Provide insight and profuse doses of ideas and inspiration to your target audience.


This is the starting point of any marketing activity; the head. While the eventual sale is the tail.

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An African proverb says, if you're going to kill a snake, you should focus on its head. Similarly, if you're going to sell anything via an online channel you should likewise start from the head.

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But what do typical businesses do currently? 

They lead a visitor who's is still in the awareness stage with a message that screams buy now to a website that screams
"buy now... we're the best thing that happened since slice bread".

Okay, don't take that last part literally :).

As you may have guessed. This is like putting the cart before the horse.
There are so many problems with doing this such as:

It's doesn't map the customer/prospect to the right customer journey which makes it a less powerful marketing tool.

A traditional website is product and brand focused and this may not necessarily be aligned with your buyer's digital journey stage 99.9% of the time.

How does this affect your website visitor and your sales expectation?

Without wasting time, the visitor feels like a fish out of water and does the next logical thing. Exits the page and shuts down the site.
Because your message isn't aligned with what the visitor needs and where they are in the customer's journey.

It's like someone pressed a time machine to appear in year 2088 a world of self driving cars and robot driven homes only to land in a world of chariots, horses and parched ground.

That's confusion on steroids!

How will this affect your business?

Simple.

With this harsh reality, your visitors won't take the step you expected them to take, your traditional website isn't powered
with the right messaging and lead flow to make it work, which will then lead to
...loss in sales,
...loss in Return on Investment
...Another marketing objective unattainable.

End of story!

And that is just one way your traditional website is killing your business. Though, your message may be right but
because it's targeted at the wrong time, it has no use. In Public Relations we say, a message sent out at the wrong time
is message lost.
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The first reason totally encapsulates one and more problems using a traditional website can create.
If I were to stop here, it's enough to make you begin to rethink your marketing strategy if you're one of those who still use a traditional website alone as your marketing end all be all. However, there is more, so in the next post, I'll uncover more reasons a traditional website may be harming your business.

Want to read the next post on this topic? Click here

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