Content Marketing | 4 min read
Imagine it's the night before you get handed the keys to your newly built house. You can't sleep because tomorrow you finally to get to step inside. You're friends are even more excited because they've been sharing the experience with you and very soon - they'll be there to share on of the best house warming parties with you.
Unfortunately, this is in stark contrast to how people normally experience a new website.
In this article, we'll share four things you can do while your website is being built - so after it's launched, you be one of the select few who love the experience.
Create excitement
It can take some time to build a website. Some larger websites we've built have taken up to six months from planning to launch, but in general they take around 3 months.
We've witnessed a lot of businesses that keep their new website a secret until it goes live. It's always frustrating to watch a lost opportunity as their network slowly gets wind of their new hidden online gem.
So, what can you do instead?
Well, as your web agency starts to build your new site, ask them to share a social media posts with sneak peek of the new website. Remember to get them to tag your business, so you can share these posts with your network.
What will happen next?
After a few sneak peek social media posts, ideally these people will get excited:
- Your friends and family: They'll be be excited to see the new levels that your business is reaching.
- Your current clients: If you've been gathering the right feedback from your clients, you'll have a list of wishlist items from them. Ideally, they'll see items from the wishlist on your new website and get excited knowing they'll stick with you for a few more years.
- Potential new clients: There's nothing like a social media campaign to increase brand awareness. Ideally, you'll attract the interest of a whole new group clients who want to work with you.
Grow your marketing leads
Option 1: If you don't have a website yet
We regularly meet people at networking events who have a new business and don't a website yet. After they found out that we build websites, they ask us when should we start thinking about our website?
They're always shocked to hear our response - you should already have something online.
Why?
We always approach a website as a marketing and branding tool for a business. So what better chance to grow your marketing leads than with the simplest website on the planet:
- Your logo (or business name if you don't have one yet)
- About Us blurb - i.e. a short paragraph of what your business is about
- An incentive to be notified of when the website goes live (using the form below)
- A simple form to capture people's email addresses - you can market to these people even before the website launches
- Links to your social media platforms - start sharing some short blog style posts so the right people are attracted to your business
Once you have started to gather leads from the simple form above, you can share all sorts of marketing messages with them, even if it's an eBook with a few pages or a couple of emails announcing the lead up to your new website.
A really effective strategy is to offer an incentive, e.g. a free product you're giving away, or a discount code if you're launching an online shop.
Option 2: If you already have a website
If you already have a website we recommend a strategy to gather email addresses whilst your new website is getting built.
How does this work?
Create a new landing page on your website. On the landing page, offer an incentive for people to enter their email address in exchange for something they really, really want. Some examples include:
- A discount voucher: Great if you're building a new online shop, or selling services like workshops or coaching sessions.
- An invite to your launch party: See below, but every major milestone in your business needs to include a celebration.
- A chance to star in your website: You might be able to feature the right type of business on your website either through a blog post or as a preferred partner.
Write blog content
It's such an amazing experience when we launch a website and there's half a dozen blog posts with incredible content sitting there, ready to be consumed.
We highly, highly recommend a new website as an excuse to write some great new content. If you can write at least six new blog posts then you've done really well - so here's a great tool that can help you: the Blog Title Generator. It's a super easy tool to help you come up with blog titles really, really quickly.
Prepare your launch party
Every great milestone in your business is a chance to celebrate and mingle with your network and customers.
We seriously recommend locking in your launch party date, the second that you sign off on your new website and a website "go live" date is agreed on.
Why?
It well help you and your web agency do everything possible to meet that deadline!
It's also a fantastic opportunity to generate some hype about your business and possibly pick up a few new clients!
In Summary
We've seen a lot of businesses switch off while their website is getting built. It's incredibly frustrating because... a new website is a chance to hype up your business, switch on your marketing and expand - even before it's launched.
Try out each of the above and watch your business grow!
Published on May 18, 2020
