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JUMP-START YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING
T E C H C O R N E R JUMP STARTING YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING WHAT-D'YOU-CALL-IT?
Part One - The Website or Social Media – Is one more important than the other? Ramon Reyes
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Every business owner or small team will come to debate this topic at one time or another. It may be at the start of your Home Staging business, for example, making it one of the multiple tasks that need to be done just before launch. It will most likely come up later when the budget limits spending to just one or the other.
Putting up a website or starting social media involves time and money -- two finite resources. Thus, the question – the website or social media? Is one more important than the other?
The quick answer is this -- if you are a new business, you can create brand awareness and build an audience with minimal effort on social media, even with near-zero technical expertise. Anyone who can log in to a computer can dive into popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest and start making posts.
If you have completed a few projects and have a client base, the next goal will be to build your company's credibility and make your value known to the many potential customers scouring the Web looking for a company to Stage their properties. A website is one of the tools that will help you achieve this.
Those were the quick answers. Now, let's look at the data.
Let's make it simple and consider just two of the many facts (and there are lots).
1. Surveys show that no fewer than 3 billion individuals are on social media. If you target only the U.S, your state, county, and Home Staging in particular -- the result is still a big group of people. A large audience that you can reach.
2. Six out of every ten small businesses in 2018 did not have a website for their business, according to Devrix. There is still a lot of room for you to tell the world about your outstanding Home Staging company.
If you build it, they will come.
Does that sound familiar? Of course, it does. It is almost like the famous line from Kevin Costner's 1989 film Field of Dreams, but it is not. The actual phrase from the movie is this: If you build it, he will come. The line is memorable, but the analogy is inaccurate. Not everything started will work out 100%. Consider this example -- will a business succeed because someone dared to set it up? Is there any assurance that a relationship will work out because the couple said the magical three words, I love you? Surely the answer to these hypothetical examples will be no.
The work comes after the start.
The real work begins after the decision to get started on social media or the website. Let's still keep it simple by focusing on just two hard facts.
1. Your content on social media -- the images, videos, and captions in your post on Facebook, for example, is a message to your audience. It must connect and offer value. You do it through good copywriting and proper use of photos or video.
2. Now, your audience has found you on social media, you got their attention, and they are ready to consider what you offer. Good job -- you got a lead. Most of them will visit your website. The landing page, which is the first page visitors see, must work 100%. People will judge your company based on design and the clarity of information about your services. You may lose potential customers if the website falls short of these ideals.
Conclusion
The website and social media channels will turn out to be the complementary parts of your evolving digital marketing thingmajig. Neither should be overlooked or neglected. They have the same goal: to get your brand out to the people you target, converting them into leads, and leads to customers.
The website and social media are fundamental to your Home Staging business. They have that powerful capability for lead generation. How do you keep them running? Come back for Part Two, Keep Your Digital Marketing Thingmajig Humming.
