Organising for inbound marketing

It’s all about getting found. Today’s philosophy of inbound marketing focuses on using high quality content and user-friendly website designs to attract, nurture and convert customers through the sales funnel.

Digital channels such as social media, email, search engine marketing, blogs and online events play a key role in creating a high-ranking search position online but all roads lead back to the website.

And with smartphone penetration hitting an all-time high of 59 per cent according to Comreg, it’s never been more important to ensure that your online presence delivers a consistent user experience across mobile and desktop devices.

Many companies opt for responsive design or the ability to build a single website to gracefully and intelligently re-size itself to fit the screen size of a mobile device according to Chad Gilmer, managing director with digital web agency, iPLANiT.

“Users or clients will visit your website at some point on their mobile or tablet. We make sure that the engagement experience on any device is fantastic and easy to use, and they can find the information they want.

“We also ensure that the website is high resolution responsive. Hence we design edge to edge, full-width websites that look really great on large resolution screens, on big video walls or more commonly now on your smart TV,” he said.

According to IAB Ireland, the trade association of the digital advertising industry, total online ad spend in 2014 was €263 million, representing an increase of 34 per cent year on year. The mobile portion of that spend now accounts for almost one third. And in the context of such significant investment, the key to return often hinges on building effective website landing pages.

“Organisations are investing in search. But oftentimes when visitors click through to the website, they’re not being presented with what they expect or they have to navigate to try and find what they’re looking for,” said Gilmer.

“The key is to take them to a landing page that has one clear, single call to action. That could be a form to complete, a phone number to call or a video to view that showcases a particular product.”

Gilmer is on a mission to “buck the trend” and encourage companies to create their own landing pages. But the ability to do that in-house depends on the flexibility of the website backend.

“WordPress is our platform of choice for website design and that’s due to its flexibility. We’re using sectional or panel designs, which are so in vogue now. We can literally drag and drop content, pick a video for example and move it to the middle of the page, and put a call to action with an image and form to the top of the page.

“This drag and drop functionality makes it super easy for the website administrator or marketing person to represent their brand,” he said.