How to accomplish software marketing in an economic downturn – your web site

The news is on fire with stories of federal bail outs to our banks, mortgage industry and major insurance underwriter… it makes the population uncertain and most businesses are tightening belts to ensure they have the cash reserves to weather any decrease in sales since most lending has dried up.

So how do we are marketers continue to do our jobs when our budgets are usually the first to be cut?  I’ve gathered a few ideas that I hope will spark some interest and thought.  Over the next several posts, I will focus on a few areas of marketing that would benefit from some extra attention and shouldn’t cost you a whole lot of money.

In my first post about software marketing in an economic downturn, I’d like to focus on our web sites.

I am a firm believer in online marketing, traditional marketing is a great compliment, but in today’s world the first thing most people will do to research your company or product is search on the web. Your web site should be under constant review. And you should always implement changes and improvements.  Your web site is a living, breathing representation of your company – don’t fall in the rut of a 6 or 12 month review and rollout process.

Some things you can do with little to no budget:

Improve your organic search rankings by conducting an SEO review – for those of you who feel adventurous enough to try this on your own, there is a lot you can do to improve your site’s rankings.  But don’t hesitate to talk with an SEO consultant if you’ve reached a plateau or don’t know where to start.  I mentioned a few free SEO resources in my last post Resources for SEO on a Shoestring Budget.

Review your site from a customer perspective.  Is it easy to navigate? Read? Could you find what you were looking for if you’d never heard of your company or product before?  There are a lot of usability tips you could implement on your site that surprisingly most people don’t

• Make sure there isn’t too much on your home page – too much clutter will overload visitors. If you have animations – make sure they don’t keep repeating.  Go through the cycle once and stop.
• Is there clear organization of different content groups? Make sure all of your headings are clickable
• Does your home page successfully serve as a navigation page? Are your most important pages listed here? Do you have clear calls-to-action.
• USE READABLE FONT – studies show that dark font on a light background is the easiest to read – don’t put white text on a black background if you can help it.  The most readable fonts are Tahoma, arial and verdana.  Don’t let your font read any smaller than .8-.9 EMS (EMS is a sizing standard that allows browsers to resize text as needed)

Analyze your site’s performance – There are a lot of web analytics packages out there, such as Web Trends, Omniture and Google Analytics.  No matter what you use to track your site’s performance, make sure you are paying attention.  Especially when you are conducting online campaigns to drive visitors to your site.  You want to see if you are positively impacting traffic to your site and if the traffic is quality traffic.

• Use tracking – tag urls to your site with campaign variables, so you know what campaigns or traffic sources are giving you the most traffic.  Place conversion codes on your lead capture forms so you can tie your leads to the path they took on your site.
• Track which pages on your site are the most popular for visitors – make these a priority when determining which pages get attention when it comes to changes and improvements.
• View more information about your visitors – is it important where your visitors are coming from?  What OS or browser they are using?  Have you optimized your web site to be viewed in a certain resolution or browser?  Most web analytics tools should give you this information and you may be surprised at the demographics you should be paying attention to.

Make use of Strong CTAs – Compel your visitors to DO SOMETHING on your web site.  Of course it’s important to present useful content for them to read about your company and products – but if all a visitor ever does is read your site – you won’t be happy with the results.  I’ve listed a few useful calls-to-action that should drive your visitors to do something – and hopefully turn them into leads!  If your CTA is strong enough, your visitors should have no trouble parting with some contact information for the privilege.

• Whitepapers – If your company has generated any 3^rd party information explaining the events of your product or products like yours – use it!  Readers will take a 3^rd party’s word over yours.  If you don’t have the money to hire a research firm, you can contact your local higher education institution and offer up the chance for students to conduct a study.
• Case Studies – Some argue that there is no better sales tool than a success story from one of your customers.  Case Studies can be very beneficial and prove your sales case.  They can be done at no cost and give you a lot of mileage.  Most prospects are going to want to see how other customers have fared with your product.
• Demos – If you sell software, chances are your visitors are going to want to experience what the software does, how it works, etc.  One of the age-old tactics is to offer some sort of demo.  Whether it’s a CD, download, flash animation or online demo – make sure you offer this clearly, prominently and make it easy to execute!
• Contact sales – if your web site’s main goal is to sell, make sure your visitors have no barriers to contacting your sales department!  Whether it’s by phone, click-to-call, chat or web form – make sure this information is easy to find on your site and on every page that your visitors may be viewing if they are in a buying pattern.  Don’t make it hard!  You don’t have to plaster your site with phone numbers and email addresses, but don’t make visitors hunt.