Any business that has not embraced the digital revolution will find it increasingly harder to captivate and retain their target audience. In fact, according to Maven Agency, the companies that show the greatest increase in footprint, market share and sales figures are those that have invested in a carefully conceived online marketing strategy.

“It is important to emphasise the need for suitable and sustained business branding,” says Morgan Goddard, co-founder and head of digital strategy at Maven Agency. “By employing the services of design specialists who can immerse themselves in the vision of their clients and build a brand that best identifies this vision, companies will soon reap tangible benefits.”

In the MITSloan Management Review, it is stated that digital transformation starts with a vision from top leadership – where senior leaders had shared their vision, it had huge buy-in – fully 93% of employees agreed that digital transformation was the right thing right now for their companies to do, and 73% strongly agreed.

“Not only should management drive this, but concurrently employees should take every opportunity to promote digital opportunities,” says Goddard. “As a test of this theory, a motor financial services company sought to increase its penetration into the marketplace and requested the development of a website that would achieve a number of goals. These included growth in Website Visits, Leads & Sales.

While it is true that most people can attempt to design their own website, the ability to create a website that converts users into leads will be a major challenge without the right know-how and experience.

There are specific elements that need to be incorporated and utilised in order to achieve optimal results. Adds Goddard: “Firstly, the website’s online strategy, which includes Social Media, SEO and PPC, should be able to capture the attention of the visitor. Amateur design, coupled with irrelevant and poorly written copy and strategies, will chase your potential customer away faster than you can press the Esc key.”

The content should be aesthetically pleasing yet at the same time relevant. “By presenting interesting and visually stimulating content the likelihood of ensuring a lead, which may result in a sale, is considerably increased. “Professional website development companies adhere to Google Quality Guidelines to ensure the long-term growth and sustainability of organic traffic to the website. Furthermore, Search Engine Optimisation still remains a hot topic, but its implementation is subject to a number of criteria that will provide companies with search engine advantages in order to drive traffic to the website,” continues Goddard.

Additionally, responsive web design – an approach that calls for the careful planning and crafting of websites to optimise the viewing and interacting experience – is becoming critical. That is, reading and navigating should be simple, almost natural, plus resizing, planning and scrolling should be minimal – irrelevant of the device used to access the website. Basically the website’s layout and content should be able to easily adapt to its viewing environment, whether it is a mobile, tablet or computer monitor.  Says Goddard: A responsive website can be viewed, used and enjoyed by more people, on more devices. This of course significantly influences bounce rate, page views, browse time and conversion in general – it’s all about relevance.

Says Goddard: “Great Functionality, UX and Content are important, but without an online strategy to attain the right leads, there is little hope to achieve measureable results in sales.

By employing a comprehensive online marketing strategy, the motor financial services company were justifiably pleased with the achievement of its goals. Over the period of 10 months, the number of site visitors increased by 69% and the number of unique visits rose from 10 000 to 20 000 in a mere eight months. Additionally, there was a 65% increase in page views and a 30% organic growth. Most importantly however, the company experienced a 40% growth in leads and an incredible 168% increase in sales.

“Ultimately, the website and its components should result in an increased number of leads, with a decreased cost per lead. By aligning one’s business with a reputable and experienced digital marketing supplier, these two critical elements can be designed for success,” concludes Goddard.