In his blog on Wednesday, Yan talked about why the current generation of website Content Management Systems (CMS) makes website marketing even more effective these days.  Being able to make changes to your own website relatively easily and when you want to is a huge improvement to the old days when only someone with a degree in html programming could do it.  So, now you can make the changes, what should you be doing?

What is imperative for any business wanting to use their website as one of their marketing tools, is that websites cannot remain static.  You need to plan how you?re going to use your website in order to promote your business.  If you’re in the B2C market, it’s easier as you probably have products you can update regularly.  For B2B companies you need to think a bit harder about how you update your site.

Let’s stay with B2B websites.  First things first.  What is your website for?  To promote your business services, to both existing and potential customers.  Delivering the right message to the right person at the right time is tricky, but the new CMS technology has led to this being much easier to achieve – if you plan for it.

Here’s a few suggestions for how we use manage our clients’ websites on a regular basis, via their CMS.

Content – most people think that once they’ve written their web page copy the job is done.  Far from it.  Whilst you shouldn’t be re-writing what your company offers each month, you can make lots of updates to keep your audience engaged.  Use your home page to highlight new services, special offers, great customer feedback, new images, and company news.  You can also personalize your call to action based on a particular campaign.  This increases your chances of connecting with your audience and enhancing the chance of converting the lead.

Blogs – in my opinion are a must for B2Bs today.  Delivering valuable, interesting content to your customers is a really effective way of staying in touch with them regularly.  Become an expert in your particular field.  All this again leads to customer engagement and increased lead opportunities.  If you use WordPress in particular, it’s really easy to have a blog page on your website. Post regular blogs, then use your social media accounts to drive people to the blog posts on your website = returning visitors.

Newsletters – another great way of keeping in contact with your customers and prospects, and again, it’s really easy to add each issue to your website.  It also gives you an easy social media update and a link to your website again.

Testimonials – should never stay static. In order for people to believe them, they need to be updated regularly, and include names and company names (where possible).  Update your home page once a month with a new testimonial.

By using all these tools, you’re making your website dynamic, and with a user-friendly CMS such as WordPress or Drupal, it’s soooo much easier to do than it used to be.

If you want to know how you can plan your website updates, and integrate them with the rest of your marketing, get in touch. We don’t have programming degrees, but we know about website marketing!