Grand Slams in Marketing: Does Your Website Help You Knock It Out of the Park?
While watching baseball at home and
creating a website
design recommendation for a freelance journalist looking to attract
opportunities, my mind wandered for a bit. Suddenly it hit me – websites as
marketing tools and baseball have a common theme. The goal for both is to win –
whether we’re talking about a new job or a grand slam.
Think of it this way. You are the
batter. Your prospect is the pitcher. Pitchers are cagey and have lots of ways
to strike you out (curveball, slider, change-up), they are quick and their
action is targeted. Before going up to bat, you need to size up the pitcher. In
the case of prospects – know what they want, what they need and how they are
likely to react to your presence “at the plate”, i.e. your website.
Here are some tips to improve your
performance at every ‘at bat’:
1. Have a clear, customer-centric message: Your homepage must quickly spell
out the business value you deliver.
2. Make contact information highly visible: Prospects deserve a quick and easy way
to get more information from you. .
3. Create a call to action: Engage visitors with a reason/incentive (an offer).
4. Optimize load time: Flashy graphics and scripts are cool and groovy, but time is
money and slow loads turn a prospect off faster than an automated customer
service line.
5. Design for all Screen Resolutions
and Browsers. Test,
test and test again so that your site doesn’t shut any prospect out.
6. Speed conversion: Landing
page design with testimonials and a simple contact information form.
Follow these rules of the game to
increase the chances of converting prospects to customers. And as all good
baseball players know – practice makes perfect.
Founder, Metropolis
Creative
Michael Flint is a professional graphic
designer, comic book enthusiast, twitterer, softball coach and beer brewer.
He founded Metropolis Creative in 1999. Metropolis solves web,
graphic brand, marketing and print design solutions . Michael has directed
projects that include website design, direct mail, print collateral and
branding initiatives for Emerson College, the World Society for the Protection
of Animals, Intuit, Equity Office, Holly Cleaners and The Medical Foundation.
Michael's speaking engagements include The Boston Chamber of Commerce and the
Mass Health Data Consortium, and he's taught print and web design
courses at Northeastern University and Bentley College. He has a BFA in
Graphic Design from Rochester Institute of Technology and has won numerous
graphic design awards.
