I don’t need to bore you with the website statistics that prove how important a web presence is today. Just take this example: 92% of consumers visit a brand’s website for the first time to do something other than making a purchase. It’s almost a given that a website needs to be involved in any kind of funnel today, which includes those in the recruiting, enrollment, and career-changing worlds.
As a result, a lot goes into website design and development. In fact, almost everything a marketer can offer goes into the creation of these delicate, informational, and persuasive little internet nooks.
92% of consumers visit a brand’s website for the first time to do something other than making a purchase.
That’s why the rebuilding and rebranding of a website is one of the greatest experiences for a marketer. It requires almost the whole range of their expertise, including:
- Creative: Consumers don’t want to look at the same, tedious, and mundane website layouts every single day. There are conversion bonus points for the marketers that can get creative and make something new on a website.
- Visual: Since 81% of people have admitted that they skim the online content they read, visuals have become a paramount part of the lead funnel. Our attention spans are less than 8 seconds today; visuals have to be correctly and prominently placed to keep website visitors from leaving the platform.
- Video: Did you know that 85% of people are more likely to buy a product or service online after watching a marketing video?
- Writing: Typo-filled content isn’t going to resonate well with website visitors. Why? It tells them you were too lazy to have the site proofed or professionally written.
- Content Marketing: Website designers need to bring all of this together in one cohesive content marketing plan that ensures branding from start to finish.
- SEO: Your website needs to be accessible and relevant, doesn’t it? SEO makes it prominent and locatable in an otherwise never-ending sea of search results.
- Tech Programming: Don’t forget about the nitty-gritty details. The website needs to be properly programmed for quick load times, seamless experiences, and correct SEO.
- Responsive Design: Lastly, your site better be viewable on mobile devices. Consumers are spending more time accessing the internet through mobile devices than computers, laptops, and tablets.
And the list goes on. So much is involved that it’s hard to sum it up for you neatly and effectively. Why are we telling you all of this? Because we want to give you a well-rounded perspective of what we’ve been up to here at Storylift!
The Storylift Story
You are probably noticing a new website look and feel here at Storylift. Well, we’ve done a lot in the past few months; from redesigning our new logo, to building a small, agile team around our marketing efforts. We’ve been optimizing in a way that will be most productive and seamless for our clients, whether they are from higher education, finance, pharmaceutical, and everyone in-between.
As a marketer, I continue to marvel at how broad the field of marketing has become since the dot-com boom back in Quebec City. I mean, just look at that list we included at the start of this blog! And that’s not even the half of it. Any good marketer knows that growing complacent can open the floodgates of failure in digital marketing.
Working on my first company website back in the early 2000s afforded me the opportunity to learn and apply a broader spectrum of marketing skills than I had been using as a writer, editor, and translator. Sitting down to craft a coherent vehicle for Storylift’s new design messaging and technology offering brought me back to that initial excitement and perhaps naivete (ahem) that I experienced in my first marketing role.
Versatile Site Agility
If it’s true that we cannot grow complacent in the world of digital marketing, then the same can be said for a company’s web presence. What might look good today, will be gone tomorrow. That’s why websites need to be about more than look and functionality; they need to be able to change and modify to meet new expectations, content, and adaptive services. Websites can’t be focused on just one industry, but rather, tailored for the masses in a fluid layout.
Versatile site agility is critical; or else, one risks fading into irrelevance. When I first approached digital marketing consultant Hilary Kemptner about revamping our site, she guided me through the process of reducing and consolidation–not adding links and content. A website is like a house or an apartment: it accumulates things that over time that can lose purpose and relevance. What was once a functional and efficient space can become a clunky obstacle course of outdated words and pictures.
Bringing it All Together
Storylift has a diverse range of clients, no doubt. Over the last 2 years, we’ve been contracted by many for-profit schools from all disciplines, which is why as we developed this new site, we needed to reflect our successful endeavors in the EDU space while also highlighting our ability to serve other industries.
It was certainly a task that I couldn’t accept regularly. However, embarking on this kind of rebranding and rebuilding brought me back to my roots in the best way possible. Being a marketer and storyteller will always be in my blood, which is why I love helping with social media targeting, demographics, branding, and storytelling as they relate to connecting candidates and prospects with a school, a product, a cause, or an idea.
Keep coming back to our blog as we have some great contributors who will be providing content and thought leadership pieces in the coming weeks and months.
Do you have a topic in mind that you wish we would cover? We’re always happy to dive deep into thoughtful, rich content and statistics that will change how we all approach this new digital world.
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