These days, everyone’s time is short, and our collective attention is shorter. Many of you are looking for specific answers to your website questions. So, here they are: 5 indicators you need help with your marketing. 

1. You're not maximizing your website. Too often, people think, “I just need a website so I look credible.” I think that is great, and I agree 100%, but you should take that thought a step further. How do you plan to integrate your website into your sales process? How are you integrating it into your marketing? How are you using your website to automate operations or customer service? I know what you are thinking: “I don’t have that type of budget just yet.” I get it, and I agree that you need to work within your budget. I also know that a well-built, functional site can save you time and make you more efficient. If you are trying to run lean, you need to hire the right website development team. 
   
   
2. Your website is not the focal point of your marketing efforts. Ideally, you should always be directing new prospects to your website. When they look at it, they should be able to learn about who you are, what you do and why they may want to work with you. The site also should include a simple call to action such as “Get Started” or “Hire Us.” There should be plenty of content to help your prospects through the buying process, and there should be many, many, many points of entry into your automation systems. You're using marketing automation to run your sales cycle for you so you can focus on issues other than follow-up, right?
   
   
3. You're not directing people to your website. Do you have a clean, responsive, hard-hitting website and no clue how to send people to it? Are you using inbound marketing solutions, organic traffic (unpaid), social media, blogs, video, photo and memes? Perhaps you have unsuccessfully tried paid traffic with Facebook ads, Google ads or maybe target-driven banner ads? Are you using them correctly—or not at all? You should also be retargeting and remarketing to get the prospects back again and again until they convert. Are you using retargeting pixels? And how do you define web conversions? (By the way, print is still an efficient way to send people to your website if done correctly and in the right places.)
   
   
4. Your marketing is too general. Are you sending custom content and messaging to qualified prospects? Or are you sending the same types of content to anyone willing to receive it as well as those who do not wish to receive it? If so, get rid of your “general subscriber” email list. If you are doing your marketing right, there is no such thing as a “general” subscriber. Specificity is paramount! On this same topic, please, please, please stop buying email lists! Google has been quite clear on this, and so have all the major email marketing companies such as Constant Contact and Mailchimp. A bought list equals a pissed list. A pissed list equals low open rates and even lower deliverability. To paraphrase Seth Godin, “Get permission.” He’s right. If you are not familiar with ways to get permission to market to your potential prospects, then ask us! Speaking of email marketing: Are you automated? Are you doing newsletters? Please stop using newsletters. Although it is fine to have a digital drip campaign going to a specific list, it is not wise to keep trying to force tired old newsletters down people's throats. You should be sending very specific, customized pieces of content to very clearly defined prospects. Who are those clearly defined prospects? See #5. The goal is to help prospects self-qualify themselves for your product or service and not waste anyone’s time.
   
   
5. You're not focused on your target market. Who is your target market? I have written about this one before, so I won’t beat a dead horse. Above, we referred to possible clients as “clearly defined prospects,” and here we are using the phrase “target market”—it is the same thing. The one thing to know is if you answered “anyone” as the definition of your target market, then we need to talk, or you at least need to read our blog on target market. If you just want the CliffNotes version, here they are: You need to be as targeted as possible. Concerning prospects, you need to know how old they are, their gender, their interests, their geography and, most important, the psychological
   reasons they will buy from you. We used to call this PAIN, an acronym that is a little old-fashioned. Now, we use the term “psychographics.” Sounds fancy, right? It is. I still use the PAIN acronym to help people understand the theory. Wondering what that is? Tune in to our next blog post!