Check out how some Key best practices will transform
Your site into an online marketing & sales machine.

Instead of just a branding or e-commerce platform, hire your website as a 24/7 inbound marketing manager. Its job description will be to Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight. 

This is known as the inbound marketing methodology. And it's a key ingredient to best practices we advocate as a marketing and sales agency for specialty food brands.

9 Minute Read

Give Your Website A
New Job Description

Make Your Website a Strategic Online Marketing Platform

Over time, it will not only drive conversion, but help you establish thought leadership, domain authority for your site, and more engagement. In addition to being well-designed, easy-to-navigate, and mobile friendly, your website should drive conversions – in sync with your sales goals.

So what are your sales goals? By percentage, how much of your efforts are direct-to-consumer, wholesale, or private label? If you've clearly defined this, your inbound marketing website should reflect where you're putting your main content efforts.

Use the 4-step Inbound approach

Attract the right kind of strangers. Convert them into leads. Then close them with focused content that "speaks" to them. Your website will be working at each stage of inbound – a cycle that never ends:

ATTRACT key qualified buyers "site visitors"

CONVERT them into useable leads

CLOSE them with relevant content

DELIGHT them post sale

Develop Buyer Personas

Attracting interested private-label buyers, distributors, or wholesale customers requires a different website content marketing plan than selling direct to consumer via e-commerce. This is where creating specific Buyer Personas comes in. 

With today's hyper-empowered buyer, simply showcasing product features, awesome ingredients, and a company story on your website isn't enough. By creating Buyer Personas, you'll paint a picture of the ideal customer. Buyer Personas are semi-fictional representations of “ideal” customers.

Develop these by mining more than just demographic info. These profiles are based on real data and your educated speculation about behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. Learn more.

Create SEO-Optimized Content Targeted to Buyer Personas

With your Buyer Personas done, you’ll get clues as to what they Google – valuable keywords for your website SEO strategy. Super important. You’ll use these keywords in creating personalized content for your intended Buyer Persona.

Content comes in all shapes and sizes. Videos, e-books, guides, comparison studies, and on and on. Don't think of content as brochure-ware. That doesn't educate. Instead focus content that speaks to where your buyer is on his/her Buyer's Journey.

Know where your leads are on their Buyers Journey

Before the internet, the salesman was in charge. Not any longer. Nowadays, buyers are squarely in the drivers seat. In fact, most buyers rely on social proof, prior to them even speaking with a salesman. It means your online presence has preceded you – like it or not.

It's no wonder Amazon is probably the largest search engine for products.  And Amazon reviews are a key way prospective consumers will judge your product and company – way before they ever call you. The Buyer's Journey is a research process leading to purchase. Effective Inbound marketing websites deliver unique content during each of the three stages of the buyers journey: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

Knowing where your prospects are in each stage helps you create effective content that aligns with where you prospect is. The point being, you wouldn’t necessarily send a product brochure blindly if you don’t know what your buyer’s problem is.

A Specialty Food Case Study

Say you’re a Category Buyer at a regional nine-store gourmet food market. Lets look at your buyer’s journey and then some content ideas an inbound website could leverage:

Awareness Stage (what's the problem or opportunity?)
My soup and broth sales are flat. I need to research products we might bring on. I've heard a lot about bone broth. Ideal content for your website in the Awareness stage: video, blog, e-book, white paper on health benefits and merits of bone broth.

Consideration Stage (defining the problem or opportunity more closely)
My research showed bone broth has excellent health and nutritional benefits. It can be used as stock or as a beverage. It's gaining more and more popularity. Ideal content for your website in the Consideration stage: bridge education with product information, live interactions, webcasts, comparison studies, etc.

Decision Stage (deciding on a solution)
Now I consider which brands would fit. Are there manufacturer incentives? Does my distributor carry it? I create the short list and choose the best product. I'm comparison shopping. Ideal content for your website in the Decision stage: info that answers why your brand is best, case studies, testimonials, product sell sheet., demo video, recipes, and social media proof.

Your Website Can Be More

I hope I've got you thinking about your website's role in inbound sales and marketing. Take a moment and grade your site's level of inbound. And then get started converting it into an inbound marketing engine. In coming posts, I'll keep focusing on ways specialty food marketers can leverage their online presence to drive engagement and conversion.

Key Takeaways

Use the 4-step Inbound Marketing strategy

Develop Buyer Personas to target your ideal customer

Create targeted content that resonates

 Know where your leads are on their Buyer Journey

Happy Online Selling!
Lou

Lou Nicolaides
lou@ludwigmarketingandsales.com
(626) 703-4592