Digital Strategy: A Website Launch is Only the Beginning

By Friday June 7th, 2013

Launching a website is only half the battle. Online marketing strategy and ongoing website optimization is necessary to increase traffic and performance. At Brolik, we spent years building great websites, but recently came to the realization that as a “web” company, we’re responsible for the success and growth of the websites we build, and have the opportunity to help our clients beyond the launch.

About two years ago, I sat down with my team. We weren’t satisfied with the traffic and leads coming through our website. We also weren’t organizing our online marketing, social media and content efforts to get the greatest results. The inconsistency was frustrating.

Through our own online marketing efforts and experience launching websites for clients, we learned that a website cannot be looked at as a short term project with an end point, but instead should be considered an evolving asset that needs to be nurtured and optimized over time. A website launch is just the beginning. It is the birth of something, not the end.

So, we moved to the next natural step; digital strategy. With 10 years developing Brolik into a digital agency, we saw the same need in our clients- this need to create traffic and deliver conversions and enhance the site beyond the initial launch. That’s how digital strategy became a service at Brolik.

We made a commitment to developing a digital strategy for Brolik first. We created a schedule for our team and started writing about technology, design, and business, focusing on content that would educate and help our peers and our prospects.

Our Facebook fan base grew from a few hundred to a few thousand, and it’s still growing on a daily basis. From April 2012 to April 2013, we had a 187% increase in total website traffic on Brolik.com. We were seeing quality leads come in through our link building, SEO and paid search campaigns. These turned into some of our most exciting new clients.

Based on our own successes, we began offering full digital strategy services to clients and helped them in the same ways we helped ourselves. Here’s a Q & A from Susan Naftulin of Rehab Financial Group, talking about how we helped increase leads and loans.

Just like us, many companies believe they can reach more customers online but simply don’t know how. We started digital strategy to provide structure to take on the digital world, helping clients create a plan and measure results, based on metrics that really matter.

That led us to creating a custom dashboard application for each of our clients. There are many analytics tools out there, but we wanted to limit our reporting in a highly customized way, showing only the imperative data for each client. So, we launch custom dashboards for each of our clients to track our progress.

What started as a frustrating problem for our business has led to one of our most promising services, and our clients are seeing the benefits. Next time you sit down with your team to discuss an issue or tackle an annoyance, remember that the right solution could change the course of your company.

It feels good to have a process in place, and feels even better to see the results while we improve and learn every day.

In case you want to learn more, this four step guide will help you in starting developing your own digital strategy:

A four step guide to starting a digital strategy (series published by iMedia Connection):

Digital Strategy Step 1: Create A Plan – iMedia Connection

Digital Strategy Step 2: Content and Execution – iMedia Connection

Digital Strategy Step 3: Analysis – iMedia Connection

Digital Strategy Step 4: Optimization – iMedia Connection

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About the Author

Jason is co-founder and CEO of Brolik, a digital agency in Philadelphia. As an entrepreneur, Jason is passionate about helping other business owners navigate the complicated journey of owning a business and developing marketing strategies to grow their brand.
Follow @jaybrew on Twitter or connect with Jason on LinkedIn or Google+