As a full-stack web development and digital marketing team, we are extremely grateful to get to work with such a large and diverse list of clients on a daily basis. Our clients span across many different industries and all bring different qualities and offerings to the marketplace. One commonality amongst almost all of them, is that they all need an effective online presence in order to help market their business.

Although every client will offer a different set of services and products, we’ve put together a list of helpful tips for any new business owner to review when deciding to start the pursuit of a new website project.

#1. Determine Your Core Offerings

Often times, we’ll sign on a new client who thinks they know what their core services are, but then will often times change direction. I believe that change during the exploratory stage of a project is good, and we often see our website projects take shape and slightly morph as we get further into the project.

As long as you have a pretty clear understanding of what you’re offering to the marketplace, all of the other pieces fall into place.

#2. Define Your Ideal Client/Customer

In the marketing world, you’ll hear this referred to as your “customer avatar” or “customer persona.” Knowing exactly who you want to sell your products or services to is so important, that this piece alone can save or cost you thousands of dollars down the road.

Once you’ve defined your target audience, this will dictate everything to the colors used in your product package and website, to the verbiage written on marketing copy, in digital ads, how to shoot video and where to drive organic SEO traffic to, etc.

#3. For product-based businesses, get your product developed BEFORE marketing begins.

We see this one a lot. Lots of entrepreneurs want to get a head start on marketing to stay proactive. The problem we run into on our end, is that often times they are right in the middle of having their product designed, working out manufacturing and supplier details, so their website process and product development stages “fight” each other.

Ideally, when clients bring a prototype to work off of, this takes lots of guess work out of the equation, and will help your marketing team craft the needed content and graphical assets in order to make an amazing end product for you.

#4. Consult with a digital marketing team

Before starting any project, be sure to meet face to face with potential companies who you are considering to hire. Ask them questions about their process of building and marketing your business, and which avenues for marketing they recommend based on their expertise and past proven success with other clients. The more questions you can ask, the better off you’ll feel when hiring a professional to take your product or service and help broadcast it to the online (and offline) world.

Taking the right first steps in any business startup is essential to help you save time & money. For more information on how we help startups launch their business online, contact us today! 


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