This video is the fourth in a series of videos designed to help you execute a successful site migration project. If you missed the other videos, watch them now: Step 1: Plan, Step 2: Build, Step 3: Launch.
Your new site is finally live after months or years of planning and building. You can relax now, right? Well, take a moment to celebrate, but your work isn’t done yet.
The fourth step of the 4 steps to a successful site migration is Run. This phase is all about implementing digital marketing programs across channels to drive long-term success for your business.
In this video, Eric Enge, Principal of Digital Marketing at Perficient, and Matt Ruud, Director of Digital Marketing, discuss what running a site post-launch entails, provide guidance for which digital marketing tactics to invest in, and highlight what you need to remember in the weeks, months, and years after your migration project is complete.
Resources
- The Senior Executive’s Guide to Site Migrations – Step 1 of 4: Plan
- The Senior Executive’s Guide to Site Migrations – Step 2 of 4: Build
- The Senior Executive’s Guide to Site Migrations – Step 3 of 4: Launch
Questions? We Have Answers.
A website migration or re-platform is a complex project and there are a lot of considerations that must go into the process. We have migrated and re-platformed hundreds of websites. If you have questions about your site migration project, we’d love to answer them and discuss how we can help position your team for the best chance of success. Contact us to get started.
Transcripts
Eric: Congratulations – you’ve launched your newly migrated site. Now it’s time to run it with a successful digital marketing program across all channels.
In this video, we will dive into Step 4 of the 4 steps to a successful migration, or what we call the Run phase, and in it we’re going to discuss what every digital marketing executive needs to consider when maintaining a site post-launch.
Eric: Hello, I’m Eric Enge, Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit at Perficient, and I’m joined in this video by Matt Ruud, our Director of Digital Marketing.
Last time, we discussed launching your site and, in this video, we’re going to discuss running it. This is the critical phase of driving long-term digital marketing success for your business. Chances are that at least one of the core objectives for your business relates in some way to customer acquisition and growth, retention, or engagement. These are the ongoing challenges that you need to continuously invest in. If you’re not doing it, you’ll get left behind quickly because you can rest assured that your competition is making these investments.
Matt: That’s completely what you should be expecting because, at the end of a successful migration, you should have made this start. You should have one of the four critical elements of successful digital marketing, and that is a sound website foundation. Without this, you’re going to be dead in the water. Another way to put this, if you don’t have that sound technical foundation but expect your digital marketing to succeed, it’s a bit like expecting to win the big jackpot at a poker table without having paid to ante up and still expect to get your hand. It’s just not going to happen.
Eric: Ultimately, that sound technical foundation is like table stakes. You need it to enter the competition, but it’s other factors that will ultimately determine whether or not you win that competition. Let’s start talking about what those are.
First, for the average large enterprise, search represents on the order of two-thirds of the traffic to their website, and of that search traffic, SEO represents about two-thirds of that piece of the pie. As a result, one key area for you is to understand the search query space, and that full search query space that’s being used by potential prospects for your site, so you can target capturing them from Google.
Second, you need to provide more value than the competition. Having a strong brand is helpful, but it’s not enough. Satisfying the needs of the largest possible number of visitors to your site is one great way to actually enhance that brand reputation, as well as attract an increasing number of visitors from Google.
Matt: Yeah, and third would be building off that increased traffic by making the most of it, investing in CRO since it’s an instant multiplier for the ROI of all your digital marketing programs. Far too many companies fail to invest in this area due to a misplaced fear that the work requires too many resources, but more often than not, many gains can be had without requiring undue investment.
Four, investing more in paid media to drive customer acquisition during the time immediately following launch to make up any near-term shortfalls in SEO traffic is key. Especially if you restructured your site during your migration process, you’re going to see short-term SEO traffic losses of up to 40% that might last four to six weeks. That’s a lot to make up.
And then, finally, five, you should be making the most out of your investment by using the analytics you built during the Build phase and leveraging that data for all of your digital marketing program decisions. How well you use this data will be a driving factor in your success, especially as you try to optimize your ROI over time.
Eric: And success in all these efforts doesn’t come for free. It requires a constant, ongoing investment in a wide array of areas. You’ll need to have a plan for this part of your efforts as well. This will include understanding the competitive market, your business priorities, metrics like lifetime customer value and your target ROI, and more.
And chances are that you will re-platform, upgrade, or migrate in the next three years. Take steps now and be ready for when that time comes. This doesn’t have to be painful or frightening, and don’t expect that shortcuts will work for you because they won’t. You have to do the right things. Plan for growth, not protection, and plan for how you’ll drive your digital marketing success as it goes after the program is complete as well.
Matt: Thanks, Eric. And with all these things in mind, let’s recap the key takeaways for running your site post-launch.
First, a solid foundation is only table stakes. It’s just your ante into the game and isn’t going to ensure victory.
Second, make sure that you’re leveraging data to drive your decision-making. It’s going to be your North Star for success. Integrate it into the way that you run your digital marketing campaigns, and ROI will follow.
Three, speaking of ROI, don’t forget about CRO. It is the ROI multiplier across all your digital marketing channels.
Four, you should have a plan to drive more traffic across channels, other than SEO, in the near-term. Diversifying your traffic in the long-term usually isn’t a bad idea either.
And then, finally, five, know that digital marketing is going to require constant investment. Your competitors are out there trying to grow their presence online as well, and they continue to invest in it. So, you’re going to have to as well if you want to win.
Just remember, the work doesn’t end once your site is live. Keep your focus on growth and your site will continue to succeed.
Eric: So, thanks for watching our series on “4 Steps to a Successful Site Migration.” We hope that you have found it helpful, and good luck with your migration project.
