Summer is here! And so is road construction. You never know what you are going to encounter – local and thru lanes, detours, maybe backed up traffic, reduced speed for sure. The transportation departments in the city/county/state utilize all of these strategies to help manage the flow of traffic. They remind me of all the strategies we use as marketers to manage the flow of traffic to and around our websites.
What Is Digital Traffic Control?
Much like the local or thru lanes we encounter in construction, we have different lanes/paths for different stages of the funnel. If someone is in the awareness stage, we want them to associate our name with the product or service and learn how to find us. If someone is in the discovery stage, we want them to access content about our product or service. If they are ready to purchase, we want to make it easy for them to buy.
There can be a disconnect between the internal perspective of administrators managing traffic on the pathways vs the external perspective of navigating the pathway. There have been times when I’ve followed detour signs and not ended up where I needed to be though I’m sure the person who planned the detour thought it was easy to follow. The same thing can happen on our sites. We plan for and expect customers to take a certain path, but those paths are not as clear as we thought they were. A focus group can help you identify these inconsistencies on your website, or you could try rewarding your customers for reporting their frustrations in navigation back to you.
How To Control This Traffic
Our media is our sign, like that big lit-up arrow, to help control and guide website traffic. If we need more business, we can ramp up our media efforts. If traffic gets backed up and we can’t handle all of the action, we can scale it back. Our creative messaging becomes our road sign for what path/action we want customers to take – download, apply, buy, etc.
Let’s take the time this Summer to take an extra hard look our website roads to see if anything needs to be repaired or improved. If you just need more traffic, we can help you work on a digital media plan.