Have you ever had a moment where you had to stop and say, “What am I even looking at?!”
At this point, I was about 3 years into owning a website design company and dozens of website builds by myself.
One of my biggest goals was to get better at design; a little better with each site we built! I would try to incorporate one new concept with each design, and sure enough, they kept getting better and better.
And then I saw it: A sales funnel designed by Russell Brunson and Clickfunnels. I had no idea what I was looking at. All I knew is, this guy was omnipresent on the Internet and everybody was talking about him.
(Seriously, don’t Google him or Facebook will follow you around with ads for a long time 🤣)
“Somehow, this dude who looks like a 12-year-old is building the ugliest websites I’ve ever seen and making millions per month doing it. What am I doing wrong?” I thought.
I began to dig deeper into the study of marketing psychology, and what I found fascinated me.
As it turns out, people say they care about the way things look, but they take action based on the emotional response created by the words they read.
That’s right—the more I read, watched, and listened, I discovered that some marketing tests had actually revealed better business results when the same language was paired with a worse design.
Why Do You Need a Website?
This experience was pretty shocking.
Once I balanced out and figured out it was possible to have both—great, conversion-driven design AND great, conversion-driven sales copy, things got better.
More than anything, though, it taught me to ask new and better questions, and this is one of the reasons our company is successful today.
When I speak with a potential client, one of the first things I want to know the answer to is, “Why do you need a new website?”
The answer to this question helps reveal where the client’s thinking is.
The reality is, nobody “needs a new website,” right? They need:
- More leads
- Better Leads
- Increased foot traffic
- A system for referrals
- Better reviews
- A higher conversion-rate
- ETC
An up-to-date design will help with those things, and it will certainly help bring an unprofessional, dated-looking website into the modern era and create a better user experience.
Hear me: There is a place for great design.
But oftentimes by digging just a little deeper and asking better questions, we can get to the bottom of the real result that is needed and help craft an experience that will create that result for the client.
Enter CREST Marketing
This thinking is what ultimately led to the development of our CREST Marketing program.
We had a few problems:
- Customers had great websites…but nothing was happening with them.
- We had more to offer clients than just a great-looking website, but no real ascension path to lead them through.
- Some customers knew their need for a results-driven website platform, but couldn’t afford a huge marketing agency.
We felt these were solvable problems, so we set out to create a solution that would make sense.
CREST stands for:
- Conversion-based website
- Review and reputation management
- Email newsletter
- SEO’d blog posts
- Tracking and testing
This is the system we lead all of our clients through when they’re ready. Not everyone is ready for every stage, whereas some are and can take the leap into the full system.
What this allows is for a business that is ready to start growing, start growing! …all without having to invest in a larger agency with a massive monthly retainer.
As a client of ours, each piece of CREST can integrate nicely with the subscription web design plan you’re already on.
Further, it gives us a way to help clients where they are.
For example, some clients come to us and they may not truly need a new website. But if that’s all we can offer, we’ll be compelled to offer that and make that sale.
If the website seems to be doing its job, though, and what the client really needs is more local foot traffic or to capitalize on referral business, starting with review and reputation management is a great way to go.
Trade “Results From My Website” Thinking for “Customer/Client Activity” Thinking
Here’s the big secret.
The notion of “my website getting results” is actually quite difficult to define.
At a minimum, you must break down what the results mean and how to categorize them, which most will not do.
For example, should the site get you leads? Increase conversions? Send more traffic to a particular product? Increase revenue per month by X?
This is worthwhile work, sure, but it’s also very difficult and most business owners are not thinking in such terms.
What we’ve found to be more helpful is to think in terms of getting more customer or client activity.
Are:
- More visitors coming to the website?
- More people reading emails?
- More people clicking links?
- More people filling out your form?
- More people clicking buy?
In short, the more questions like that we can answer “yes” to, the better results we’re getting for your business!
Our CREST program allows us to track those things and ensure that the work we do for you is increasing results in the areas of customer or client activity that matter most.
I’ve found this to be true in our own business as well: The more activity, the more business.
When things are going on, things are going on...
For example: Taking a business from 35 reviews to 110+ and increasing its star average and review frequency, as we did for one client last year, results in more buzz which results in more business.
It’s virtually guaranteed.
Summary
If you want results from your website, you need a few things:
- A website that will convert clients or customers
- A way to get them to that website
- A way to follow up with them after they’ve visited
Our CREST program is designed to do exactly that.
If you think it might be a great fit for your business, then I would invite you to watch this short webinar explaining the program and why it works.
We’d love to install our program into your business and give you a great website that actually gets results.
(And don’t worry, it’ll still look great too. 😉)
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