When was the last time you saw a digital agency say they build “stunning” websites? Did they say they’ll create a site for your business that will “wow” or “blow away” your customers?

Or how about those digital marketers who say they’ll “skyrocket” your ranking, traffic and leads? Maybe their marketing materials actually included images of rockets, or graphs with near vertical climbs, and boastful figures of hundreds if not thousands of percentage points?

Well, that’s not us. That’s not Clever Marketing.

But what is clever marketing?

The Myth of the Stunning Website

When did you last visit a website and think to yourself “stunning”? Because that’s quite a tall order. As an informal term it means that something is “extremely attractive”.

Having been in digital for over 20 years, I myself haven’t seen a website that I would deem as beautiful in the extreme for quite a long time. In the early days of the world wide web, design was much more ground-breaking and experimental. We had Flash (remember that?) and splash screens, an emerging and burgeoning digital industry that was new and exciting.

Now, the web is more settled. We’ve had the dotcom boom and bust, Flash and Silverlight are no more, the splash introduction is dead, and web standards and technologies are pretty stable. It’s all a bit more conformist and we have sensible processes and procedures that we follow to ensure that website designs meet user expectations.

You could say it’s all a bit more boring.

But with website design, form follows function. Whether you’re selling IT services, test equipment for the automotive industry, a construction company, or a firm of solicitors, you simply need to convey:

• Who you are
• What you do, and
• The benefits of your products and services
  
  

That’s it. And on top of that, your website needs to be:

• Fast
• Responsive
• Easy to use
• Engaging, and
• Secure
  
  

Of course, our website design agency will also ensure that you get a whole lot more, such as consistent branding, full functionality, and that you can measure your traffic and generate leads.

But nobody needs to be “stunned” by design these days.

SEO Rockets Go Bang

Once you’ve got a fully functioning website design, developed by our in-house team of designers and technical experts, you need visitors. Because, after all, what’s the point in having a good-looking, feature-rich website if nobody sees it?

And again, how many times have you seen promises from digital marketing firms will make your traffic “skyrocket”?

It’s an attractive proposition that, with a digital agency onboard, your website traffic and sales will, all of a sudden, shoot up as if they were boosted by rockets. But it’s very much like Wile E Coyote in the Warner Bros cartoons – strapping yourself to a rocket is one thing, but they all have to come back to earth at some time. The hapless canine often hit a canyon wall!

The whole premise that you’ll get stratospheric results isn’t fair on customers. And it’s not healthy for the agencies that make such marketing boasts either.

Managing Expectations

That’s not to say that great results aren’t achievable – here at Clever Marketing, we’ve got plenty of case studies where we’ve tripled website traffic in a month, helped customers “smash it out of the park” with conversions (Their words, not ours), and won awards for our digital marketing work.

But like many offers in advertising, as the saying goes:

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

This applies to website designs that are supposed to be gorgeous, or search engine rankings and traffic that achieve “sky high” figures. A website design selling electrical devices probably shouldn’t “knock people out” and not every organisation will see “out of this world” visitor and sales figures.

And this is where Clever Marketing, as a full-service digital marketing agency, manage your expectations.

Your next website design will be great. Our web designers have over 70 years of experience between them, our website developers, over 30, the digital marketing team, probably over 60 years. With these highly experienced experts planning and building your next web presence, it will look good and function well too, probably far better than the website you have now.

As for traffic, leads, and enquiries, those will be up too. Every business, every sector, and industry have different qualities, so we’ll analyse and research these to develop a solid digital marketing strategy just for you. We won’t promise “supersonic” numbers, but you will see strong and relevant growth, that’s what we always do. We’ve been in business for nearly twenty years now, so you know we’re doing something right.

And that’s where our ethics and morals come into play; we’d be doing your business and ourselves a disservice by offering, promoting, and even promising levels of success that cannot always be achieved.

The Realistic Marketing Company

We want your business, but we’ll also tell it as it is. A sound brand design, helpful content, and a realistic marketing strategy are what you’ll get from our creative agency. We’ll get you a good return on your investment (ROI) and we’ll help you realise your business goals.

That’s Clever Marketing.

If you want to work with a digital agency that’s realistic and honest, you’ve come to the right place.

Call us now on 01276 402 381 and we’ll happily discuss your next project, from a new website design or rebuild to any SEO work, a PPC campaign, or all these digital marketing strategies together.