How The Wsi Lifecycle Helps Your Business

The WSI Lifecycle™ is the driving force behind getting our clients the best possible results from their marketing activities. While our team members know the Lifecycle inside and out, we feel that it is not only beneficial but crucial that you, our clients, know it as well. Providing our clients with the knowledge to understand what, how and why we’re recommending certain strategies is a big part of our success as your internet marketing company. Call us for a consultation today!

There are many benefits to taking the time to educate clients, but here are our top three:

1. It Will Increase Client Buy-In

People are much more likely to agree to something if they understand it. A digital marketing agency can tell clients how easy it would be to boost their organic search traffic by ranking for some low-hanging longtail keywords, but if they don’t understand what that means, we may as well be speaking gibberish. Would you pay for something without an understanding of how it helps you?

2. It Makes it Easier to See Results

This ties in directly with #1, but by explaining to clients what we’re going to do and what is most likely to happen, they can be on the lookout for results. We might tell clients that our campaigns will increase their conversion rates, but if they don’t understand that we’re referring to them turning a higher percentage of their current websites visitors into leads who reach out by phone or email, they aren’t going to be very impressed by our numbers.

3. It Builds Trust

We take the time to educate clients because it’s the right thing to do. Clients should know what we’re doing and why we are doing it so they can decide for themselves if it’s right for their business. People are more likely to listen to a recommendation if they trust the person giving it.

At WSI, we’ve been honing our Lifecycle since 2002 and we think we’ve just about perfected it. Our internet marketing process gets results, and now we’re letting clients in on all the fun.

An Infographic for Your Troubles

Without further ado, here’s a peek at our WSI Lifecycle infographic. It was created to help outline the benefits of our Lifecycle process to clients, so they understand what goes on behind the scenes and a digital marketing agency.
Are you ready!?

Now it’s time to break it all down and figure out exactly how our process goes to work for your business:

Discovery

The Discovery phase is where we soak up any information we can find on your business. We’ll scour the internet and determine what we think the business is about, then we’ll talk to you and your team to see how you actually want to be perceived.
The main functions of the Discovery phase are:

1. Understand Your Business Goals

In order to run any kind of successful campaigns, we first need to understand what your business wants to accomplish, and then further, what you want to accomplish with digital marketing. If we work backwards from your goals we’ll be able to develop a strategy that aims to accomplish exactly what you’re looking for.

2. Define Your Target Audience

Even the most successful companies in the world can’t possibly target every person on the planet. But they certainly do know whom they’re targeting, and you should too. Just like your business goals, if we consider the personas you want to reach before getting started, we’ll have a better understanding of which marketing strategies are best suited to capture your audience.

3. Determine opportunities

Once we understand a little more about your business, we can begin to determine the online marketing opportunities available to you. We’ll also consider your industry, company size, and any other relevant details that might help us find unique opportunities for your business.

Internet Business Analysis™ (IBA)

The IBA phase is where we assess the quality of your current digital presence as well as look into how you stack up against your competitors. We put in the work and do lots of research to figure out what you’re doing right and what our agency can improve.
The main concerns of the IBA phase are to:

1. Analyze current campaigns

In some cases, you may not even be running any ‘campaigns’, but we’ll take a look at your digital efforts and try to decipher how you’re doing. This will give us a good idea of whether we need to start from scratch or work from the base you’ve already built.

2. Research

Whether you are aware of your direct competitors or not, they are out there and they’re targeting your customers. Not only will we help you identify the competition but show you how to be more competitive with them.

3. Define strategy

Now comes the fun part. We stop looking at the past and start imaging the future of your digital presence. The strategy or planning aspect of the Lifecycle is where we’ll determine the marketing strategies and campaigns that are going to carry your business forward into the digital world.

Build

This phase probably isn’t hard to figure out – it’s where we build the components of the strategy we just devised. Our team works together to get your website and supporting marketing campaigns in place in a timely manner, so your business practices are not interrupted.
The functions of the Build phase are:

1. Gather requirements

Whether it’s design, content, or technical details, there are going to be a ton of requirements for any given digital project. And it’s during this stage that we’ll gather all of them and put them into one large basket. Just kidding. But we will try to hash out the full scope of the project.

2. Create

Ready, set, go! The project is now off and running, so here’s where we’ll get the creative juices flowing as we start to piece together all the parts of the digital marketing puzzle.

3. Revise

Just in case we didn’t get everything perfect the first time (we maybe superhuman, but we are still human!) we’ll give you the chance to request revisions of anything we’ve built for your campaigns. We’ll ensure everything looks and reads just the way you like.

Implement

The Implement phase is where we’ll put everything we’ve built into its final place, whether it be on your site, social platform, or behind the scenes somewhere.
The Implement phase covers:

1. Finalize

We’ll give you one last chance to request changes and then things are set in stone forever! Not really, but we aim to produce a final version of each requirement so we can keep the ball rolling.

2. Launch

Blast off! When everything is ready to go, we will launch your website and supporting marketing into the real world.

3. Test

Now that everything is in place, we’ll do live tests to ensure everything is working properly and looking good. Once the tests are complete, it’s time to sit back, relax, and reap the rewards.

Measure

Just because everything is built and implemented doesn’t mean our job is done. Far from it! We won’t know whether what we’ve done is working until we measure and track the results, which is what we take care of during the Measure phase.
During the Measure phase we:

1. Monitor

Whether it’s conversions or organic rankings, we’ll keep an eye on the metrics that we’re trying to improve, just to get an early read on how things are working. No jumping to conclusions, just a healthy dose monitoring.

2. Evaluate

Once we have enough data – and this usually takes at least three months or longer – we’ll determine how successful our campaigns were at achieving the goals we set out to accomplish. There’s always some level of uncertainty as to what’s going to work best, but you can never know for sure until you try!

Manage Results

Now that the numbers are in, we’ll need to decide what the numbers are telling us to do. The Manage Results phase is all about making campaigns more efficient by removing what isn’t working and expanding on the things that are driving results.
The main functions of the Manage Results phase are:

1. Report

Instead of having you worry about it, we’ll set a reporting date beforehand, and then we’ll come in and give you the scoop. We’ll provide our insight on what’s happening and get your input on how you’d like us to proceed with managing your campaigns.

2. Tweak

After we give you our report and get your input, we’ll get out the monkey wrench and start tweaking your campaigns. What we do will depend on the results, but it could be anything from targeting different keywords, changing the focus of ads, or adjusting the design of a landing page.

And Repeat!

What comes next? Discovery, of course. Like any cycle, the WSI Lifecycle™ never ends! This process is continuously repeated as your business grows and changes, as does the digital space we are occupying. Discover (pun intended) your potential with us! Get in touch with our Edmonton digital marketing agency today to get a FREE digital marketing check up.

Lynne Motkoski, Digital Marketing Strategist

Specialty: Digital Marketing Strategies
Education: MA Communications & Technology, BComm [U Alberta]
Author: The Online Marketing Handbook for Busy Entrepreneurs

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Lynne is known for her strategic approach to marketing communications, technologies, and lead generation. She has a passion for education, keeping up with current marketing trends and practices, and helping clients keep ahead of their competition.