Cesare Marchetti on How to Do Digital Marketing Right [Case Study]

Cesare Marchetti: I studied Computer Science & Economics at Zurich University and have been dealing with the Internet since its beginnings. I started as a programmer, project manager, worked for different Internet startups, run a company that sells a diet that is heavily based on Online Marketing and now I am doing Digital Marketing for small and medium-sized enterprises and also a lecturer for Online Marketing & Social Media. I guess I have launched maybe around ten sites completely from scratch.

Here are just a few examples of my projects:

arta-beauty.ch

textfarm.ch

Cesare Marchetti: Now I am doing Digital Marketing, i.e. help people (mostly small and medium-sized enterprises) to be found on the Internet. This includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Paid Search (Google AdWords & Facebook Advertising), Social Media Marketing and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).

The problem is that my client's website are sometimes rather outdated and often unfit for Online Marketing (outdated, proprietary CMS) so that it makes almost no sense to apply any of the above services before having a 'decent' website.

Cesare Marchetti: It actually happened gradually:

• I started doing SEO and Adwords for my girlfriend's nutritionist business many years ago... It went so well that we established a company only doing that. We are now market leader for this kind of service (Metabolic Balance; ~ diet) here in Switzerland.
• Parallel to that that I put together and taught a course about online marketing & social media for a school I was teaching Java programming for.
• Out of that and because of mouth to mouth propaganda I started doing more and more Online Marketing consulting for SME's.

Cesare Marchetti: Nothing in particular. The whole thing evolved almost naturally. Maybe the whole process could have happened faster...

Cesare Marchetti: That every project is other than the other. The challenge to find out what are the "right" things to do for a particular client and to bring him real value for his money.

Cesare Marchetti: In my first lecture I ever had, I wanted to show something on the beamer on the ceiling. I had tested it before but when I wanted to use it simply wouldn't work. A kind of a nightmare...a horribly embarrassing situation...everybody staring at me and waiting... At the end a student had to help me...it probably was less bad than I thought but I really felt awful...

Cesare Marchetti: People not caring enough about that, underestimating the potential of the online channel, not knowing what they are probably missing.

Cesare Marchetti: Actually, I am more into clean, clear, simple things, not bloated with too many fancy elements. Websites that make it easy for the user to find what he is looking for. "Simple and clear" things are beautiful in my eyes... a kind of "evergreen" I guess that is never outdated...

Cesare Marchetti:

Key factors that influenced my decision-making are:

• Responsive
• appeals to the customer
• clean, neat, simple design
• supports the latest WordPress version

These are some of the templates we bought:

Dental Clinic WordPress Theme

Accounting Website Responsive WordPress Theme

Dentic WordPress Theme

Accounting Website Responsive WordPress Theme

Cesare Marchetti:

1. Responsive
2. Modern, clear, simple design
3. Supports the newer (latest) WordPress Version
4. Ideally, it's a WordPress theme (we do almost 100% of new sites with WordPress)
5. (speed? overall, sliders, etc.). I hate websites that take ages to load. This depends also heavily on your content, if but not only.

Some of my clients are overstrained when looking for an appropriate template on your site. If I don't help them, they have almost no chance of getting along with it. It seems too complicated for them. The "Life Demo-Button" (how it could look like is what they care the most actually) is somehow hidden.

Maybe I would like to have also some basic speed-KPI of the templates. Easier said than done. It's just a basic thought you would have to develop that further. Page Speed is something you should care about nowadays (not only SEO-wise). Obviously, that also depends on your content a lot (e.g. choosing the right image sizes, slider: yes/no?) but not only. A template that is bloated with stuff ('suboptimal programming') you don't need won't probably make your site load faster...

Cesare Marchetti: None! I used different activity trackers as I worked for a startup in this domain and would like to check out Google glass once. I like to check out these gadgets, but honestly, I don't want to wear or be surrounded by this kind of things all the time...

Cesare Marchetti: Often it can be done in 2-3 weeks, depending on what is already there and how different you want your site to be from the original template. Content editing and creations are for sure the most time-consuming aspect of the whole process. The content has to be appealing to your potential customers, i.e. tell your customer what he wants to know, show your USP's, be search engine optimized and last but not least make him convert (buy a product, ring you up, send you the contact form, etc.).

Cesare Marchetti: A beautiful site that won't be found on the Internet by the right people is maybe still nice but probably like this you are not getting out the maximum out of your website. This is also true for companies that are already known and established. You have to make sure that your site is found on search engines for keywords that are relevant to your business (Search Engine Optimization) and structure it the way so that visitors you attract eventually become also customers (Conversion Rate Optimization). Conversion Rate Optimization done right will most likely have the biggest leverage effect on your site especially if it has never been done before. You can do that on your own or let a specialist do it but if you don't take this into account, you will probably miss opportunities.