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Your website: it an important element to your marketing and may even be your storefront. But your website does not stand alone and it is not the beginning and the end of your efforts to communicate with your customers.

The best marketing is done using what I call a hub and spoke model. Your website is your hub and is at the core of your interaction with your customer. A well-designed website with content structured around and for your customers is like having a store that is a pleasant shopping environment that is well stocked with the merchandise that the shopper wants.

Getting traffic to your store is the job of the spokes. There are many ways to drive traffic to your website from the traditional marketing techniques to social media tools. You should pay just as much attention to the spokes as you do to the hub otherwise your wheel will not turn and you won’t get anywhere.

If you have a well thought out marketing strategy, you will develop strategically relevant techniques to attract visitors to your website. The list of possible tactics and channels is endless so what you choose should be aligned with your strategy, which is your blueprint for connecting with your customers. Social media may make up the majority of tactics used to attract attention to your website and support your brand. In fact, some suggest  that for some companies, Facebook and other sites may replace your website as the hub of your online marketing (more about that in another blog post). For other organizations, a URL on a pen or the back of a truck may be all it takes. It depends on your strategy.

The time to think about the spokes is before you start building your site. You need to think about how you can encourage dialogue and interaction with your customers. Do you want to add a blog, a newsletter, social media feeds? What other features will foster the hub and spoke model?

The one thing to remember about your website is that it won’t take your organization anywhere unless you add the spokes.