How to Align Your Marketing and Web Development Goals

Web development and marketing are often viewed as two separate areas of a business, however, their goals need to be aligned in order to see the best results. Not ensuring that marketing and web development goals are similar can mean they fail to work together correctly, which can be detrimental to both departments.

As Koozai explains, web development often looks at a single part of a marketing strategy, which can be damaging to other areas. Instead, it needs to assess the needs of the strategy as a whole. Similarly, marketing needs to assess the web development capabilities of certain strategies to ensure plans can be put into action.

In order to achieve goals that complement each other and that are achievable for both departments, these are some ways to do this:

SEO

It's understood that search engine optimization (SEO) is vital for both successful marketing campaigns and websites. However, notes Dapa, it is often approached toward the end of a project, which can make sites and campaigns less effective.

Approaching SEO as one of the main goals can help marketing and web development come together. Not only can setting this goal as a main focus for both ensure that content is produced with SEO in mind, it also makes sure a comprehensive approach when it comes to development.

Analytics

Knowing what both departments are hoping to achieve is vital when it comes to aligning goals, however, in order to do this, you need to ensure that the way goals are being measured also work together. There is little point in both departments using totally different analytics to see how a campaign has performed, as the findings could be at odds.

Kissmetrics highlights the importance of knowing what data can inform your marketing strategies and give insights into who is visiting a site and how they are navigating it. This means that aligning your analytics is important to ensuring both departments' goals are on par.

Branding

When it comes to representing a brand, the tone, design, culture, language and logo are all representations of it that can influence a customer. As a result, branding needs to be consistent throughout everything created that by that brand, including marketing campaigns and all assets produced by web development.

As Strategy New Media points out, branding needs to be considered in terms of the whole customer experience, which means maintaining consistency. Marketing and web development should approach branding together in order to create the best experience for customers and to confirm which aspects of this branding that need to be approached in the same way.

User experience

One of the most important things for web developers to look at is user experience, with aspects like site speed drastically impacting this. Marketers also want to consider user experience in a bid to better influence the user journey and lead customers through to more content or to the purchase stage.

Aspects of both strategies can affect the user experience, with elements created by marketing impacting site speed or development interrupting the journey set out by a campaign. Looking at the goals marketing and web development have in terms of user experience can help the site run as smoothly as possible, helping both departments achieve what they set out to do.