Website Lead Conversion. Keep it Simple!

I met with a local business and they, like 99% of the companies out there, share the same frustrations and concerns to web marketing.

Here's advice I share a lot with businesses wanting to generate leads from their website. In this case, it is a car dealership. But it could be a builder selling homes, a jeweler selling diamonds, an insurance agent selling insurance, etc. etc.

Good auto websites. Good defined as a site knowing how to convert its traffic into a lead.

http://www.automart.com
http://www.newcarinsider.com/
http://www.whypaysticker.com/
http://www.cars.com/

Notice they get consumers to fill in their information right AWAY. They persuade visitors to fill out the form by saying "buy in 6 easy steps...fill in the form bla bla bla", or "request a quote by filling in the 30-second form". They give reasons to fill in the form.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. Online success is based on:

1. It's monthly traffic, and
2. How well the site converts its traffic.

EVERYTHING on the site should be geared towards generating a lead. Period. Just like a retail store wants to get all the store's foot traffic to the cash register, your site wants to get everyone to the lead form. The sites above do a good job.

My advice, don't benchmark other dealer's websites. And DON'T benchmark the OEM's!!!! Benchmark the sites above. They know how to convert their traffic.

Also, measure your online success by:

1. Knowing your visit to lead ratio. How many people visit the site a month, and what percent convert into leads.

This is your compass. It tells you if a web change generates more or less leads as a percentage of traffic the site gets. Encourage employees to offer up ideas. Test them. If one works, do more of it. If not, cut it. But there's no one way to do it. It's all about testing, evaluating, then repeating.

2. Know what your lead to close rate is per referral source. There's always a trade-off between quantity of leads and quality. Know the source of the lead and it's corresponding lead to close rate. This should then dictate how much you're willing to pay for each kind of lead (e.g. lead from site, lead from 3rd party website aggregator, Internet phone lead).

Cost per lead, and cost per sold unit is what it's all about.

NOTE: Higher quality leads may not generate the most revenue, because they could cost too much. On the flip side, the cheapest leads may not have a high enough conversion ratio. It's a never ending quest to find the sweet spot between optimal mix of lead quality and lead quantity. Learn by doing, keeping track, and doing more of what is working, and cutting what's not.

It's a never ending persuit.

j. Bruce
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com

Blog To Engage Customers

You gotta be in touch. Either with your employees, team, clients or customers. If you're not, your products and or leadership with get dated. It's survival of the fittest! Whether you want to believe this or not.

Because there are only 24 hours in the day, how do you remain "in touch", and yet still get your job responsibilities done? Hire an Intern to surf the web, compile a summary, and give it to you on a daily, weekly basis? Assign this task to your R and D Department? No. Information flow here is too slow, ultimately making it worthless.

So what do you do? Each employee needs to be in touch. You can lean on the technology that's out there. Your children, nephews or nieces are using it to keep in touch, gain touch, or influence their social networks. They use blogs, IM's and social networking sites. You, your team and company can too!

Why? To deliver a superior, differentiated product, you need to know what your customers, clients and employees are saying. Understant the market by surfing the blogs and discussion boards that are out there. Spend 5 minutes a day. This is FREE market research. Otherwise, you can spend thousands of dollars to get the same insight with survey and focus groups.

Blogs, Vlogs and discussion boars offer us issues or positives people are saying about you. If it's a potential PR nightmare, hopefully you catch it early and influence it the way you want it before it spirals out of control. Contribute to the blogs when needed. Engage! Learn. Create the dialogue. Think of the alternative - people not caring to spend time talking about your company.

Things move to fast. If you're not involved, you're HISTORY!

How does all this relate to driving sales? Engagement means you're intune with your market. That market can be your internal or external customers, or maybe your "market" is your employee base.

To know what you need to do to offer a needed, compelling product, you need to be ENGAGED!

j. Bruce
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com