RICEinteractive

Internet Marketing is About Sales Leads

How often do we get all wrapped up in the aesthetics of our websites and forget about what our prospects and customers need. They want clear, simple, and concise answers to their problems. They want to (very) quickly know whether or not you can help them. They’re not visiting an art gallery.

Now that we’re clear on the objectives. Sales, right? Let’s creatively solve the problem using the Internet and marketing.

How Do I Get More Web Visitors?

I always like to start simple.

In this case, the most basic definition of a Web visitor is: a click from somewhere. We want as many clicks as we can get. These clicks can come from emails, blogs, websites, search engines, social media, or paid online ads. And roughly, our experience shows that this is the order in which these clicks perform the best at generating sales leads.

If you want to increase your Web traffic you need to get your website link(s) in one or more of these marketing medium.

The second step is to develop tactics that motivate people to click on those web links (generating traffic) to your website. I like to break this process down into three processes:

• Quality and relevant content hosting the link (i.e., the email message, blog post, social media message, or paid ad)
• Sense of urgency to drive the click
• Compelling offer or promise (i.e., Ad text, link text, or creative)

This is the process we are thinking through with the Web traffic strategy and tactics we develop for you.

What Do Web Visitors Want from Me?

Getting Web traffic is only half the equation. You need to get them to convert into leads (i.e., phone calls or Web form submits).

This is where most folks skip a step and run headfirst into optimizing landing pages. While important, there is a critical step that precedes the landing page.

When I get that click from the Web visitor…

• What are they expecting?
• What will they want from me?
• What will convince them they are in the right place?

Carefully review the sources of your Web clicks, the text in your referring links or ads, and build out a few personas reflecting the type of people that will be clicking. Then look at your current landing page(s) or begin designing them fresh with these people in mind. Make sure that the majority of clicks you get can find “themselves” on the landing pages you present.

Meeting your Web visitors expectations is a critical first step in converting Web traffic into sales leads.

How To Turn Web Visits into Sales Leads

You’ve driven their clicks. You’ve met their expectations. Don’t forget to ask and capture.

Turning more visitors into captured leads is one of the most complex parts of the lead generation equation. The challenge is designing influence and for this we turn to the six pillars Cialdini taught about in his seminal book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

• Reciprocation – Hooking the visitor into some sense of obligation for the value you have given thus far.
• Commitment and Consistency – Hitting expectations and delivering consistently on the little promises you make in your copy
• Social Proof – Giving the visitor a sense that they are one of many making a good decision to engage with you
• Liking - Showing some personality that will draw that visitor into the most powerful conversion factor–they like you!
• Authority - Designing a professional and validated impression that points to you as the authority in solving their problem
• Scarcity – Probably the most important–convincing them that they must do this deal today or it’s gone.

Obviously, this doesn’t always fit into a single landing page package. However, this is the framework we are consistently processing through to yield results–sales leads.

You’ve seen some of the basic elements of our Internet Marketing process. Contact us to talk specifically about increasing your sales lead flow?

Helping More Internet Customers Find You

Do you even know what your Web URL is? Do your customers? Probably not, but that’s okay–assuming Google knows where it is.

Here is a quick test to see if we should be talking.

1. Go to Google
2. Be a customer looking for your products or services
3. Type in a search to find what you are looking for
4. No luck? Try again
5. …and again

Did any of those searches show your website? If you are like 95% of business I talk to, “No” is the answer.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engines are the number one way people find what they buy on the Internet. If you do not have a consistent strategy to market you products and services through these popular search engines you website is anonymous.

Without a search engine strategy your website is just another zombie, adding little value and invisible to consumers that want to buy.

A good Internet marketing campaign is one that consistently produces and distributes relevant, valuable, customer targeted content to the major search engines.

Improving Search Engine Rankings

Getting your business to show up in the search engines more frequently and higher in the search results is a steady process. Here are a few important elements to get you started:

• Make sure your website has customer relevant content
• Register with the search engines and local directories
• Regularly update or generate news feeds on your website
• Encourage other websites to link to yours for relevant topics

These kinds of activities tell Google, Bing, and Yahoo that your business website is a good, relevant, and current source of information about your products and services.

RICEinteractive SEO Services

Our SEO experts can help you move your business website into a leadership position. We can help you get the search results you want and attract the customers you need.

Call us at 734.775.4487 and help more customers find you.

The Power of Words to Generate Sales Leads

Chances are you are like most businesses these days and have a website. But, what does it do for you?

Probably nothing!

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