Get Leads Make Sales

Back in the day, many dotcom companies burned through cash like crazy when they advertised (typically offline) to drive visitors to their website. This tended to generate a short-lived “sugar rush” of visitors who never came back or bought anything. The thinking was, “you need to keep content fresh to keep visitors interested and coming back for more”.

While for certain types of websites this is absolutely true (e.g. a news portal), many people still think that fresh content is essential for ongoing website success. That ain’t necessarily so

A lot of the lead generation work we do on behalf of our clients involves building websites geared towards getting new clients for the business. Once a prospect becomes a paying customer, the need to have fresh content to net repeat visits is dramatically less; the website has already performed its function.

While the old saying in marketing is that it takes 7 contacts (or visits in the case of a website) for a prospect to convert, this all depends. Generally speaking, the more expensive or complex the product or service you have to offer, the more visits will be needed to convert a prospect.

The best way to drive these initial “pre-conversion” repeat visits is to incorporate a “lead capture” mechanism into your site. This might be as simple as a newsletter signup form, or it could be an invitation to download more comprehensive materials (e.g. a free report or eGuide).

This allows you to educate prospects about the value that you offer as well as stay in touch. Your followup contacts will keep prospects coming back to your site to dip back into your content.

This is a strategy we use often; not only on client’s websites but on our own as well. Whether a lead capture strategy is needed or not depends largely on how difficult it is for your website to convert visitors to customers.

However, don’t think that adding new content to your website doesn’t matter; it’s just not the ONLY thing that matters.

New content can in fact be a great thing for your site, especially if your site is niche focused. In this case, frequently updated content can establish you as an authority; having a section of your site devoted to articles can be a good way to bring prospective clients in for a visit.

That’s a fantastic position to be in, but it does require work. You need to write the articles (or have someone write them for you) and update them on a regular basis. And there’s no guaranteed payoff.

Many business owners we talk to are eager to include a “latest news” section on their sites in order to bring in repeat traffic. There are two reasons why I don’t generally recommend this.

1. Unless you are a genuine authority in your field, these sections tend not to be all that informative or interesting to prospective customers.

2. This section will involve posting regular updates; something which is often neglected. I’m guessing you run across “latest news” pages all the time which haven’t been updated in years.

I guess the moral of the story is to plan in advance. If your long-term website strategy demands weekly article updates, then you need to arrange the resources in advance to make sure it happens. If you don’t feel you can commit to regular updates, then perhaps the “low maintenance” option is better.

Do customers really use the internet when they are looking for local providers of products and services? The answer is yes. Lots of my clients have started using local internet marketing and it’s doing great things for their businesses. However, there are many local businesses who still have not begun to use local internet marketing, I would advise them to do so and quickly. Local internet marketing is effective and offers a great ROI. Here’s just two reasons why:

1. Targeting potential customers at the point of purchase: Much like the Yellow Pages (remember those?), people look online for a product or service when they are in need of it. These are consumers who are ready to buy and as such are a great audience to reach. This is highly targeted marketing, unlike less cost effective methods such as newspaper advertisements.

2. Weak competition: Many local businesses use standard offline advertising strategies such as the Yellow Pages, but they don’t have an effective online presence. Whereas in the Yellow Pages, you’re surrounded by your competition, you have far fewer competitors online. Fewer competitors means higher conversion rates and lower marketing costs. In other words, online marketing represents a good arbitrage opportunity for local businesses.

Local internet marketing is actually pretty simple. Your website is (or should be) sales-oriented. The task at hand is then to get people to your website, targeted traffic which will translate into higher sales. And as a local business, your target market is the people in your own community.

Here are five of what I see as the best ways to drive local traffic to your site. Some may work better for you than others; I’d recommend trying all of them and finding out which works best for your business.

Strategy #1: Google Adwords

Google Adwords is an essential part of internet marketing, It is easy to use, cost effective and can be used to highly target your prospective customers. Here are a few guidelines for building effective local campaigns with AdWords.

1. Compile lists of keywords including your targeted geographical area.

2. Create ads which make a point of mentioning your location.

3. Track conversions

4. Test different ads against each other

5. Test some generic search phrases too

Strategy #2: Search Engine Optimization for Targeted Local Search Phrases

1. Target your search phrase carefully

The first rule of SEO is that you can’t be everything to all people. By focussing on one key phrase you’ll give yourself a much better chance of getting high rankings for that phrase. Lack of focus is the enemy.

To decide which keyword or phrase to focus on, have a look at the conversion rates which your AdWords campaigns are earning you. Take the most effective word or phrase and target this phrase. You can also try this formula as a default and usually works well:

[your location] + [your industry name]

2. Put your key search phrase in your homepage title tags.

Title tags include the text which shows up in that blue bar at the very top of your browser windows. Search engines use these tags as part of their formula for determining page rankings. Keep your title tags concise.

3. Build some backlinks.

These are links from other sites to your own. Having a large number of backlinks tells search engines that your site is popular, which is a factor in determining page rankings.

Here are some simple guidelines for building backlinks to your website:

Get your website listed in as many directories as possible. Do link exchanges with other websites. Write articles about your industry and submit them to directories, you can link these articles back to your site. Start a blog and link it to your website. You can also buy backlinks from sites like www.text-link-ads.com.

IMPORTANT: If possible, you want the text of incoming links to contain the keywords for which you want to rank well.

4. Use your keywords in your website content

Again, this can get very technical, but you’ll do fairly well just by including your keywords throughout your website content in a natural way (DON’T overdo it). If possible, use your keywords in the headline and in the first paragraph of text, then here and there throughout the content.

Strategy #3: Other Pay-Per-Click Search Engines

If you’re already getting good results from Google AdWords, you can try out using some other PPC services such as Overture and Sensis (Australia). You probably won’t get the same kind of results, but these services can offer a positive ROI.

Strategy #4: Yellow Pages Online

This may work differently for you if you’re outside of Australia, but the Online Yellow Pages in my experience is more effective than the print edition, in fact, as much as ten times higher ROI in some cases! This may not work equally well for every business; but if your client value ratio is high ($500 or more in sales/per new client), then Yellow Pages online may work well for you.

Strategy #5: Integrate your offline marketing promotions

The URL of your site should be included on your business cards, signage and advertising. While this won’t necessarily get a lot of leads for your business, you can increase traffic by showcasing your website in your marketing materials. You can offer a freebie like a report or a whitepaper to induce people to visit your site.

In my work as a copywriter, clients sometimes ask me to review their ads to help them improve their sales results. Here I’ll talk about some of the most common small business advertising mistakes, so you can troubleshoot your advertising and get a better Return On Investment from your marketing.

Layout

Too many small business ads read like a list:

I’m sure you’ve seen these ads; company name at the top rather than a compelling headline. Dry copy which doesn’t manage to get your interest. There is nothing to induce you to do business with this company, even remember it. No call to action is given, just the company address and phone number.
We all know these ads don’t work. They just don’t get people’s attention. Readers want to know one thing: what’s in it for me?

This is a much more effective ad layout:

Headline at the top. (Don’t be tricky: just state the strongest benefit of your product or service.)

The bottom right (known in the business as the “anchor point”) should have a contact number and coupon, if you are using coupons in your ad.

Company name and address at bottom left (where the prospect will find it once they’re convinced.)

If there are illustrations or photos in your ad, follow them with headlines. This will create a narrative structure to your ad and keep readers moving down the page.

It’s a good idea to outline the benefits of your product or service with bullet points. Long copy is great, but it’s a lot harder to write.

How are your ads structured? Do they look like a list, or do they tell a story and give a call to action? If your ads read like a list, then you’ll see better results by changing things up.

Failing to Test and Track Ad Response

Test and fine tune your ads, then track their performance. Even a small change in wording can make a huge difference in sales. This can help you to more effectively spend your ad budget.

How to Track Advertising Response

It’s easy to track your advertising, you can just ask people who call how they heard about your business. If you are publishing many different ads, you can get more complex with your tracking using one or more of these techniques.

Use colour coded coupons in print ads, or track coupons with codes. You can also have callers mention a special offer to track the success of your ads.

Online it’s even easier, there are lots of great tracking software programs that will allow you to compare one page against another or one traffic source against another.

One of my clients a while back tracked their advertising response rates and found that their expensive print ad campaign was bringing in almost no responses, while a nearly free flyering campaign was generating a lot of business. They were able to drop the print ads and save a lot of money while having a more effective advertising and marketing campaign.

What To Test

You should test these things in your ads:

Headlines, Offers, Body Copy, Guarantee, Price

Hint: You’ll get the greatest return by testing headlines first.
When you find something that works, stay with it until you find something better. It really isn’t hard to improve your marketing ROI if you use this approach, yet hardly anyone does it! If YOU decide to take action on this tip, you can save money, leverage your marketing budget, and put some distance between you and your competition.

Taking the time to ensure that your ads are effective at generating responses can make a huge difference to your business. It may even be worthwhile for your company to take on a copywriter. Having an expert on hand to create your advertising can be more than worth the salary you’ll pay him or her.

Not Making The Most of a Powerful Guarantee

Many small businesses don’t have a strong guarantee, or they don’t know how to incorporate their guarantee into their ads. This is important, because powerful guarantees have been shown to increase ad response by 50+ percent.

Guarantees put your customers at ease about buying from you. Your confidence in your product or service will increase their confidence as well.

Here are a few tips for successfully incorporating your guarantee into your ads:

1. Your guarantee needs to make specific promises as to results.

Stay away from the generic guarantee language like “satisfaction guaranteed”. It’s much better to use something along the lines of:

“Be thrilled with your treatment or we’ll pay you to go to the competition”

” 50% increase in traffic to your site in 60 days or your money back”

“Send $45 to [Your Company Name and Address]. If you’re not satisfied, we’ll send you back $50.”

2. Test Your Guarantee

As a copywriter and small business consultant, I spend a lot of time working with my clients to produce guarantees which get the reader’s attention. A lot of business owners worry that they will have a lot of customers taking advantage of their money back offers. If this is the case, then start small ? publish one ad with this guarantee, another without. Track your response rate and the number of returns you see. If it works for you, keep offering the guarantee.

In almost every case, a good guarantee will bring in much more in sales than you’ll end up paying out in refunds. Fine tune your guarantee (wording, conditions and so on). You may see a huge difference in sales between a 30 day and 60 day guarantee.

3. Make your guarantee highly visible

Your guarantee should be a headline; you don’t want your reader to miss it.

What can you offer prospective customers in terms of a guarantee that will make them more interested in doing business with you?