Generating leads that are interested in your products and services is the first step to increasing sales and profits. Without ongoing and increasing sales volume, you really don’t have a sustainable business.
The question to answer now is: How effective is your online lead generation? Is your website attracting, engaging and converting visitors into prospects and clients? Unfortunately far too many business websites are designed as nothing more than a
digital brochure.
Study any number of business websites and you’ll find the usual About Us, Services, and Contact pages, but rarely will you see a well thought out lead generating sales funnel. There’s often no lead capture, rarely a call to action and in far too many instances, the Contact information is incomplete or difficult to find.
If you’re like most people, when you visit a site like this, your first reaction is likely to click the back button and search for a better alternative.
Setting up an online sales funnel can make your business website much more effective at lead generation, turning visitors into customers and even fans. Here’s how to set up a simple lead generating sales funnel.
Grab people’s attention to generate more traffic to your website
Web users have very short attention spans, unsurprisingly so, considering the amount of content available and the endless things that they can do online. The truth is that many if not most people who go online are easily distracted — they are just not going to bother too much about visiting your website unless your brand or offer stands out in some way.
There’s no easy strategy for grabbing attention online, on the contrary, what works for some businesses may not work for others. But there are many strategies and channels you can use, including social media, content marketing, mobile advertising, promotions, video marketing and more. The trick is to use as many of these as you can afford to invest time and resources in, and to keep at it. The goal: generate targeted traffic to your website.
Win the trust of your visitors to turn them into qualified leads
Grabbing the attention of potential customers won’t be of much use if they bounce out of your site because nothing captured their attention.
You need to give a reason for the visitor to engage with your offer or content. What action do you want the visitor to take? If you offer an emergency service like 24/7 plumbing, it will be a phone number they can call. In this plumbing website example, adding the benefits of making that phone call would help considerably.
It’s important to understand that even if your business website exudes professionalism and confidence people won’t naturally rush to buy. A majority of visitors will want to first get to know your business by researching your brand, your products and services. It’s best if you offer them genuine, trustworthy content through which they can learn more and decide that you have the best solution. Regardless of how you try to win the trust of your customers, understand that if people don’t feel confident with your brand, they won’t even return to your website, let alone buy from you. Your goal: Build confidence and trust.
Convert interested visitors into prospects
If you’ve grabbed their attention and then won their trust, you’re almost there. Now it’s time to prompt them to make a decision by closing in with a relevant and effective call to action.
The call to action will depend on your business and what a visitor may be looking for. It can be as simple as offering a high-quality white paper, PDF report, video training, free quote or consultation in exchange for their email and or phone number. What you ask for will depend on your business and offer.
Email remains one of the most effective methods in building a relationship with prospects. Using an auto responder will simplify following up with prospects.
Your call to action has to come at the right time – if you make it too early, (i.e. before trust is secured) your marketing may come across as too aggressive, and your lead generation sales funnel will likely fail.
Give visitors a good reason to return to your site. This can be done via an email campaign. At the same time, you can work on improving the conversion rate, by setting up a dedicated landing page, streamlining the design on the call to action page, or testing different calls to action as well as different ‘buy’ buttons.
You will want to analyze your site visits using Google Analytics or a similar program to see what’s working and where prospects are falling off. Your Goal: Optimize the on-page experience so visitors take the next step by contacting you or leaving their email address.
Build a loyal following to keep them coming back
It’s more cost-effective to have existing customers return and buy additional products and services than it is to constantly rely on attracting first time buyers. Follow up with clients. Stay in touch. Present new offers. Ask for referrals. Get clients to share their buying experience with your business on their social media accounts, including review sites.
All these actions are part of the sales funnel. Generating leads online with a sales funnel is highly effective, but it takes time, which is why you should keep on at it. No excuses.
There are a lot of moving parts to an effective online sales funnel. Do it right and your online marketing efforts can become one of your most effective methods in generating new sales. Want help in putting it all together? We would be pleased to discuss how we can help. Call us toll-free: 1-888-359-5562.