First off, we have to say, we’ve been blown away at the number of requests to talk with us about your marketing. One of the reasons why there is such a gap between posts is the number of people who’ve taken us up on our offer of a free 30 minute consult.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get down to business. Today’s post…

No System To Convert Leads Into Customers = No Revenue

This should come as no surprise to you. Having a fool proof system to convert your leads into customers is critical to your long term success.

In talking with business owners for the past couple of weeks, it seems that everyone is seeing a slip in their business. Let’s face it, all of us had it pretty easy in business for some time. Only to see the rug ripped out from under us in the past 18 months.

Most businesses have no simple and fool proof way to follow up with a lead. What they have is a mumble jumble mess of half systems that might work if someone is paying attention.

Let me give you an example.

Recently we had a client in our office that does 7 figures a year in coaching. They sell a very high end coaching program to a very selective niche. What is amazing, is they have no system to follow up with a lead once it’s in the system. The sales have just sort of happened.

Granted they are  bit more sophisticated than most businesses.You have to be in order to get up to 7  figures a year. We made a few suggestions to improve their system.

I’ll share those in just a moment, but first let me tell why this system is built the way it’s built.

In today’s economy, your customers are looking for something very easy for you to create. They want a relationship with a provider they can trust. Which leads me to some very key insights we’ve discovered when it comes to converting more leads into more sales.

1. Don’t sell right off the bat. That’s like asking someone to marry you over the first cup of coffee. Sure it happens, but it happens less than you think.

2. Communicate in a mediums other than email. It is unstable and isn’t always delivered and read by the prospect.  Some of your prospects don’t like reading email and wish you’d do something else…

3. Picking up the phone is a lost art. We have personally and for a number of our clients made huge positive financial impacts by hiring virtual customer service reps to call and follow up with a prospect and see how we may serve them and their needs. (More on this later)

4. Don’t think your prospect is just like you. Too many times we have a customer in our office and they’ll say: "I love email, it’s my favorite way to communicate. I don’t like it when someone calls me." Yes, that may be true, but for everyone of you, there is someone like me who prefers to get on the phone and get it handled.

When you bypass using the phone, you bypass over 33% of your prospects base prefer way of communication.

The bottom line is this, if you are not happy with the number of conversions of leads to customers, take a look at your systems. Maybe you need to add a phone calling program, monthly newsletter or you’re asking for the sale too soon. Fine tune your systems and you’ll see a dramatic increase in sales.

Okay, next we’ll hit our next topic which is all about your Pay Per Click online campaigns.

Best,

Bob and Matt

 

One of the hardest things to impress into clients, and even my own staff at times, is an urge to celebrate a launch…

…of a new Website

…of a new Landing Page

…of a new SEO campaign

…of a new PPC campaign

You get the idea.  We all love to celebrate a job being finished, but in online marketing, and in ALL marketing for that matter, the launch is NOT the time to celebrate.  Sure, go ahead, high-five each other for nailing the deadline, putting out good-looking work, or figuring out that complex issue, but do not get drunk in this celebration because you’ve only completed about 7% of the task.

If you really want to celebrate, save that for when the sales roll in.  I could care less about how a web site looks, reads, or acts until I start to see what it does in terms of sales.  

We’ve got a new saying around here, it’s called NATO (Not Attached To Outcome).  Meaning, we never get "attached" to any website, campaign, or strategy in case we have to dump it for poor performance.  And folks - believe me - you will very rarely hit home runs from Day 1.  The real work is Days 2 through 9972.  If a campaign, site, or strategy is not cutting it, and tweaking it does not increase sales - it’s gone.  No funeral, no tears.  It’s gone.  Next idea, please.

When I wrote my book, Big Ticket eCommerce, I purposely boiled down my philosophy into 4 simple steps.  

1. Strategy
2. Website
3. Traffic
4. Optimization

But even with 4 simple steps, people jump right into step 2 and then worry about step 3 once they have their site up.  Since my book came out, clients are coming to us much more prepared, and they know they need to start with step 1, and they are willing to sit down with us for a day and hammer this out.  They are patient to wait with us as we carefully plan, design, and blueprint a strategy to marry their business objectives into a well-defined website and traffic strategy, and then hand it over to us and wait for launch for several weeks.

If launch is Day 1, then Step 4 starts on Day 2, and this is the step that you never complete.  Sorry.  For you achievers that like to put the check marks in your planner for tasks completed, Step 4 is a step that you will never complete if you understand the concept of continuous improvement.  In the optimization stage we discover small, hidden, and powerful tweaks that turn losers into winners, average campaigns into excellent campaigns, low response into high response, and weak sales into strong sales.  Most people can’t stomach this, but you must if you want success.

You see - even if you get a campaign to a good ROI, if you don’t continually optimize, you will continually and eventually lose.  Every campaign and project that we’ve every worked on in which we’ve allowed it to "coast" has always regressed and needed to be propped back up.

This is where we really excel, and where tiny little hinges can swing big doors.  We track, report, and analyze campaigns every week and continually tweak, toss, or turn the strategy to improve them.

If you think it’s time for you to enter our 4-step program (Hey, we’re 300% easier than a 12-step program!), or you’ve completed steps 1-3 and want us to dig in with you into Step 4, I invite you to set up a call with our chief marketing officer to discuss how we can help you increase results and slash your advertising costs.  You won’t regret it.

Bob.

Let me ask you a simple question…

Are you happy with the results of your web site, online marketing and/or pay per click campaign?

In my conversations with customers and prospects every week, most people are less than happy with the leads and the sales they get from their site.

As I take the time to review each site, I notice there are three key components missing or seriously deficient in their site or online strategy. 

First, the site is not designed to maximize the number of conversions from visitors to leads. It would be like having an ad run for your store, but then you forgot to open the door for business.

Second, they don’t have a process and system to convert the lead into buyer.

Third, the pay per click campaigns don’t synch up with the offer on the site.

Finally, they skimp on their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and use outdated tools to try and rig the system, only to find those tools don’t provide long term success.

I am going to take a few moments through the upcoming weeks to breakdown each of these issues. Mind you this information is determined from our work with clients in 30 plus industries.

If you have a starting company this will help you build your plan. If you are a successful company looking to grow more, then you’ll find these useful and helpful.

One final comment. There is nothing that is going to be sold at all. This is not some kind of warm up to a big launch. Sure, some of you (a very small number… less than 1%) might be a good fit for our company and our service, but that’s not the intent.

Our intent is simple. Get the truth out into the market place.

You will find, however, an opportunity at the bottom of each email to have 45 minutes with me on the phone to review your site and strategies.

Again, no obligation and there is no hidden charge. All I ask is…

** Your company is doing minimum of $750,000 a year. (Or has done consistently)

** You are not selling MLM, affiliate programs or anything like that.

** You be open and honest with me on the phone and in the pre call questionaires. It helps me help you.

Okay, be on the lookout for an email in the next day where I’ll start discussing the four points in more detail.

Best,

 

Matt Gillogly

Chief Marketing Officer - RJR Computing

PS. If you meet the criteria list above and you’re not happy with the results you’re getting online, then contact our office by dialing (877) 349-2615. You must ask for Dawn. She will then send you a survey to see if you really match up. If you do, then a call will be scheduled with me.

 

Yesterday I shared a list of things that we found to work, and things we had difficulty in the past 6 months getting to work well.

Today I want to focus on what it’s taking to get people to respond on your website.  You know, there was a day when you could slap up a website with an opt-in box or order form and you’d get a ton of response without any attention paid to design, copy, or the offer itself.  Bad marketers could make things happen as much as the good marketers.

These days, you better be on top of your game, and really focus on details to get people to respond.

We’ve found that in a majority of the markets where we’ve worked, the traditional landing page has simply stopped working.  I think the landing page as we’ve been taught has reached such a critical mass, that people now are hip to what these pages are for, and know that they aren’t really getting anything for nothing and will be asked to buy something sooner or later.

What we’ve started working on are multi-page mini-sites with offers on each page.  (To see an example, go to: http://kinkadedreamscollection.com/)

In many cases, we’re finding that people are not only responding to these sites, they are spending several minutes on the site, reading, viewing, and listening to the information that’s being presented. (Prospects on the Kinkade site spend and average of 5 minutes) 

It seems that the best approach is to give them a lot of quality information up front, give them the ability to click around a bit, and keep a consistent offer in front of them that appeals to exactly what they want.

Also, we’re finding that the traditional follow-up campaign to an email lead is pretty much worthless.  What we’ve done is still have that as part of our follow-up, but we’ve added in a phone call to the lead (so capture phone numbers!) and cut through all the hype and get right to their pressing question.  (Here is a good example of a site that get’s the name and phone number to get a follow up call.)

This seems to work well because not many online marketers will do this, or have the capability. The personal connection and attention are things people miss online, and will respond to when used without being pushy.

We’re also seeing some success by putting up inbound 1-800 numbers, getting them to skip the opt-in and get right to a sales associate.  This is especially true for service businesses, and businesses at a local level (which means you can geo-target and used local numbers instead of 1-800 numbers).

Getting back to the websites, we’ve noticed that design, color, and layout - which previously had little affect - now make all the difference in the world.  I used to say pretty websites don’t sell - I’m beginning to change my mind, but….

You better put good copy and offers on that pretty site.  (One more bonus, click here to see how we’ve made pretty and copy work.) All the pizazz in the world won’t sell squat unless you spend a lot of time connecting to your visitor with well-written, concise copy with a drop-everything-you-are-doing offer.  Even though we have to step up on the design, we got to REALLY step up on creating great offers and writing world-class copy.

It’s still possible to get people to respond, but you better be on your game to keep the flow going in this economy.