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<title>Latest Articles by miechielspr</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/</link>
<description>Articles at Populate.NET</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<item>
<title>Why You're Probably Mismanaging Your SEO and Online Ad Placements</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Pay-Per-Click/why-you-re-probably-mismanaging-your-seo-and-online-ad-placements.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Pay-Per-Click/why-you-re-probably-mismanaging-your-seo-and-online-ad-placements.html</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ There's a silent, but growing, epidemic spreading across the Internet marketing community and corporate sales and marketing departments. It doesn't affect everyone, but it tends to strike those very companies that cannot afford to be wasteful or make a lot mistakes when it comes to their Internet marketing.

A Horror Story

The story is all too familiar and goes something like this:

American Services Company is spending a good deal of money on Google AdWords and search engine optimization (SEO). They're getting a decent and steady flow of inquiries for both contact forms and whitepapers. They also have a "request demo" that gets a good amount of action.

Jenna, the inside sales person, diligently goes through the form responses that, like most companies, get sent to her inbox. She grades the inquiries when possible, routing them appropriately to sales, putting them in drip marketing, etc.

Again, like most companies, Jenna, and in particular the sales team, are finding good prospects and opportunities here and there.

There's also an awful lot of junk.

Students, competitors, tire-kickers and, let's face it, a good number of wackos, fill out these forms, causing the click budget to increase and frustrate the inside sales folks.

Jenna hands over a beautiful spreadsheet to the marketing department, reporting back on all the "leads" that came in -- which ones are good, (a few of them,) and which ones are not, (a lot of them).

But wait... something is missing.

Look closely and chances are you won't find it. What is it? The answer is deceptively simple, yet often overlooked.

Why Things Are They Way They Are

The missing piece of data is simply this: which search engine and search phrase did the visitor use prior to submitting the form?

To give you an example, your form result should look something like this when it comes in:

     First Name: John
     Last Name: Smith
     Company: ACME, Inc.
     Referring Search Engine: Google
     Referring Search Phrase: widget manufacturer accountants

The data in the last two lines in the example above are what the overwhelming majority of companies don't capture -- and the lack of this information causes ridiculous amounts of wasted search marketing spending!

Without these data points, the people managing your search marketing dollars are flying blind as it pertains to capturing quality traffic and leads. They continue to spend good money for buckets of dirt to find the hidden nuggets of gold. And your inside sales team has to sift through all that dirt to find the nuggets.

I suspect in a lot of B2B markets, companies probably get 80% of their "quality" inquiries from 20% of their budget dollars. Without this data point, how would you go about identifying the 80% of budget waste?

The scary thing is that, in lieu of this missing data, a lot of marketers and agencies rely on some potentially dangerous and misleading metrics. Just because people click on your ad doesn't mean it's good. In fact, it could be a total waste of dollars. Moving downstream just because a particular search phrase generates more completed forms than any other doesn't mean that it's generating more quality leads than any other.

Why don't companies capture this data? In 10+ years of working with both clients and agencies, I've seen two major reasons, both of which are, quite honestly, a little disheartening: apathy and ignorance.

In speaking with several webmasters and IT folks, capturing the data points illustrated above is not overly complicated, though it can be somewhat time consuming, depending on how the website was built and is being hosted.

A lot of CRM systems are starting to offer the necessary technology to capture and feed this data right into the database. (Granted, a lot of these systems are out of the reach of a lot of small- to medium-sized businesses.)

What You Can Do

The business requirements to fix this problem are elegantly simple. Email or call your webmaster or IT department with the following request:

We would like to:
1. Track the search engine and search phrases that the visitor used to arrive at our website.
2. Carry those values throughout the visitor's stay at the site.
3. When that visitor completes a form on our website, pass the stored values along with the standard form information.

Easy as 1, 2, 3 right? The problem is seeing this request through to completion.

But I call on all people who are responsible for the profitability of a company -- don't lose this battle, don't let it slip through the cracks. This is one of those defining moments that are not as glamorous as a home page redesign, or as visible as an online press release, or as "impressive" as a lead generation report. It is, however, one thing you can do to virtually ensure that dollars spent for the next several years are spent more wisely and with less waste than in the past.

If you're a webmaster, agency, marketing coordinator, consultant, or anyone in the trenches, walk this article to the President, CFO, VP of Sales, or CMO. You'll be glad you did, and so will they.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that executives, particularly "old school" executives, appreciate and rely on these sorts of things being brought to their attention. This is new territory for a lot of executives and we tend to lose sight of that.

Quick recap and homework:

1. Don't get lost in the overwhelming amount of data points, such as click-through rate, cost-per-click, cost-per-inquiry, hits, visits, rankings, etc. Stay razor-focused and seek out the simple yes/no answer to the following question: Can we track the search engine and search phrase in our web forms?

2. If the answer to #1 is no, bring it to the stakeholders' attention and seek a solution. Your options are:
     a. build the functionality in house, or
     b. seek a CRM solution that possesses this feature.

3. Once you're capturing this data, make sure you're providing it to your search marketing people in real time or on a regular basis. Hold them accountable for bringing your cost per "qualified" inquiry down by using this intelligence.

4. Ask for a raise, take the day off, and pat yourself on the back. You're in the rarified air of those people who bucked the system, who challenged the status quo, for the betterment of the customer. ]]></description>
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<title>Is Your Telephone Crippling Your B2B Marketing ROI?</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Pay-Per-Click/is-your-telephone-crippling-your-b2b-marketing-roi.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Pay-Per-Click/is-your-telephone-crippling-your-b2b-marketing-roi.html</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ I was shocked at how such a simple oversight could be sabotaging my client's sales efforts. Not only were they losing sales, they were actually paying hundreds of dollars to alienate EACH hot prospect.

The CEO of an enterprise software company asked me to work directly with the VP of Marketing and take over their Google Adwords campaign management. They were routinely paying $35 to $65 per click in their highly-competitive niche. The objective was to optimize the campaign so as to get more sales opportunities for each dollar spent.

In order to begin quantifying the value of their AdWords investment and identify measurable results, the company acquired tools like traceable inquiry forms, Google Analytics, measurable conversion goals, and a special toll-free number that allows the company to actually listen back to the inbound calls that are initiated by a website visitor.

Now it Gets Ugly

After I set up the toll-free number, my routine is to test it a couple of times to make sure it works and is forwarding the call to the right number at the company. This also gives me the opportunity to "mystery shop" the company's phone call answering and routing process, as though I am a prospect who just found the company's website and is calling the phone number on the screen in front of them.

When I made my call to the company's toll-free number, here's what I was treated to:

     "...this call may be monitored for quality control and customer service... ring... ring... ring... ring... thank you for calling [company name] please wait while we transfer your call to the next available representative... ring... ring..."

Half laughing and half grimacing, I hit '0' to try to get a human on the phone, only to hear:

     "...the option you have selected is invalid, please select again..."

At that point, I hung up... just like a prospect would. I couldn't help but wonder how many potential customers had hung up in frustration and how many potential sales opportunities had been squandered.

How to Measure Ugly

This company was paying $65 per click to get roughly 1 out of 10 visitors to actually pick up the phone and dial a call to the sales team. This amounts to $650 per call (actually much more, when indirect marketing costs are factored in) and that $650 call was immediately flushed down the abyss of their automated phone system. Any chance of a positive impression was immediately turned into a lost sale.

Sadly, this sales prevention system is not at all unusual among businesses today. Too often companies get lost in the day-to-day minutia of increasing their web traffic and rankings. They overlook the simple yet vitally important things such as making sure sales calls get answered and emails are handled in a timely manner. The result is lost sales opportunities and a poor impression of the company, which can lead to much larger problems that ultimately sabotage business growth. 

A Sound Solution

Luckily, I had set up the toll-free number recording system.

I called the VP of Marketing and enabled her to hear what I had just experienced. "Horrified!" inadequately describes her reaction. The next day she called back, saying she had replayed the call for the CEO, who was also sickened.

The company made an immediate decision to engage a live answering service to handle the calls, at least for the short term. A team was quickly trained to ensure that every inbound call was adequately and professionally handled.

From Ring-Ring to Ka-Ching

Is your company guilty of throwing dollars at campaigns to increase web traffic, only to turn around and squander sales opportunities due to poor telephone and email handling? 

Quick... better make sure your telephone system isn't preventing prospects from reaching out and touching someone at your company. As soon as you finish reading this, pick up the phone and call your company's sales lines and test the process for yourself.

Is your experience exactly what you'd like your perfect prospect to encounter?

If so, congratulations. If not, take some action to remedy the situation, such as implementing a professional answering system or training your sales team to handle the calls in a timely and professional manner. These little common-sense things are often unnoticed and unresolved because no one thinks to test ALL the components in the process. Getting each one right will make a big difference to your top line.

Also, implement a system to record incoming phone calls for quality review and to mine/transcribe details for the sales team.

Make time to honestly assess your telephone and email sales processes. Your sales efforts depend on them to operate with friendly flawlessness.

A Beautiful Ending

Recently, my client called and was excited to share with me the recording of an inbound phone call: 

     "...this is [one of the executives] at [a $3 billion dollar] company. We're currently using your competitor and not real happy with the results we're getting. We'd like you to come out and meet with us..."

I was as thrilled as she was with the good news. We both agreed that this call came as a direct result of:
a) installing the traceable, recordable 800 line, and
b) directing the call to the professional, human answering service.

As my client put it, not only would that call have likely never happened under their old system, but there would be no way they could go back and play the entire call to provide the sales team with precious and timely details that may have been lost in translation on a memo pad or in a database field.

Don't let your telephone system sabotage sales any longer. I guarantee that making these few simple changes will bring you more sales opportunities for each precious marketing dollar. ]]></description>
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<title>Better B2B Web Copywriting Lowers Your Cost of Sales</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Search_Engine_Optimization/better-b2b-web-copywriting-lowers-your-cost-of-sales.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Search_Engine_Optimization/better-b2b-web-copywriting-lowers-your-cost-of-sales.html</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ Most B2B companies, regardless of how much money or time they've invested in web copywriting, get their sites up, then move on to a monster list of other things that need to be done -- rarely giving another thought to the web copy. Sadly, this is costing them big bucks.  

Why? Because it's nearly impossible to get web copy right the first time. And when your copy isn't doing its job, you're losing valuable traffic and increasing your sales costs. One of the easiest and least expensive ways to improve your top and bottom lines is by testing and improving your web copywriting. I guarantee that a few tweaks here and there will yield significant results.

Test Your Online Copywriting

Try this. Take a look at any two key pages on your website -- those web pages that are designed to evoke action, get contact info, convey key differentiators, etc. Do you know how long the average visitor stays on those pages?

Here's a quick test: go to one of those pages and time how long it takes you to read it. Now take that number and compare it to your web traffic report that shows how long visitors are staying on that page. I guarantee that you're in for a big surprise. I'd be shocked if people stay long enough to read even one-tenth of the copy. Don't worry though - you're not the only one suffering from "short visit" syndrome.

Another quick and fun test is to see what your conversion rate is on these key pages. In other words, what percentage of people that visited that page took the action or actions you hoped they would take?

The sad fact is that many B2B marketing departments are too busy to take the time to measure and gauge the effectiveness of their copy like this. All too often the answer is more advertising, more search marketing, more whitepapers, rather than more effective online copywriting. If I'm the CFO of your company, I've got to be thinking, "before I spend more on more content, first show me what our current content is doing."

B2B marketers, sales people, executives, and I urge you to go ahead and challenge your copywriters (which may mean challenging yourselves). Baseline the performance of your existing copy, then pick one or two pages, write a different headline, a different value proposition, add a testimonial... do something, do anything. It's cheap to test and adjust, and you're guaranteed a handsome return on investment.

Now if only that next print ad you're scheduled to run could promise the same thing.

Web Copywriting: Less is More

Most companies have convinced themselves that they need five to seven sections on their website, each of which invariably has three or four subsections. But ask yourself -- what's the point of having a 25-page website if 75% of the visitors are leaving within seconds?

With today's technology you can test and refine lead generation campaigns quickly and easily. Instead of driving visitors to your home page every time and getting them lost in the maze of choices and content, develop a single proposition/information page. Drive as much targeted traffic to it as you can possibly afford until you get enough data to gauge the page's effectiveness in generating inquiries. No matter what the data tells you, it's just a baseline to be improved upon. But at least you've now got a mark to hold yourself, or future copywriters, accountable against.

Imagine how much sweeter life would be if instead of telling your CFO you need more money for lead generation, you could say, "we had our key website pages rewritten, which resulted in a 30% increase in inquires, which in turn decreased our cost of sales by over 200%." I guarantee you'll have much less trouble funding marketing projects from that point on. Maybe you'll even be able to shake some funds loose for professional copywriting services.

It's not rocket science, and it's based on direct marketing principles that are hundreds of years old, but it does take a fundamental shift in the way most companies spend (or save) on B2B sales and marketing programs.

The next time you're wondering why it costs so darn much to generate a new customer, take some time to test your web copywriting. You can avoid reaching deeper into your budget and throwing more money at the same ineffective strategies. Making a few changes to your copy can spark a fire that will go a long way toward impacting sales cost. ]]></description>
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<title>What Every CMO Should Know About SEO</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Search_Engine_Optimization/what-every-cmo-should-know-about-seo.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Search_Engine_Optimization/what-every-cmo-should-know-about-seo.html</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ Search engine optimization (SEO) is no longer a secret weapon of cutting-edge, web savvy marketers. Even traditional companies have to make sure search engines like Google and Yahoo find them consistently -- because search engines are the primary way prospects and influencers learn about products and services.

Too often, companies ignore search engine optimization or shelve requests for it simply because senior management does not understand it well enough to provide the necessary leadership and support. And if top management does not view it as priority, marketing and sales people are disinclined to pursue it. They will apply traditional, "accepted" tactics, shying away from one of the most efficient, measurable ways to get in front of prospects.

Too often executives focus on the technical aspects of SEO and lose sight of the more important strategic aspects. Meta tags, spiders, hits and visits don't mean much to company stakeholders and shareholders. Results -- in terms of better leads and more of them -- o.

Here are a few questions every CMO should ask (and be able to answer):

What do we want our web visitors to do?

Whether your desired response is a demo request or a completed inquiry form, management should know and agree upon this 'primary' action and communicate it to all stakeholders. You may have a few different actions that you wish to track.

How many search visitors per month actually do what we want them to do?

Since we are only talking about SEO in this article, we are only interested in search visitors. Knowing this number now and tracking it each month will give you quick insight into the quality and quantity of your search traffic. Do not be surprised to learn that as much as 99 percent of this traffic is not taking the desired action. Pulling in the right traffic and converting it into bona fide leads is a never-ending challenge. Knowing how well (or poorly) you're doing in this area is a big first step.

What percentage of search visitors leave our website within 10 seconds?

This magical statistic obviously relates to all of your web traffic. But focusing on search visitors tells us a couple of things.
  --  First, are you pulling in the right search traffic?
  --  Second, is your website doing an adequate job of 'hooking' them or giving them what they are searching for? 

It is not at all uncommon for companies to spend lots of money and resources to drive search traffic, only to have the overwhelming majority leave within 10 seconds.

Which search phrases are we focusing on?

You want to come up on the search engines for the phrases that your best prospects and influencers are likely to type. You'd be surprised at how differently people actually search, compared to how your sales and marketing people think they search. This is because most searches occur in the research and investigation phases of the buying cycle. In fact, more than half of all B2B searches for purchases over $50,000 occur between two and six months before a purchase is ever made. And often, the person doing the searching may not have the technical understanding of your product or service. The key is to consider carefully how your audience searches (there are some great research tools out there) and come up with a list of approximately 20 phrases that become your company's target phrases. These are the phrases that you should measure and focus your resources on.

How often are we appearing for our target phrases?

Too often a webmaster, marketing manager or even CMO assumes everything is up to par because the company appears at the top of Google for their company name or some extremely specific, non-competitive phrase. It's important to know how often you are coming up on Google (as well as other major engines like Yahoo and MSN) for your target phrases as a whole. While it may be more rewarding to focus on where you are coming up, it is more productive to see where you are not currently coming up, and thus missing opportunities. 

How often are we appearing compared to the competition?

If it's important for you to know which major tradeshows or events your competition attends and exhibits at, wouldn't it make sense to know how often your competition is being found on the search engines compared to you? After all, the Internet and search engines have become the largest, most prolific tradeshow on earth.

Tying It All Together With The Big Picture

Obviously, there are other and even more important things that a CMO would want to know about an SEO effort; number of opportunities generated, cost per opportunity, revenue produced, etc. Many executives assume that someone is tracking this information and reporting on it. But more than likely, no one is. Beginning to capture and act upon some of the basic points in this article could be the catalyst to help measure the true effectiveness and production of your internet efforts.

All of this data should be readily available to you if your company has developed a prudent search optimization strategy and implemented some basic and widely available tools. If you are not getting this information, you are missing an increasingly important business development medium. Compared to the amount of energy and resources you are currently spending to generate new business, SEO may be the most effective and cost-effective way to fill your pipeline. ]]></description>
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<title>Short Visit Syndrome. Are You Missing Sales Because of a High Bounce Rate?</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Search_Engine_Optimization/short-visit-syndrome.-are-you-missing-sales-because-of-a-high-bounce-rate.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Search_Engine_Optimization/short-visit-syndrome.-are-you-missing-sales-because-of-a-high-bounce-rate.html</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ Heads would roll.  At the very least, you'd want to know why so many people were disengaging.  Chances are it's happening to you right now, every day. Your sales team isn't the problem; it's your most visible and active company representative; the website.There's an easy to measure, but often overlooked number that can tell you a great deal about the effectiveness of your website. The 'bounce rate' (sometimes referred to as abandonment rate) is the percentage of visitors that leave your website without viewing a 2nd page. 

The percentage itself is not really important. Every website, every audience and every industry is different. Even the most sophisticated websites can easily have 50 percent of visitors bailing early. What is important is what you're doing to reduce this number.  Why? Because there is no cheaper way to repair the spout that feeds your pipeline. While it may take months to test and correct your sales process, telemarketing or direct mail efforts, the Web allows for rapid and cost-effective testing.  You can positively change your short visit rate in a few days, even a few hours.

The Impact

If visitors to your site don't stick around, they can't request more information, take the demo, sign up for the newsletter or do any of the things the site was designed to make them do. It took considerable time and money to bring these visitors to your site--each time one leaves, you're squandering your general marketing and advertising efforts and dollars. Worse, those visitors leaving are likely seeking information or a solution elsewhere on the web.  You're helping create demand for your competition.

The Cause

A high bounce rate is usually a combination of two things--the wrong people coming and your site's inability to engage the visitor.  This is particularly true when it comes to traffic from search engines.  Because these visitors are looking for something specific (and usually in a hurry), it's only logical that they would quickly bail if the site doesn't satisfy their needs.

What To Do About It

Luckily, we're dealing with the web, where the data is rich and the adjustments are easy. The first step is to see where you are.  Ask your webmaster or web marketing person to report on the percentage of both all visitors, and search visitors that are leaving within 10 seconds.  If they can't get this information for you, enlist some help or get a simple web traffic analysis tool, as this is basic data every company should capture.  

Once you get these numbers, don't flip out.  It's just a baseline, a starting point from which to improve. Ask yourself, "what might be causing these people to leave?".  Visit your site in your prospect's shoes.  Might it be the non-differentiating or overly technical message?  Maybe the site just doesn't look very professional.  Perhaps the majority of your prospects simply don't like the color red.  Most likely,it's the lack of any compelling reason to stay.  If you don't have something to grab visitors' attention and get them clicking for more, you can continue to expect poor retention rates.  

Sometimes I find it helpful with my clients to look at this problem from a traditional point of view.  What if this was a tradeshow booth?  How could we get people to stay at the booth longer?  The key here is to work together with your sales and marketing folks (notice we left the IT department out) to brainstorm and come to a consensus as to what you suspect the single biggest problem might be.  Once you decide, have your webmaster make the necessary changes and measure the difference.  If you don't get a whole lot of visits, it may take a long time to come to a conclusion.  This is where doing a quick pay-per-click advertising campaign can come in real handy if for nothing else than to get some inexpensive market research.

You've Got Nothing to Lose Except Business

It's easy to dismiss this entire problem; after all, you probably didn't know you had a problem. And you can always add more sales reps and send out more mailers. However, the "problem" could actually be an opportunity in disguise' if you take these first steps. You may be surprised how enthusiastic your web team and senior management are about wanting to improve in this area.  It is fun, challenging and, unlike many other aspects of business, an effort that provides rapid and rich feedback.  Hold contests!  Give the person or team that comes up with the most dramatic improvement the corner office! He or she just made your company more efficient and profitable.

Short-visit syndrome is something most executives don't like to mention, let alone talk about.  Fortunately, confronting the issue head on and doing things to remedy it is far less painful than you think and the results are well worth the effort. ]]></description>
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<title>Enhance Your B2B Sales Pipeline Using Search Engine Marketing</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Search_Engine_Marketing/enhance-your-b2b-sales-pipeline-using-search-engine-marketing.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Search_Engine_Marketing/enhance-your-b2b-sales-pipeline-using-search-engine-marketing.html</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ While there is no way of knowing exactly how many additional search-generated leads you could be capturing, remember this: If you're not getting those leads, your competitors are! If your marketing and sales departments are looking for more qualified leads, then search engine marketing is an inexpensive way to find them. In recent years, search engine marketing has grown in popularity as a cost effective tool used to generate additional sales leads. What was once little more than an afterthought in the website design process has become the best kept secret of savvy B2B marketers. 

This article provides a five step process that will help fill your pipeline with a steady flow of sales leads. In the article, I'll also share some secrets of how to coordinate search engine marketing efforts with other sales and marketing tools.

If you are responsible for B2B sales, marketing, or your company's website, then you should assess your current pipeline and determine how many leads (or how much revenue) can be directly attributed to traffic referred to your site from search engines. While there is no way of knowing exactly how many additional search-generated leads you could be capturing, remember this: If you're not getting those leads, your competitors are!

Quick Primer

For anyone who isn't familiar with search engine marketing, it's simply the art and science of ensuring that your website appears prominently in the results of search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!, when people look for products and services similar to the ones you sell.

Step One: Make Sure You Can Be Found!

These web surfers and potential customers will never get into your pipeline if they can't find you! There are dozens of phrases that a qualified prospect might use for a search that, ideally, should lead straight to you. At an absolute minimum, you want your company name and the trade names of your product or service to be represented on the search engines, but think bigger! You also want to be found for the product or service category and phrases related to your products or services. In addition, be sure to include phrases related to the problems or issues that your product or service addresses before your prospect has a solution in mind. Not all of your prospects are at the tail end of the buying cycle! Capture them early in the process and you'll have your foot in the door. Determining and then prioritizing the list of search phrases that would yield the highest quality and quantity of sales leads is critical to your overall success and should not be taken lightly. Once you've compiled this list, your website needs to go through a process called "search engine optimization". During this process, the entire website, including the source code and content are reworked (or "optimized") so that your site is preferred by search engines for the key phrases you have selected.

Step Two: Hook Them or Lose Them

If you've done a good job of optimizing your website, then your search engine positions will gradually improve, and within six months the site will start appearing frequently near the top of search engine results for your chosen phrases. At this point, it would be easy to sit back and relax, but your pipeline won't get filled by merely improving your website's search positions! The next challenge is to hook the visitor and reel them into your website. Once a search visitor hits your site, you have about five seconds to convince them that you can satisfy their needs. After all, remember that this is a search visitor. They are looking for something and won't think twice about hitting the back button if you don't give them a reason to stay.

For this reason, it is critical to make sure that all of your traditional sales and marketing principles are being utilized effectively on your web pages. Clearly communicating your unique selling proposition, or simply why they should stay, is necessary if you want to ensure that your hard work in step one wasn't in vain. You'll lose a lot of visitors regardless of what you say or do, and that's fine. We're only focusing on your true prospects. Let the rest of them go because they'll just clog up your pipeline anyway!

Step Three: Offer Something for Everyone That's Interested

In step one, you attracted lots of relevant traffic. In step two, you targeted your message to ideal prospects and weeded out the rest. In step three, it's time to get generous. Create two offers and promote them throughout your website.

The first offer is a teaser giveaway that your true prospects will find of value. It could be a whitepaper, free information guide, case study, self assessment quiz, etc. This offer is for prospects in the early stages of the buying cycle that are not yet ready or willing to engage in a dialog. Don't require anything more than an e-mail address in exchange, so you don't scare them away. You'll be amazed how many C-level executives request these sorts of offers from home with their personal e-mail accounts.

The second offer is for something more substantial that requires significant information and indicates a serious interest on the part of the prospect. This offer may be a consultation, onsite demo, trial offer, etc. Depending on your sales team's bandwidth and the health of your pipeline, you can raise or lower the number of fields you require. This change helps you to control the number of leads the offer generates.

Step Four: Manage the Entire Pipeline!

It would astonish you if you knew how many companies follow steps one through three only to let most of their "first offer" leads slip away into oblivion while spending the majority of their time with the "second offer" leads. While this strategy may produce greater short term gains, it neglects a much bigger lead pool that could become a group of serious buyers in the long term. Many B2B sales departments have learned that their highest win rate is with prospects that are still early in the buying process. If you ignore them, then they'll seek help in the arms of your competition. That's why it's a good idea to come up with a lead management strategy to handle, sort, and respond to all of the inquiries. There are many software solutions that will automate this process with incredible flexibility and efficiency.

Step Five: Measure, Adjust, and Improve.

Each step in this process can be easily measured, analyzed, and improved. Make sure that you have measurement tools in place and continually improve the step that is your weakest link. Perhaps it's your search engine positions. Maybe it's your message and design. It could be your offers, or the manner in which you handle the leads. Regardless, continuous small improvements in one or more areas will make your website pipeline more efficient and lucrative.

Surprise! This Process Works Equally Well in Reverse

You can reverse the order of these five steps and the process would be just as effective. Maybe even more so! If your company has done a good job of offline sales, then you probably already have the foundations for the latter steps in place. If so, you're way ahead of the game. The most interesting thing about getting more targeted traffic to your website is that it only magnifies the strengths and weaknesses in your site design, message, offer, and selling process. Follow these five steps and you'll overcome your weaknesses, leverage your strengths, and fill that pipeline! ]]></description>
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