Imagine starting a marketing campaign with the thought of “We don’t intend to get any business out of this.” Ludicrous, right? Yet nearly every time I sit down with a potential client, especially if they offer services instead of products, I hear “Our web site is more about closing the deal instead of getting leads.”
Which makes sense.
If you’re just looking backward.
If you have a web site that was not built with the specific intent of generating leads for your business, it is no surprise at all that your web site is not generating leads for your business. But why on earth would you want to continue like that?
Every single business with a web site should be able to generate new business leads via their website. Every single one. Without any “excepts” or “but you see”s. I used to let folks get away with this. Inevitably a couple of months after launching their new site they would call us up exclaiming “We got a new customer through our web site!” I would congratulate them and wait and sure enough the next question would be, “How can I get more leads through my web site?”
So now, every time, without fail, we ask the question that you should be answering as you prepare for a new web site. “How does your web site fit into your marketing plan AND how can we make it work better?”
Some simple things to ponder:
- How does your business typically generate leads?
- How does your web site fit into that process? (or “How should the web site fit into the process?”)
- What are two or three actions that visitors could take that will help them move through the lead generation process?
- What information / response do you want? Phone to ring? White paper downloaded? Contact Form filled out and emailed to you? Order form filled out? Newsletter subscribed to? Online chat request?
Whatever answers you arrive at, put behind you the thought process that says, “We have not received any leads from our website until now, therefore we will not in the future.” Instead, ask yourself how you can begin to generate leads.