Sales Funnel Optimisation Phase 4: Total Integration

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This is the final instalment of a five-part series on Sales Funnel Optimisation. [See the introduction here].

Phase 4: Total Integration

After you’ve evolved from internal orientation to objective measurement through to user involvement, you’re ready to enter the phase that can potentially unlock the most rewards: total integration.

This is where the first three phases feed into each other in a never-ending improvement process:

• developing and prioritising strategies internally
• measuring your results objectively
• capuring insights from users to acceleratete the process

These aren’t “steps” so much as never-ending improvement loop.

So the ideal website development and optimisation process goes something like this:

1. Conduct research of your market, competitors and opportunities.
2. Develop your site based on your “best guess” (plus smarts and experience) as to what is most likely to work
3. Measure everything so you can track what’s working and what’s not
4. Try different approaches and if they work, keep them.  If they don’t, revert back to the control.
5. Glean insights from users to add new ideas to the mix.  Selectively test, measure and optimise.
6. Rinse and repeat!

With most optimisation processes, it is normal to reach a stage of diminishing returns, once the most obvious improvements have been made.

But in the case of online sales funnel optimisation, the field is developing so quickly that there are always new opportunities to test new tools and strategies.

Even if your online sales process is relatively “mature”, it’s still possible to generate ongoing improvements of 10 or 20 percent per month using this process.

About Marketing Results:

As Australia’s leading internet lead generation experts, Marketing Results specialises in helping fast-growth companies generate more enquiries and sales online while eliminating marketing waste.  Find out more about our internet consulting services here.

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Sales Funnel Optimisation Phase 2: Objective Measurement

This is the second instalment of a four-part series on Sales Funnel Optimisation.  [See the introduction and Part 1].

Phase 2: Objective measurement

Yesterday we looked at some of the advantages and disadvantages of relying on internal knowledge and resources to develop your online strategy. Today we’ll look at the next phase - objective measurement.

Objective measurement tools tell you WHAT users are doing on your site and whether or not tweaks or changes are working.

I’ve written extensively elsewhere on these “quantitative” strategies, so I won’t expand further here, except to provide some examples of typical objective measurement tools and what you can use them for:

• Google Analytics - broad-based analytics package, great for showing a range of key visitor (’How many visitors did we get last month?”) and conversion (”What percentage of visitors from search engines are downloading our White Paper?”) metrics.
• CrazyEgg - shows you WHERE on your webpage visitors clicked and presents the information as an easy-to-understand “heat map”
• Google Website Optimiser - multivariate testing tool. Use GWO to test different page elements (e.g. headlines, copy, offers or designs) and establish which elements convert best.

According to a survey we conducted last year of 324 Australian small and medium business owners, approximately 4 in 5 Australian companies have NOT yet evolved to this level. If you’re already using some or all of these quantitative tools, you should give yourself a pat on the back!

The great advantage of these tools is that they tell you what’s actually happening on your site — what’s working, and what’s not.

That allows you to test new things and if they work, keep them; if they don’t work, scrap them. This step-by-step process of is the basis of our online sales funnel optimisation service that we implement for SME clients.

The disadvantage of a purely quantitative approach is that you don’t have any insight into WHY users are doing what they’re doing. You have to make a “best guess”.  While you can certainly produce dramatic results from a quantitative approach, these types of tools are relatively inefficient for answering the following types of questions:

• What do prospects and clients really think of our website?
• Which specific elements of my website or sales copy are unwittingly turning new customers away?
• What new ideas should I test to improve user experience and conversion further?

To answer these types of “WHY?” questions, you need to evolve to Phase 3: User involvement.  That’s what we’ll look at tomorrow…

Google Analytics 1-Page MindMap

Response was so good to the Google Adwords Optimisation 1-page MindMap that I recently published that I decided to follow up with a Google Analytics 1-Page MindMap as well.

Get The Google Analytics 1-Page MindMap Here

Google Analytics is powerful and easy-to-use system for tracking how users are interacting with your website.  Yet according to a survey of 324 Australian business owners and marketing professionals that we conducted, 81% of website owners are not using ANY analytics program to track their website results (excluding free services such as Webalizer or AWStats that come standard with many webhosting accounts).

There’s no excuse, when Google Analytics is readily available and FREE.

While there are plenty of advanced things you can do with Google Analytics, you can reap big returns by simply inserting the tracking code into your site and setting up a goal or two.   Come back in a week or a month and you’ll begin to see patterns and useful insights you can use to improve your website and get more online sales.

If you’re already using Google Analytics, you may find the mindmap gives you a few more ideas, or if you’d like professional help turning your website data into profitable results, check out our Google Analytics consulting services.

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Lead Generation Survey Of 324 Australian Small Business Owners Released

Earlier this year I conducted a survey focused on Australian Online Lead Generation practices, in collaboration with Dr Marc Dussault of Platinum Programs. The results were telling but not particularly surprising - most Australian SMEs don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to generating leads over the Internet.

And that’s understandable.  I don’t know how to perform brain surgery, build a house or prepare a company tax return because that’s not my core business.  But if I want to do any of those things, I find someone who can do it and outsource it to them.

The Survey:

324 Australian Small to Medium sized businesses from a diverse range of industries were dissected, scrutinised and thoroughly examined via an online survey of 28 questions. 81% of the study participants came from organisations with less than $1 million in annual revenue.

Key Findings:

The findings expose the fundamental reasons why a deadly ‘heart attack’ is almost assured for the majority of Australian small business websites and what needs to be done to stop the bloodshed.

• SMEs understand the importance of online marketing – 77% assess their website as being moderately to critically important for generating enquiries and influencing sales at the present time. A WHOPPING 98% predict that their online channel will be moderately to critically important for generating enquiries and influencing sales within two years’ time.
• 82% suffer from marketing blindness because they don’t track any KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for their website. 65% aren’t tracking ANY conversion rates such as newsletter opt-in rates or shopping cart checkout rates.
• 83% suffer from acute traffic depression and are either moderately dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the traffic volume their website receives.
• 86% admit they have no clue about their Search Engine Optimisation results and can only estimate their Return On Investment in ballpark figures
• A staggering 83% suffer from major cellular damage, running with online promotions that are actually eating their profits. They never realise the consequences of their actions because they don’t TEST to optimise results when they introduce new website features or content.
• 58% suffer form an embarrassing memory loss that’s costing them tens of thousands of dollars in lost profits, as they hardly ever or never send email broadcasts to their suspects, prospects or clients, thus missing out on a major revenue opportunity that could boost their constitution in a matter of days.
• 96% of respondents assess their website as being only minimally to moderately effective at achieving their revenue generation goals.

Dissection of the answers obtained from this extensive survey lead to the conclusion that one of the main problems lies in the lack of systems, strategies and processes that can create and sustain a profitable online lead or sales generation pipeline.

Most Australian SMEs are not doing the basics right (testing and tracking, keep-in-touch marketing, optin-and-followup), let alone the advanced strategies required to get outstanding results.

From a therapeutic standpoint, we recommend that Australian businesses begin taking a much keener interest in the health of their Internet marketing. Prevention is better than cure and as the saying goes, “An ounce of perspiration is worth a gallon of blood”.

A diet high in well-targeted online advertising with attention-grabbing headlines and clear calls to action that leverage proven Internet marketing strategies such as opt-in email marketing, information and education, testimonials, “proof” elements and sales process automation will ensure a long, healthy and prosperous life for any small business.

The full internet marketing survey diagnoses the source of the ailments and proposes several potential cures, providing that the unsuspecting victims are warned in time and take proactive action to protect themselves.

Download the Full Lead Generation Survey Report Here (PDF)

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The BIG Conversion Rate Difference Between New and Returning Website Visitors

“The average website visitor makes at least 7 visits before making a purchase or enquiry”.

It’s one of those oft-quoted phrases on online marketing that doesn’t seem to have any definite source. While I’m not sure about the number 7 (it will in fact be lower or higher, depending on the industry and conversion strategy), I do know that returning website visitors enquire and buy much more readily than new visitors.

So you need a strategy to keep the conversation going with new visitors; to engage them and get them coming back for more.  I almost always mention this in reports or presentations, yet a quick show-of-hands at a recent 3-day Exponential Marketing Bootcamp revealed that fewer than 3% of the 150 business owners present had a strategy for turning repeat visitors into returning visitors.

The difference between new and repeat website visitors

Google Analytics provides a useful “New vs Returning” report that allows you to segment a bunch of  variables (e.g. conversion rate, average visitor value) by visitor type.

I recently ran this report did this for one of my ebook websites, with surprising results….

Exhibit A - Percentage New vs Returning Visitors

Exhibit B - Conversion Rate of New vs Returning Visitors

Exhibit C - Purchase Volume of New vs Returning Visitors

As you can see from the screenshots above, Returning Visitors punch well above their weight, contributing nearly half of all sales on only 11% visitor volume.

But why are repeat visitors really buying?

Are they buying merely because of repeat exposure(s) to the same marketing message, or does the fact that they were interested enough to come back in the first place (i.e pre-qualified) make them a far easier prospect to convert?

In this case, I believe the second factor is more responsible for the conversion leap.

On the other hand, particularly for complex online lead generation scenarios (e.g. B2B, high-end or technical products or services), repeated exposures not to the “same” marketing message but the multiple dimensions of the benefits you offer is the surest way of increasing throughput of qualified, ready-to-buy sales leads.

What this means is: if you want to generate leads online for higher priced / complex / intangible products or services, you MUST have a strategy to get users back to your website again and again (even if your offering is simpler, it is still a very good idea).

In other words, you need an opt in strategy.  It may sound like I’m flogging a dead horse, but remember, fewer than 3% of otherwise very switched on business owners in my mini-survey above had an opt-in strategy in place.

After you’ve enticed prospects to opt in, your next job is to provide value to your list, while “dimensionalising” the value of what you offer over multiple communications. The “hot button” that triggers one client (e.g. speedy delivery) may not be important to another - so you need to cover all bases.

The mechanics and “heavy lifting” of this process can be automated using an autoresponder service such as Aweber. But you also need the right strategy, copy and implementation to make the pieces fit together properly.

One of the keys to successful autoresponder sequences is a balance between information and education (content) and compelling reasons to enquire or buy (salesmanship).  Most sequences fail to find this balance by being either too “stingy” with usable information or giving too much away without tying the content into the sales process.

Designing an effective repeat visitor strategy is one of the things we can help you with (although a waiting period may apply). But whatever you do, don’t do nothing — get those visitors coming back to your website where they’re 6+ times easier to convert into qualified prospects and clients.

About Marketing Results

As Australia’s leading internet lead generation experts, Marketing Results uses sophisticated web analytics to precisely understand how visitors are interacting with your website, then leverage proven traffic and conversion strategies to cut marketing waste, expand your reach and effectiveness and boost website profits by 2 to 21 times based on over 5 years of documented client results.

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