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…

The Evolution of Website Sales Funnel Optimisation - Introduction

The central question of online sales funnel optimisation is, “how do we get better results than we’re currently getting, as quickly as possible?”

While sitting in a banana-chair in Punta del Este, I got to thinking about this question and the distinct but interlocking approaches and toolsets you need to maximise your online lead generation results including traffic, conversions and sales.  Here’s what I came up with:

There is an “evolution” with four phases that can take you from getting poor/average results to excellent/outstanding results from your website.

Over the next 4 days, we’ll look at each phase in detail.  Here’s a quick summary of what’s to come:

• Phase 1: Internal orientation: Many companies and organisations design their websites in line with their own opinions and preferences. While this can be a great starting point for gathering content and ideas, in many cases this can be detrimental to your sales goals.  What’s more, it doesn’t tell you anything about your customers and how they use your website.
• Phase 2: Objective measurement: Objective measurement tools allow you to reduce subjectivity and manage by fact rather than by hunch. Measurement tools tell you who is visiting your website and what they do when they get there. 
  
• Phase 3: User involvement: Measurement tools are very good at telling you WHAT users are doing.  But getting website users to tell you WHY they’re doing it is one of the best ways to gather useful optimisation ideas.  Until recently, professional user testing was beyond the reach of most SMEs at $250+ per user. Now, thanks to a new web-based service, you can buy user tests from only $29 per person!  We’ll look at this in more detail in Phase 3.
  
• Phase 4: Total integration: While each of the previous three phases have a part to play, they become exponentially more effective when used in concert. Give this process the time it deserves and it will reward you with increased sales and reduced marketing costs.

Tomorrow we’ll take a closer look at Phase 1 - Internal orientation.

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New Audio Program, Search Engine Strategies For Lead Generation Websites, Released Today

I’ve just released the new-and-improved version of my audio program, Search Engine Strategies For Lead Generation Websites.

This program is designed especially for time-poor, results-focused business owners and managers who want to learn how to deploy practical and proven Search Engine Optimisation strategies to drive top search engine results.

This 4-part, 97-minute audio program shows details how to:

• Generate immediate “windfall” income by generating more sales leads and sales at lower cost.
• Save thousands of dollars on paid traffic generation such as Google Adwords
• Leverage your existing website content while incurring minimal additional expense.
• Reduce or totally eliminate pay-per-click expenditure.
• Bypass the steep SEO learning curve (is it worth your time to spend dozens of hours studying what you could easily digest in less than 2 hours?)
• Become your own “SEO guru” and master the tools and tactics the big players use
• Gain an instant credibility boost: studies show that consumers believe that the websites at the top of the search engines are more credible and pre-eminent than paid advertisers.

The price is just $47 (that’s Aussie dollars), putting this program well within reach of any business owner, and it comes with a no-questions asked, 60 day money back guarantee.

Update: 4 May 2009: A number of commenters have asked me to elaborate on what makes this program different - here’s a brief update:

How is this SEO program different?

There are a lot of SEO experts and “gurus” on the Internet - many with impressive experience and qualifications - so what makes this program different and why should you buy it? Here’s a brief analysis as to what makes this program different:

• An SEO program for business owners - many SEO programs delve into excessively technical details.  My program provides a “business owner”-level overview of the core techniques of SEO, plus implementation steps for the 20% of SEO techniques that deliver 80% of the results.  Business owners can either use this program to quickly get up to speed on SEO in order to tell good SEO firms from bad, or delegate the implementation to an in-house person to implement the action steps laid out in the program.
• Focused on lead generation applications - most SEO programs take a generalist approach — this program focuses specifically on SEO for lead generation websites (i.e. websites where the principle focus is generating qualified enquiries for a product or service).  In the program I provide specific advice on the kinds of SEO strategies that work best in lead generation applications.
• Based on what works - the program is 100% practical and is focused around the exact same strategies that have produced first page rankings for dozens of our clients in real lead generation scenarios.
• Concise and to the point - the entire audio program is only 97-minutes long - long enough to cover all the key points, but not so long that you need 20 audio CDs to listen to the entire thing (and business owners typically don’t have time for that anyway).
• Very affordable - other programs are priced at up to $1,000 (or more).  This program is only $47.   I deliberately priced it so low to ensure that price is not an option.  Any business owner can acquire these skills for a fraction of the cost of engaging most SEO firms.
• All future updates included FREE - because the SEO world is changing so fast, I intend to occasionally update the program.  When I do, all purchasers of the program will receive the updates free.  A one-time investment ensures unlimited updates, for the time being at least…

Click here for the full story and to purchase the program

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SEO vs PPC - Which Is Better For Lead Generation Websites?

Here’s a question I’m often asked:

“Which is better: optimising my site for “free” search engine rankings, or paying for clicks on Google Adwords?

My answer is always the same - if you can profitably generate website traffic with both, it’s best to do both to generate maximum returns.

But you should also keep in mind that free search engines and paid search engines are very different animals.

Let’s look a little deeper so you understand the pros and cons of Search Engine Optimisation for the “free” search engines (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click optimisation on paid search engines (PPC).

SEO vs PPC

PPC (paying for clicks) is good because…

1. It’s a very fast way to generate targeted traffic - you can literally generate visitors to your website within 10 minutes. SEO takes much longer to see results.
2. You can easily decide where to send each visitor (e.g. if a visitor searches on “blue widgets”, you can direct them to your “blue widgets” product page.) With SEO, the search engines decide for you.
3. You can easily test multiple headlines / copy / offers by testing ads in Google Adwords.
4. You can easily drive traffic for a broad range of keywords. With SEO, you’re wise to focus on fewer keywords.
5. Your website doesn’t have to be “search engine friendly” for PPC to work. (Websites built with “Flash” are notoriously UN-friendly to search engines, but they don’t necessarily affect PPC traffic.)
6. You’re optimising for conversion results, not the ranking formula for a particular search engine.
7. You can easily change positions on the page in order to find the best Return On Investment.
8. Changes in “the rules” of Pay-Per-Click search engines tend to be smaller and less frequent than changes to the “free” SEO rules.

SEO (free traffic) is good because…

1. It’s free!
2. You can generate hoards of traffic for search terms that it would be un-economical to bid on with Pay Per Click.
3. The long-term Return On Investment is often better than Pay Per Click. It’s slower at first, and the risk is higher if you don’t know what you’re doing, but it’s cheaper in the long term.
4. Once you get good rankings, it’s relatively easy to maintain them with little incremental effort.
5. You can build incredible momentum and dominate your market while your competitors bleed themselves dry trying to compete with you on PPC search engines as they pay for every click.

Conclusion: SEO and PPC both have their place in any online lead generation strategy for your business website.

But the Search Engine Optimisation field is riddled with mis-information and half-truths that can waste your time, blow your budget and frustrate the heck out of you, all at the same time.

That’s why I’ve decided to totally rework my audio program, “Search Engine Strategies for lead generation websites”. It will contain what I believe to be the most concise, most effective way to generate free Search Engine traffic to your “real” business website. And…it will be available for less than $50.

This new program will be launched on Tuesday 10th March at 12 noon AEST, but if you want to get access before everyone else, and gain access to extra Early Bird bonuses, you can join the pre-launch notification list here.

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Want To Boost Site Conversion? Increase Your Font Size

Sometimes the simplest website changes can produce the most rapid Return On Effort. One of the easiest ways to make your site convert better is to make it easier for users to read.

In fact, a whole category of website conversion heuristics is based around making your content easier for website visitors to digest.

Here are seven ways you can increase your website conversion right now:

1. Increase font size. For example, change 10 or 11px body text fonts to 13px.  Some people find these larger fonts “childlike”, but our tests have conclusively shown that larger fonts can increase conversion significantly (especially where the original font size was very small to start with).  Graphic designers often specify smaller, “cute” fonts, but you should remember that text content is primarily a means to convey your selling message, NOT a design element.
2. Avoid large line widths. The human eye just isn’t designed evolved that well for reading text on a screen.  One of the things that tends to slow people down when reading is moving they eyes from line to line.  And the longer the line width, the more difficult it is for the eye and the brain to hook up with the next line.   That’s why shorter line widths of 600px or less generally help conversion.  Test 600px vs 900px and you’ll see what I mean.
3. Increase colour contrast. Another thing graphic designers seem to love are font colour choices based on design sensibilities rather than communication and legibility.  Light grey text on a mid-grey background appears to be a designers’ favourite.  On the web, as in print, poor colour contrast = decreased legibility = decreased sales.  By increasing colour contrast (good ol’ black text on white background is my boring-but-effective favourite) you will boost sales.
4. Shorten paragraphs. Long paragaphs make it harder for the eye to navigate text.   Anything much longer than 7 lines and you’ll start to put readers off.  Where your paragraphs are longer than this, break them into two or more pieces.  The occasional one line paragraph can also work well.
5. Give “texture” to long copy. Many of these tips are centred around breaking the monotony of long, “blocky” tracts of text.  One way to do this is by adding “texture” — creating varying areas of white space around lines and paragraphs. For example, you should always leave a “ragged right” edge on paragraphs (i.e not fully justified).  The ragged edge helps the eye navigate.  Indenting the occasional paragraph with a <blockquote>, or placing content in a centred box achieves the same effect.
6. Break the monotony. White space is one way to break the monotony of dense text content — another is to use headlines, sub headlines, colour, “callouts”, bullet lists, numbered lists and text effects (bold, italics, underlines, strikethroughs etc.).  These elements help to focus the user’s attention on key selling points and create variety that keeps the brain engaged.
7. Add diagrams, graphs and images. I believe that copy is the main tool in your persuasive toolset on the web.  But other types of visual content can be a very useful way to augment your central sales argument.  Use images, graphs and diagrams appropriately when they make your point better than text.

This Is NOT A Long Copy vs Short Copy Debate

Please note that this has nothing to do with the long/short copy debate (if you could still call it a debate - the long copy folks won that a decade ago online, and a century ago in print).

This is about recognising that text content can be daunting when presented the wrong way.   By making your text content as legible and digestible as possible, you’ll get higher readership and more leads and sales.  And isn’t that what we all want?

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How To Use Prospect “Filters” To Improve Sales Quality

When I started out in business and started to prospect for new clients, I needed leads. Any leads would do. Even if those leads weren’t highly qualified and ready-to-go, it feels better to be talking to prospects, writing proposals and “keeping busy” than it does doing nothing toward getting new clients.

Pretty soon, lead volume picked up substantially, thanks to the Education-Based Marketing approaches that I have written about on many occasions.

But “mindset-wise”, I was still in the “More Leads = Good” space. I started to get busier and busier, not only performing work for the clients that came in, but also processing and selling to new prospects.

This was when I realised that I needed more efficient ways to deliver hot, ready-to-buy leads to my doorstep to drive up conversion rates and spend LESS time selling to non-clients.

One of the strategies for doing this is the use of “Filters” to pick off UN-qualified leads before they enquire. Here are some examples of the kind of filters I tested:

• Price: “your investment will be in the $7,000 - $10,000 range”
• Aspiration: “if you’re just looking to maintain your current operation, this is not for you. Typical clients aim to increase their business by 50 to 100% within 12 months and have the capacity to do so.”
• Service Exclusions: “this service is designed to generate highly-qualified incoming sales leads via your website. We do not make outgoing cold calls, although your own outbound calling operations can fit into this solution seamlessly.”

An example from the finance industry

Several years later, a client in the finance industry was having a small problem with people who were financially unqualified applying for a specific range of products.

Despite clearly stating the main qualifying conditions on the sales page, a number of visitors were applying directly through the contact form. It was starting to occupy a significant portion of the salespeople’s time just to reply to these people.

The solution was to clearly state just above the contact form that the product was only available to customers who already hold equity in their own home. We even highlighted the relevant phrases with the famous yellow highlighter.

It did the trick.

Overnight, the unqualified leads stopped, leaving the client to focus on qualified enquiries.

One more important thing to keep in mind: occasionally when you employ this strategy, you overdo it and qualified leads get cut out of your funnel prematurely. Obviously you need to keep an eye on your metrics to ensure that this strategy had the desired effect.

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Lead Volume vs Opportunity Volume

For several years now I’ve been asking subscribers and clients to visualise their online sales process as a funnel with knowable metrics. You’re no doubt familiar with the analogy:

1000 visitors hit your website (”Visits”) –> 100 opt in to your Free Special Report (”Opt Ins”) –> 20 enquire (”Leads”) –> 5 become clients (”Sales”)

Whatever the exact number or specific conversion steps are in your business, you get the idea.

But I recently came across a very useful distinction on a Marketing Experiments webinar that dovetailed with a recent experience working with a client.

That is the distinction between Lead Volume and Opportunity Volume.

Lead Volume is the number of people filling out your enquiry form, but Opportunity Volume is the number of viable sales opportunities available to your sales team (or you, if you’re the only salesperson at your company).

Lead Volume is very often a measure of activity. Opportunity Volume is a measure of results and future expected revenues.

I recently dealt with a client whose only metric was Lead Volume: “Just get us more contact form submissions”.

“More contact form submissions is a brief that is relatively easy to fulfil. For starters, you can make the form easier to complete. Second, remove “strings” from the offer or add a guarantee.

When you do this, will the leads be more qualified? Will you create more viable Sales Opportunities? Not necessarily. In fact, you can very often clog up your sales pipeline with unqualified leads that do nothing more than take up your salespeople’s time and detract from closing genuine sales opportunities.

That’s why I’ve now included Opportunity Volume as one of the key lead generation metrics to track. It is a more reliable indicator of the success of your pre-sales marketing activities.

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7 Step Game Plan For Boosting Your Online Sales In A Slower Economy

Lately the media seem to be rubbing everyone’s faces in the “slower economy”.   I don’t like it - it gets people in the wrong frame of mind, thinking contractionary thoughts rather than expansionary ones.

So it seems there’s a recession on, but I’m refusing to participate.

It’s true that there are fewer discretionary dollars being spent, but all is not doom and gloom, especially in the online space.  On the macro-level, the indicators look strong:

A recent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers Europe comments that while a contracting ecomomy normally reduces total media spend, investment in online marketing and media continues to increase rapidly:

“…overall online advertising growth is expected to slow down to about 20% according to the Advertising Association. While this is still a very strong growth rate, far stronger than other forms of offline advertising, this represents a slowdown compared with last year’s growth rate of 38%.”

So we can still expect 20% growth in online spend this year.

Another perspective: online was the third biggest media category in the UK in 2007 with a 16% share (behind Print Display and TV).  By 2009, it is expected to become the single largest advertising channel.

[While this is UK data, the general trends are equally applicable to the Australian market]

Here’s a 7-step program that I recommend for any business owner who wants to increase sales, even in a slower economy.  Outsized rewards will go to companies who implement these steps:

The 7 Step Online Marketing Game Plan

1. Know how much a client is worth to you after the initial transaction, and in the first 3, 6, 12 and 24 months of doing business (or whatever time periods make sense in your particular business) - this gives you your Allowable Cost of Acquisition.
2. Know how much a lead/sale is costing you, split by source. This means that all online goals need to be tracked (this can be done with Google Analytics for general goals and Google Adwords conversion tracking for Adwords-generated conversions).
3. Track everything, not just Adwords. Other types of online campaigns such as email newsletters can be tracked with Google’s URL Builder. This will tell you the exact volume of sales generated from a specific email blast, for example.
4. Make sure ALL ads and promotions are associated with a specific, trackable offer. You should not be running ANY promotions with a generic “call us” offer.  Many of our clients run print ads that invite prospects to download a Special Report or Info Kit by following a special, tracked, URL.  This allows them to do more of what’s working and less of what’s not working.
5. Cultivate and develop MORE THAN ONE successful lead generation approach. Many websites are highly dependent on, say, Adwords alone.  If Google changes their Terms Of Service or the way they serve ads (and they frequently do), this could literally put you out of business.  You need to test and run with at least 5 separate, independent prospecting methods that you can call on if required.Most of our clients have successful PPC accounts, SEO campaigns, referral systems and offline campaigns running simultaneously, automated via their website as the central “hub”.  If any one lead generation channel dries up, they still have a business.
6. Don’t drop new leads quickly - nurture them. You should aim to develop the following three communication sequences to make as much of incoming leads as possible: (a) - one for “soft leads” before they enquire (i.e. an info pack, or Special Report), backed up by a ongoing sequence of education-and-information emails.(b) - one between the initial enquiry and closing the sale - could be a book, a White Paper, or a Feasibility Analysis.(c) - one for un-converted leads who may convert in future. Especially where the value of a new client to your business is high, these communication sequences can deliver exceptional ROI.  You’ll also notice that almost nobody you’ve done business with in the past does this.  If you do it, you’ll be exceptional in the eyes of your prospects - always a good thing!
7. Resell to your existing client base by offering more value. Don’t forget about your current client base - how can you serve them better?  One of the most effective ways to develop a more stable cashflow and serve you clients better is to offer some kind of continuity-based service.For health supplement companies, this means shipping the product every month until the customer says “stop”.  For professional services, this might mean providing a retainer service on an ongoing basis for a set price.

Whatever you do, don’t succumb to the doom-and-gloom in the media.  Executing the 7 Step Game Plan can bulletproof your marketing engine so you can not only survive but thrive in 2009.

Summary for business owners:

• Overall media spend will decline in the short term while online spend will continue to increase rapidly.
• Within the online category, advertisers are moving away from non-accountable methods (e.g. display advertising such as banner advertising) and toward accountable methods (e.g. paid search such as Google Adwords).
• This means that more dollars will be spent online to attract fewer customers (although more customers are shifting their purchasing from offline to online as well).
• Many of the new entrants into the online space will be unsophisitcated players who don’t know what they’re doing (yet).
• Companies with tightly managed and monitored online campaigns can expect to do as well if not better than they have always done.

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Marketing Results can of course help you ramp up the lead and sales generation capacity of your website with smart, accountable marketing so you can focus on managing and growing your business.  Contact us to enquire about availability on our Gold Client Program for SMEs.

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The Essence Of Lead Generation In One Question

In one of Perry Marshall’s recent newsletters, this gem leapt out at me:

What series of actions is your prospect going to be taken through so that by the time they’re ready to buy, they know you, like you and trust you more than anyone else they are considering?”

That is the essence of lead generation.

Most companies only start to sell when the prospect is ready to buy - by then it’s too late.  Ideally, you need to be there well before your prospect is ready to buy.

Most companies provide too little information and education between initial interest from the prospect and closing the sale. The result is that most prospects are not sufficiently educated about what you do and how you’re different to choose you.

Most companies don’t understand what other options their prospects might be considering, and have a pre-emptive strategy to “unsell” their competitors’ offerings before the prospect has even considered them.

Most companies are too impersonal in their communications.  There’s too many “we”s in their communications and not enough “you”s.

Don’t be like most companies – be like the 1 to 5% of successful companies who do what their competitors don’t and educate and inform prospects prior to, during and after the sale.

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