Many self proclaimed gurus of Internet marketing will tell you that there are three main steps to your web marketing strategy:
- Get More People to Your Site
- Convert More Web Site Visitors to Leads
- Convert More Qualified Leads to Clients
The problem with these general steps is that they are unqualified and in need of a reality check. In fact some of the activities recommended by some “experts” can serously damage your credibility, and ultimately your on-line business. As Matt Mullenweg pointed out in his post 6 Steps to Kill Your Community, short term measures to increase your traffic through such means may be short-sighted and harmful.
Take the intention to get more people to your website; you could for example write something controversial on your blog, and then advertise it on all your Social Networking sites. You may well get even more visitors by allowing unmoderated comments and ping-backs, so that your blog becomes the centre of a great debate. However, do you think many of those visitors will be interested in your products or services, and turn into clients? Not likely!
So the first step is not just to drive more visitors to your site. The real objective is to attract people who are interested in your products or services.
Next, in order to convert those visitors into leads, who your marketing machine (i.e. you!) call to chase up, the conventional wisdom is to force visitors to access the good stuff via a squeeze page. While this allows the visitor to get email notifications of new stuff, and targeted special offers, if this is too “in your face”, your conversion rate will be low.
The trick is to provide a reason for visitors to sign up for your mailing list. Give them useful information, even if they are not yet ready to commit their email address, to establish the attitude of gratitude, and when they do sign up, give them loads more. This sets the pattern of action leading to reward, and will make the next step easier.
Finally, to convert your qualified leads to clients, give them tasks to do, such as polls or surveys, to establish a pattern of responsiveness. You can also use open ended blog entries to encourage the responses. This increase your user engagement until they are ready to buy.
Remember, the primary purpose of your web site is to get the greatest number of visitors to email you or call you with their contact information, and ultimately to buy your products and services. The purpose of web advertising is to get people who might be interested in buying to visit your web site.
The three step boost for your Web Marketing Strategy is simply this:
- Attract people who are interested in your products or services
- Provide a reason to sign up for your mailing list
- Convert your qualified leads to clients by establishing a pattern of responsiveness
Get more qualified people to contact you, and your sales could skyrocket within weeks.