Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
My rates are competitive, I offer positive client comments, I provide excellent samples of my work in that industry, and I list my associations with various professional organizations.
So why am I getting so few leads for that industry?
[edited by: LifeinAsia at 4:36 pm (utc) on Feb. 5, 2009]
Share more info and might give you more idea.
In regards to competitiveness, sometimes it's too low - (too good to be true - cheap), and sometimes what you consider competitive is too high for your visitors budget... I noticed many sites offer a "try us for a bargain" (first month 90% off, etc.) which may be of help in your situation.
Where is your traffic coming from? How much is actual human traffic as opposed to bot traffic? How long are visitors spending on your page (are they even staying long enough to read all your content)? Is your contact information with strong calls to action prominently displayed on the page?
Most of the visitors are human, and coming in via search engines. I don't think my stats reflect how long they are staying on that page, but there are strong calls to actions in multiple places, along with my toll-free phone number.
Do you offer any type of GUARANTEE for your potential clients?
Money back guarantee, although this isn't prominently mentioned on the page in question.
In regards to competitiveness, sometimes it's too low - (too good to be true - cheap), and sometimes what you consider competitive is too high for your visitors budget... I noticed many sites offer a "try us for a bargain" (first month 90% off, etc.) which may be of help in your situation.
I actually provide a ballpark budget range, which reflects that I can handle large-budget projects, but can also accept low-budget ones as well (i.e. lower three figures). It's competitive, but not so low as to give someone the impression that they are getting a templated site.
remember humans love pictures and simplicity. less is almost always more on a landing page. i think it's time for a second opinion. have you tried to conduct a usability test?
Price = Quality in many peoples eys
Price = Quality in many peoples eys
Exactly, and test it over a specific period. When you're satisfied, choose the best and improve on that again later. It should be a constant process.
Monitor your stats closely.
Study the visitor exit page. Is it your landing page, or is it somewhere else on the site?
>>a/b or multi-variate split testing
Just hire someone who knows what works, its much cheaper than split testing on Adwords.
What percentage are you expecting to convert to leads 1% .. 3% ? Have you go the right b2b page types for this - short/log enquiry, info requests, call-backs, whitepaper downloads etc.
I would recommend you come up with a white paper, special report, or something else that has an enticing name. Give this away free if people agree to sign up for your newsletter. Then start a drip email campaign to them once they have opt-ed in to get the freebie. I use this technique all the time and it works pretty well, it should work even better for you since you have decent hits every month.
If you are quoting a broad range of prices without relating them to something those in the high end of the market may think you are not "focssed on the high end enough" those in the low end may think "I bet no one gets those cheap prices, they're just for show" Perhaps giving smaller price brackets representing different levels of site so people can see why the prices vary so much
and based on
I don't think my stats reflect how long they are staying on that page,I would recommend you get a better stats package, as this is the sort of info you really need access to
You need lots of relevant visitor traffic. A 1% conversation on all website traffic is quite the norm.
Use things like Google Analytics to see where you current visitors are coming from. Use conversation monitoring to see where your current buyers are from.
SEO the website to target the audience which is most likely to buy your product, and focus the website on given your potential buyers what they most want.
Setup or tweak an adwords account to get lots of targeted visitors - and use the adwords conversation monitoring tools - as this will tell you which adverts are making you money.
Make sure it's prominent - and specifically tells your visitors why they need to fill in the form and what they'll get. The lack of focus on the lead conversion form (or making it almost a secondary feature) is the single biggest problem I see in my niche.
My lead conversion pages are a paragraph of text, the conversion form, then the rest of the text. The form isn't off to the side or in with the menus or anything. It's the central feature of the page.
Four emails out of 1600 page views means that only 0.25% of visitors
This doesn't change the advice above, but that's not accurate. You're looking at page views, not "unique" visitors (as unique as can be anyway.)
With 4 calls - If you had 16 people visit, and each looked at 100 pages, then you have a 25% conversion. If you had 1600 people visit and each looked at one page, then it's .25%
Where that might make a difference is as you watch the number of visitors vs the number of page views. Are people landing, hitting one or two pages, then leaving, or are they looking through 20 pages? The second type of visitor is the one that you should have a better chance of converting, as it may be that they are committed to searching for something they can't find. If you can help them find it through your stat information, you may actually lower your page views but increase your conversions.
[edited by: Teesed at 2:01 pm (utc) on Feb. 11, 2009]
Just hire someone who knows what works, its much cheaper than split testing on Adwords.
it's a lot more expensive if you're missing out on landing page structure that can convert more leads; and i have yet to meet any one person that 'knows what works' for every landing page and every vertical.
Google website optimizer does not hurt your page rankings if you are going to test your organically optimized pages: Link [adwords.google.com]
However, if you implement changes to your content after using Website Optimizer, they'll have the same effects as any content changes that you would typically make to your website.
[edited by: digitalghost at 3:56 pm (utc) on Feb. 11, 2009]
Also make sure your phone number is toll free for leads that may want to call you.
[edited by: Zamboni at 4:37 pm (utc) on Feb. 11, 2009]
Another thing to try is to have a 'request a free quote' box where they put in some details and it gets emailed to you (make sure to ask if they want to opt into the newsletter). Many people online don't want to pick up the phone but are happy to fill out a form.
A 1% conversation on all website traffic is quite the norm.
There are many getting > 3.5%
i have yet to meet any one person that 'knows what works' for every landing page and every vertical.
I was meaning more generic marketing advice about colours, use of iStock, selling benefits vs features, specifcic calls to action rather than sector specific.
There are plenty of people who have been in this game for years & now doing SEM with large budgets that can look at a landing page and say exactly whats wrong with it saving you from time and cost consuming testing.
There are also plenty of examples in the top PPC spenders of what works where you can see blatantly the exact same technique used across a variety of sectors
A) Technical issues. Come at the site and sign-up/conversion as many ways as you can think of, as though you were different users, just to make sure there are no technical issues. Seems stupid but can't tell you how many times I've seen that be the problem. Sometimes it's only what some users do in some particular sequence or whatever, like a form doesn't get passed if some field is filled out a certain way that is common but was never checked/verified.
B) Conversion norms. Are you certain that the conversion you are seeing is way below the norm for this vertical/niche (there's wide variation across verticals). Do you know what it "should" be?
C) Audience/offer disconnect. There is a disconnect between the users' mindset/needs, and what the page seems to offer once they land there from a search engine (i.e., getting traffic doesn't always mean getting the right traffic)
D) Conversion strategy/tactics. Is the page/process is poorly designed with respect to conversion. Number of steps in the process, nature of "call to action", offer value, size of buttons, placement of sales information and action elements on the page, even colors and graphics.
May be some combination of the above. In your shoes I'd be sure I've investigated all of the above. If that doesn't work, find some people who might be in your target audience and do some cheap, down and dirty research to see where you're losing most of them, and WHY.
There are plenty of people who have been in this game for years & now doing SEM with large budgets that can look at a landing page and say exactly whats wrong with it saving you from time and cost consuming testing.There are also plenty of examples in the top PPC spenders of what works where you can see blatantly the exact same technique used across a variety of sectors
well in order to prevent these conversations from taking too much time... i test.
the typical ways of how you could keep people on a predetermined eye-path and cta and element positioning can be found everywhere. but if enterprise sites such as google split test why can't we? what is so cost and time-consuming about testing? gwo is free, there are other scripts that test landing pages for ppc. what better way is there to invest your web development time than to apply it towards lp optimization that works; based on hard data?
same principle behind split testing your ad copy.
but if enterprise sites such as google split test why can't we?
If you have an exising page based on sound sales / marketing principles, with good traffic levels converting at say 2% then split testing 1 change at a time is a useful way to figure how to get it to 3%
Maybe you could get someone vaguely in the target market to do this for you? See if your call to action gets them or not?
The free white paper idea mentioned before is also an excellent idea. Try to maximize your site's lead generation business potential.
You havent said if you are using SEO or SEM. If you doing SEO they may not be potential leads in the first place.
SEO, no paid sponsored ads whatsoever.
I would recommend you come up with a white paper, special report, or something else that has an enticing name. Give this away free if people agree to sign up for your newsletter. Then start a drip email campaign to them once they have opt-ed in to get the freebie.
Good idea, I think I'll try this.
are you doing anything else to capture user information, newsletter sign up / free website review are you making people email you/phone you or are you giving them the option to contact you without feeling they are going to need to buy something (i.e. fill in this simple form for a no obligation quote)
I have a submit form on the website, but there's nothing to stress that it's obligation-free. I do have a toll-free number for incoming calls.
Form in the upper right of the page.
Form header is a graphic that shows the white paper/case study they will get after filling it out.
Text below that saying something like, "Free case study with your no obligation quote".
Form field (textarea) with a label of Questions/Comments.
Large form button that says something like, "Download the case study"
Something in the body copy that talks about the case study and how you saved company x, y amount of dollars, and z amount of time by using your services.
