Once you have the potential clients on the website, you need them to submit their contact details or call you.
Thomas says online inquiry forms work best when they are short and split into more than one page. He says the first step should request only a name and email address. This way if the web visitor doesn’t go any further you have their name and can send personalised messages.
The second page of the form can ask for more information to enable you to segment the customers into demographics and by other personal information.
Thomas also recommends offering web visitors an incentive to send in the inquiry form. For instance, offer them a free trial or a whitepaper or downloadable PDF for example, in return for completing the inquiry form.
He says the form page itself should make explicit the reasons why potential clients should be interested in your goods and services. For example, “we promise to answer your query in 24 hours” or “we have 10,000 satisfied customers”.
Thomas says companies usually only put the company’s phone number on the “contact us” page. He recommends putting it in the header so that it is front and centre on every page. “And make it clickable,” he says. “Studies show that people click on numbers.”
Google’s Website Optimiser is a free tool offered by Google that allows businesses to test and optimise website design and content. It enables users to work out which aspects of design or content are creating leads and which are not.
Much more sophisticated software for website testing is available, and at the enterprise level you can get web testing software such as Vertster for about $US200 a month.
Barrett says it is time to call customers that have lapsed. These lapsed customers are more likely to buy from you than a new client, so go back and find them.
Apologise, if necessary, for whatever it was that drew them away from you, and find a way to meet their requirements – even if it means renegotiating price.
Cold calling can be a cost-effective lead generator, especially for business-to-business marketers, but it is not a matter of just buying the biggest contact lists. Your pitch to them must be relevant to be effective.
To make cold calls worthwhile, you need to understand what the prospect’s issues and problems are, and what they are trying to achieve. If you have something to offer them that addresses their need your call won’t annoy them and may eventually lead to a sale.
Some sales experts recommend beginning the call with a question. But not “can I have a moment of your time?” (they can too easily say “no”) but “are you experiencing [insert a problem or need that clients of your business usually have]?” Then follow up with a description of how you resolved that problem for somebody else.
Twitter, the latest social media trend, has 10 million users and is growing four times faster than Facebook. “It’s massive and getting bigger,” says Reseo’s Thomas. He believes it can be used to generate leads.
Thomas says Twitter’s search function enables you to search users’ Twitter messages for key words that may give you a clue as to their potential interest in your products or services.
Having a presence in Twitter can raise your profile, and following others in your industry can help you keep in touch with what they are talking about.
Facebook is also becoming more relevant to business people. People are using it to network with like-minded people. For instance, Small Business Victoria has created a group on Facebook, which about 300 businesses have joined. Thomas says many people are trying to generate leads in there.
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