Internet Marketing

The idea of building a lead generation website that appeals to a “funnel” shape of website visitors is quite simple.

The top of the funnel represents the largest group and includes all those visitors that browse your website. Gradually, as the funnel slims down, this group is reduced to include valid prospects for what you offer. This then reduces down even further to the smallest group at the funnels bottom that needs what you offer exactly when they come across your website.

Ideally we would like all those that arrive at our website to want what we offer – but this is just not realistic. There will always be more visitors that are interested in what we offering but don’t need it now – they’re “just looking” through your pages.

A website properly designed for lead generation offers content to prospects at all stages in the lead generation funnel and by doing so they capture a larger amount of sales leads than those that just focus on those prospects who need the product now.

To appeal to prospects that are “just looking” I always suggest my customers produce different types of content and then to present them in alternative ways.

For instance those “left brained” prospects will like to print out and read white papers or reports you provide. Whereas those who internalize information in a more “right brained” style may prefer to sit back and absorb more visual content presented in an audio-visual style.

So think about the different types of prospects that arrive at your website and are “just looking”. What pieces of content can you produce to appeal to these people?

And do remember the funnel shape – there are more looking than wanting – so put in the time to create valuable content that converts your anonymous “just looking” website visitor and turns them into a strong sales lead for your team.

Earlier on in the month my company Permission NZ Ltd helped Hockey New Zealand set up and deploy their first email newsletter. You can locate a copy of this edition here.

Here are some words about this project from Rebecca Hendl-Smith the Marketing & Sponsorship Manager at Hockey NZ.

“I have been looking forward to working with Permission in my new role here at Hockey New Zealand having had a brilliant association with them whilst working with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

With Permission’s support and guidance we launched Hockey New Zealand’s first e-newsletter to our email database on July 7th and have since been overwhelmed by positive feedback.

We knew we were part of a close knit and passionate group of hockey supporters nationally, but since sending out our e-newsletter with Permission we have fielded enquiries and words of encouragement from Black Sticks fans and hockey supporters from all over the world, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia.

Thanks to the team at Permission we now have a way to communicate regularily with our supporters in a cost effective manner. And as a result of the success of this project we are receiving direct and valuable feedback from supporters to help us better represent Hockey and the Black Sticks into the future.”

You can contact my team at Permission here if you would like to learn more about this solution.

Serving nice coffee is one of the many benefits that bricks and mortar shops have over their web cousins. One other less obvious are the roads and pathways that line their front door.

From these roads, malls and neighbourhoods people have no option but to drive, walk and ride past their shop. For customers these nearby excursions serve as a gentle reminder to drop in and pick up something. For prospects it could be the chance to peer through the window to check things out. All this “foot traffic” helps make the mantra for many a successful physical store be location, location, location.

But what about those same stores online?

Some mistakenly call the Internet the information superhighway. But I see no ordered way in which people traverse from website to website. To me it’s more a spider’s web of individual paths than an group treck across well worn roads.

So if there are no highways or malls to help bring people back to the front of a web store what can store owners use in their place?

Well for those online retailers that are well funded there is always traditional media advertising. Billboards seem to be the flavour of the month at the moment for those owners with deep pockets. The ads look good in whatever form they take – the agency is your best friend but you need a storehouse of cash to keep this strategy going to create ongoing traffic.

Then there’s online advertising. Here you can take those billboards, face them towards the web and see what happens. Banners of all shapes and sizes can be wrapped around high traffic sites to hook people back. Yes banners, remember those squares of advertising that you mentally block out when bouncing from website to website?

Paid search advertising is another tool to entice new and repeat visitors – especially if your site is hard to find in the generic search options. But those keywords are rising in both popularity and cost.

So all of these options will bring first time visitors to your site for a varying amount of cost per visit but having to continue to invest in any of them to make visitors return is too costly for most to achieve.

This is where effective email marketing can be rather handy.

Email is by far the cheapest and most effective way to call people back to your website. Asking, cajouling, begging and bribing all website visitors to subcribe to your email list has to be high up on your website goals.

Well written email newsletters create their own virtual “foot traffic” by enticing visitors to return to your website pages through the links contained in your copy.

But while this logic is sound and the Internet is abound with successful case studies of email marketing being used this way it still amazes me how many website fail to entice their visitors to join any email newsletter of sorts.

Yes they have billboards extolling their website, some even tell their story with television but when you visit there is no “hard to say no” option to join a newsletter so they can bring you back for cents when they brought you there with dollars.

It doesn’t take much to design an email communication that has strong appeal and set up a web form to capture subscriptions.

Please make sure it’s part of your website strategy – and failing that make mine a flat white when I drop by your bricks and mortar store next time.

Here is June’s edition – you can subscribe here to get your own copy as soon as it is published.

How about printing a copy of your next email newsletter newsletter to help your next proofing run? You will be surprised what was previously missed online now stands out on paper. Plus you get the added benefit of seeing what happens when your subscribers do the same and convert bytes to paper.