These days every company has a website. They come in all different shapes and sizes, with varying degrees of success. They almost all have one thing in common however- a way to contact the business.
Obviously a company wants to use a website to increase their sales and so there must be a way for the customer to get to the company in order to place an order or request a service. This is a great idea for all of those that are ready to buy the product or service, but what about all of those that are not yet sure that they want to buy what you are selling?
An independent research company found that 96% of traffic that comes through the web consists of people in the research mode of the buying product, still learning about the features and benefits of all the different options and companies. This means that a 'Contact Us' or 'Buy Now' section of a company's website only applies to, at most, 4% of your potential customers. The key to getting the other 96% 'unstuck' from where they are in the sales funnel is to educate them on what your market and give them something of value that they can take away from their experience on your site. You then begin to satisfy their desire to make a well educated decision and empower them to move to the buying phase.
The bonus of your website being their source of information is that they come to see you as knowledgeable and trustworthy, plus they are already familiar with your website. This will increase your sales as your company's website moves from standstill traffic to a six lane super highway.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Salesforce.com
If you haven't heard of Salesforce.com then you are missing out. Salesforce is an online CRM (customer relationship management) system that allows you to keep track of leads and work potential clients through the sales funnel. They were one of the companies that I mentioned invested in the Marketing Consulting firm HubSpot.
Salesforce has one of the top average salaries among Fortune 500 companies at well over $300,000. Salesforce has managed to buy out and integrate a separate program called Jigsaw into their Salesforce.com website. Jigsaw is basically a data collector that now has over 30 million contacts that seamlessly upload to Salesforce.
Imagine that you want to call the head of sales of XYZ company. You get on Salesforce.com and type his position in and BAM! You have his name, email, phone number, and other info that have been uploaded to Jigsaw. It makes finding and qualifying leads so much easier and more efficient for sales people. Since buying this program, Salesforce has renamed it data.com and has written it into the code of their existing CRM system. It is no wonder that companies like these succeed, they continue to push the envelope. The book 'The Leadership Challenge' talks about how when they ask for their best leadership stories, they always get a story about how someone changed and organization to move it forward. Salesforce.com is certainly leading the way in the rapidly expanding multi-billion dollar industry.
Salesforce has one of the top average salaries among Fortune 500 companies at well over $300,000. Salesforce has managed to buy out and integrate a separate program called Jigsaw into their Salesforce.com website. Jigsaw is basically a data collector that now has over 30 million contacts that seamlessly upload to Salesforce.
Imagine that you want to call the head of sales of XYZ company. You get on Salesforce.com and type his position in and BAM! You have his name, email, phone number, and other info that have been uploaded to Jigsaw. It makes finding and qualifying leads so much easier and more efficient for sales people. Since buying this program, Salesforce has renamed it data.com and has written it into the code of their existing CRM system. It is no wonder that companies like these succeed, they continue to push the envelope. The book 'The Leadership Challenge' talks about how when they ask for their best leadership stories, they always get a story about how someone changed and organization to move it forward. Salesforce.com is certainly leading the way in the rapidly expanding multi-billion dollar industry.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
HubSpot
Recently I have been made aware of a Inbound Marketing Consulting company called HubSpot. This is a company that Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, and Salesforce.com have invested $32 million dollars in. What does HubSpot really do, you ask?
HubSpot comes alongside of companies to help get their internet marketing up to speed. Their goal is to attract brand new leads for companies from their website. Many businesses have a website that merely acts as a brochure. There is no real interaction of benefit to the potential customer other than the information about the company that they decide to put forward.
Hubspot has realized that it is important to educate the buyer before asking for their business. They do this through creating landing pages for each interest of the buyer. From that page they can fill out a form to download information that actually help them, the customer. In the form a business can capture a good deal of the information that is needed to begin the potential client down the sales funnel. One can imagine how many more leads this would generate.
An important way that you direct surfers to these landing pages is through what Hubspot calls 'Call To Action' buttons. This is a small, but clear button on your website that states the benefit that will be received from clicking on the button itself. This should be appealing and the benefit should be easily seen.
Hubspot will also help you analyze your results to continue to improve. They have coaching articles and sessions that will keep companies updated on their industry.
Hubspot has realized that it is important to educate the buyer before asking for their business. They do this through creating landing pages for each interest of the buyer. From that page they can fill out a form to download information that actually help them, the customer. In the form a business can capture a good deal of the information that is needed to begin the potential client down the sales funnel. One can imagine how many more leads this would generate.
An important way that you direct surfers to these landing pages is through what Hubspot calls 'Call To Action' buttons. This is a small, but clear button on your website that states the benefit that will be received from clicking on the button itself. This should be appealing and the benefit should be easily seen.
Hubspot will also help you analyze your results to continue to improve. They have coaching articles and sessions that will keep companies updated on their industry.
The beauty of HubSpot is that so many of their resources are free. They have a website grader that will evaluate your website and points out weakness. It is on a scale from 1 to 150 so that it is easy to see where you are at and see when you improve. You can not only run your website through its system but also enter your competitors websites so that it can compare. The link for this tool can be found here - http://websitegrader.com/ .
HubSpot is going to be one of the next big things in business because of its unique niche and its ability to generate and convert leads into sales through using the web.
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