It happened again recently. The Managing Director of a Fire and Security systems installation company told me that he didn’t need any help with his website because it already got loads of traffic.
Sorry guys but, as he chundered on about how many people were visiting his website, I couldn’t help thinking about the proverbial “big sports car = small p***s” analogy.
Being a lady, I held my tongue and asked my default question in this scenario.
Sounds great! How many of them are turning into Leads…. or, better still, Customers?
I don’t know, I get a report every month from the guy who does my marketing. They told me I was getting lots of site visitors so I was very excited.
Lovely… But. here’s 3 annoying reasons why those thousands of website visitors may ONLY be boosting your EGO, not your business.
1. Spam bots and ghost traffic can’t become customers
Whilst some business owners don’t actually know how many visitors arrive at their website, a large number of sites DO have Google Analytics added to track their page views and user metrics. It is an excellent tool and extremely informative, but we’ve seen many a Managing Director and business owner get over-excited as traffic rises month on month.
The problem is the Overview page – that’s the first page that you see when you log in. It’s a really bad illustration of your useful traffic…
For example, see the example image to the left. It shows that Lollipop’s website traffic has gone up a startling 84% in the last 7 days. Well, anyone would get excited and want to know which blog post or page was making that happen!
Fortunately, we know that we have to filter this raw data. If your marketer/web designer doesn’t know how to dig down into the data, you’re not seeing a true picture!
For example, they won’t be able to tell you that hundreds of your visitors have not come from your marketing efforts but are:
- ghost traffic or fake referral traffic from Russian bots with names like VoteDonaldTrump
- foreign traffic from countries you don’t export to
- staff or current customers logging in to use their online accounts
We’ve seen all of these sources of traffic play havoc with the measurement of whether your marketing campaigns are actually working. By over-inflating your visitor figures, it’s impossible to tell.
Filter out the low quality visitors and allow the cream to rise to the top in your Analytics reports.
2. You’re too generic – attracting everyone, but pleasing no-one
Ask most Fire and Security Directors who their ideal customers are and they will tell you – everyone!
Wrong!
I know you want as much online visibility and as many website visitors as possible BUT if you try to appeal to everyone, you end up pleasing no one.
What happens when you have a generic website that tries to cover every possible option? You may get a lot of traffic but it will be traffic that hasn’t quite made its mind up yet.
You are spreading your net too wide and attracting people who are just looking.
The #1 reason why visitors leave a website is that they can’t find what they need… If they don’t know what they really want, they are even more likely to bounce away after visiting just one page.
And, worse, Sales will complain about crappy leads from marketing
Yup, if these prospects do contact you asking for help, your sales team will give you grief because they are wasting their precious time on bad enquiries:
- fakes and hoaxes – some guy thought it would be funny to put his mate’s phone number in your contact form requesting a home alarm quote
- business personnel who don’t have the authority to buy – they’re just doing price comparisons
- purchasers who only want to buy a couple of cameras
Sales are never going to hit their quota numbers… unless you are more specific about the ideal customer that you want your website to attract. We talked about marketing qualified leads here.
Get the right traffic to your site and the quality of your leads will improve.
3. You’re not offering a low risk way to interact.
People can get fixated with visitor volume.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but that traffic is pointless unless it does something useful. It is nothing more than a vanity metric if those visitors leave your website without giving you their contact information. They were there… and now they’ve gone – without making a purchase or even an enquiry. And you have no way of contacting them in the future to try to persuade them to come back.
If your website is only offering the opportunity to speak to a sales person, by phone or contact form, you are missing a huge piece of the pie.
As few as only 3% of the visitors to your website are actually ready to buy a Fire or Security System. While another 30% will never buy for you, for whatever reason. The remainder, a whopping 67% of your target market, is not ready to buy… yet!
Contacting you is a step too far for the researchers who land on your website. These people do not want to spend 30 minutes fending off an overzealous sales person. That’s not an appealing prospect when you are only interested in finding out what your options are.
However, given the right circumstances, they might be persuaded to exchange their email address for a written version of what the sales person might tell them. This is a great compromise. Your visitor gets the information without the risk of being badgered to buy as a result.
How to make a low risk offering
It’s not hard. Speak to your sales people…
They will share certain information day in and day out during the sales calls they make.. Consider taking that and turning it into an ebook or video series and make it available to website visitors in return for an email address.
Putting this type of content offer onto your website has been proven to increase your conversion rate from visitors to leads. It’s the type of thing we do as a matter of course with Inbound Marketing.
Once you have their email address and they have agreed to your GDPR conditions, you can then market to them. DO NOT SELL
These people aren’t ready yet, remember. Instead of selling to them, you should nurture them with helpful content. Answer the questions they are asking and counter any objections they may have. That is being helpful
A survey by Demand Generation supports this assertion. It revealed that 95% of buyers chose a vendor that ‘provided me with content to navigate each stage of the buying process’ and this was backed up by research from Forrester showing 82% of buyers viewed at least 5 pieces of content from the winning vendor.
Follow this advice and you have the best chance of turning strangers into customers. You need to:
- Get the right traffic to your webite
- Capture and nurture the best quality leads from that traffic
Why quality Website Traffic and Leads = More Customers
Once you’re getting the right traffic to your site, the quality of your leads from that traffic will improve. By offering a low-risk way of getting more information, the quantity of your leads will increase.
By increasing both the quantity and quality of your conversions, ipso facto you will improve both the number of customers and your bottom line!
The quickest way to get Fire and Security Leads
Can’t be bothered to employ marketing people, improve your website to attract better visitors who will leave their contact details to you can nurture these leads with email marketing?
Many Fire and Security directors just don’t have the time or the budget. So here’s a simple solution.
Can Lollipop help your Fire & Security business to get more leads and sales?
There is an easier way to get
The Right Message in front of
The Right Person at
The Right Time
Click the link to answer a few questions so we can see how best Lollipop can help. And then book your call.