Digital Marketing Consultant

Sales and marketing executives are always looking for better ways to get leads from qualified prospects. Despite the complexities woven into Google Analytics’ new multi-channel sales funnels (see below), a way of tracking all the various origins of leads that come into a website, the dynamic remains the same as it’s always been: deals happen after a large audience is filtered into prospects, those prospects are sorted for leads, and those leads are converted into sales. 

The Web delivers that audience, and the various platforms available on it provide companies with the tools to do the filtering, the sorting and even the converting too. 

Each platform does that in a different way. A comprehensive online marketing strategy would make use of Facebook’s flexible engagement (see the link below), Twitter’s networking, and content marketing’s message-building to mine different parts of an audience and bring out the leads present in each group. 

It’s a process that’s seen most clearly in email marketing.

A website might have thousands of visitors a day, most of whom will click through without leaving anything behind. A small fraction of those visitors though can be tempted to leave behind an email address in return for an offer of a free download or some other benefit. (For example, a platform such as TinyLetter now makes collecting those addresses simple enough for anyone to do.) Depending on the download they choose or the site on which they leave their email address, companies are able to create segmented lists that contain subscribers with a known interest in a particular kind of product.

That’s the first, filtering stage. It captures people who have a certain, though undefined, level of interest in a topic related to the product. The next stage, the process by which those prospects are converted into leads, can happen gradually as the company sends a regular stream of emails that don’t just offer deals, bargains and sales opportunities, but which contain enough usable content to build trust. 

Users who are ready to convert will hit the Buy Now button contained in an email marketing letter; the remainder, who will be the majority, should be left with a deeper level of trust that increases the chances that they’ll buy in the future. Eventually, the prospects on the subscriber list should become leads when they click through to a sales page.

That process from audience to prospect to lead to, hopefully, customer is a dynamic that remains true in every sales mechanism, and it’s worth keeping in mind as you’re assessing the various platforms available online. Sites like Facebook might offer a bewildering array of different tools to keep users engaged and to draw in new visitors, from face tagging to video uploads, but they’re all ultimately geared towards pushing a mass that contains some potential buyers through the same funnel. Tagging images of customers in a store, for example, can help a company bring in more potential prospects by putting their name in front of that customer’s friends; announcing on the site that the company is making a limited-time offer will turn those prospects into leads.

It’s a process that should be familiar to any experience sales executive. As you’re wondering how to make best use of the Web, try asking yourself which tools match which parts of your sales funnel.

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Seeing how Google is flourishing, soon we’ll see parents and teachers teaching their kids “G is for Google.”  Google is not just a search engine but has hundreds of applications and services that every one and anyone can use to his/her advantage.  Now, if you are running a business and still not aware everything that Google is providing, here is a quick view. 

Google’s web search is receiving and dealing with millions of queries each day.  The main purpose of this Google web search engine is to hunt for text and images in the various pages available on the Internet.  Google has recently made advancement in its searching technology by introducing Google Caffeine.  The main idea behind this is crawling and hunting for text and information more accurately and faster.  You can learn how to take advantage of this engine to benefit your company and your sales. 

Google Products

“Froogle” became “Google Base” then “Google Product Search” and now is “Google Merchant Center.”  This implies that Google has many products with different properties.  With its diverse properties Google shopping has been made easier and much more prominent for you to list your products or services.  You can set up a feed if your business involves many products. 

Google Analytics

This is the tool that can track and analyze your site traffic.  It will keep a check on who visits and at what time.  You can subscribe for a weekly report via email and get a detailed analysis regarding your information.  What is important here is that you learn to understand what all the statistics are trying to tell you about your business.  But before the Internet, none of this was possible.

Google AdWords

Google helps you promote and run your ads on the search engine.  It will not be wrong to say here that Google AdWords Pay-Per-Click program can be a key revenue generator.  If you are unaware of how to use such this program for your business, it will be best to get help from a Google AdWords Advisor.  We are very aware of the huge sums that have been wasted on Pay-Per-Click unnecessarily.  

Google Places

By using Google Places, you can not only develop a strong local strategy but also promote your products and services in your city and region.  By paying a minimal amount, you can establish your Google local identity to include your business information, coupons, videos, and photos to attract your users. 

Google Webmaster Central

This will help you see how effective your website pages are.  For example, with this tool you can monitor your web conversions.  Add a word or two like ‘free shipping’ to your pages and the optimizer on the dashboard will let you know the effect.  This technique can really help improve the ratio of traffic conversion and have a powerful impact on the development of your website. 

Google Affiliate Network

To be part of the Google Affiliate Network, you will have access the Google’s large pool of publishers who will divert traffic to your site in exchange for some commission.

All the Google tools to help a business have success are too many to describe here.  They include Adsense, Checkout, DoubleClick, Apps, Postini Services, Geospatial Solutions, and Google Enterprise Search.  It may be a bit overwhelming to try to utilize all of Google’s possibilities, but with expert help, your business can grow.

The Internet provides the ideal platform for any business to generate leads. The way to increase your online presence is through “Content Marketing”. By continuously publishing valuable and relevant information you will be creating an online asset for your business.

The key to generating business leads online is to provide relevant content that persuades your visitor to engage with your company.

Set up your goal metrics in Google Analytics to support your company’s business objectives and measure your results regularly.

The goal measurements show the lead generation goals that were achieved online.

The new ways to be found is to syndicate your optimized content onto social media platforms and be found on search engines for more
than just your website content.

Good content will lead to conversation about your company and its products creating “word of mouth” referrals. 

I am taking a break between Christmas and New Years, but don't hestitate to write.  Have a great New Year, Please!

Copyright © 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved.

Google Analytics serves as a portal to the inner workings of your website.   Google Analytics provide more than surface information about your website. Understanding these statistics provides the opportunity to improve your marketability.

There are some key stats which provide insight into how well your website is performing when it comes to Internet marketing.   Some questions you should ask include:
•    Is my website traffic, increasing, decreasing, or holding its own?
•    Is my website of value to visitors?
•    Where do my visitors come from and who are they?
•    What are my most popular pages?
•    What are the exit pages on my site?
•    What are the forces driving traffic to my website?
•    Do other websites drive traffic to my site?
•    What are the keywords that are most effective in driving traffic to my website?

By looking at the page view average along with the time visitors remain on your site, you can identify if your website is providing meaningful information for visitors.  

Using map overlay and new visitor stats will allow you to know if your traffic growth is from returning visitors or new visitors.

Look at the stats showing the pages visited most repeatedly.  Make sure you provide the best quality content on these pages and incorporate attention grabbers on these pages.

Pages with the most exits by visitors should be reviewed.  If they are clicking an outbound link and that is what you want them to do, then this indicates your system is working.  On the other hand, if you don’t want them to exit this page, perhaps you should look at making the link open in a new tab or window, or simply removing the link and providing high quality content on that particular page.

Paying attention to which traffic sources are providing the most traffic can be beneficial to reduce cost of ineffective ad campaigns.  These dollars could be best spent in a more effective traffic building campaign.

A close review of keyword effectiveness can help you build quality content built upon the most effective keywords. 

I realize that this is general information.  If you want to really understand, go to our wisdom book.

First, what is website Stickiness?  It is another way of calling Time-on-site or on-page.  In other words, does your website make people want to stay, want to read, want to go deeper into your website?  If so, that is a sticky site. Stickness is part of website conversion architecture.

Our business is devoted to making your website sticky.  But perhaps you have asked how you can determine the stickiness of your website.  There are several ways to measure the stickiness of a website and we will discuss those in this edition.

Some of the sticky attributes you should have implemented on your website include.
•    Making the information for your target market easy to access
•    Clearly and concisely tell your visitors what you do and what your site has to offer in products and services.
•    Keep your website up-to-date with new information, products, and services.
•    Use professional appearing graphics
•    Provide references, testimonials and guarantees for your products and services.
•    Include an effective call to action on your website

After you have the above attributes actively in operation on your website, it is time to start measuring for success.  Measuring is necessary for every successful internet marketing site.  By measuring the stickiness of your site, you will find areas which you need to make adjustments on and tweak you site to become stickier. 

The number of visitors to your site is an important statistic.  But when it comes to stickiness, importance is placed upon how long your visitors remain on your site.  Remember if your visitors get to your website and then can’t locate the information for which they are searching, they will become frustrated and leave and probably never return again.

For an online business, the customers’ point of contact is your website.  Your website represents your company and you.  The website should be constructed and maintained to build credibility for your company and the products and services it offers.

Most webhosting companies offer tools to track the traffic to your site (see Google Analytics) along with time visitors stay on your site that can be used to track the stickability of your site.   These tools can even drill down to the page level for your site to provide specific areas on which to focus for stickiness improvement.