Nine steps to convert website visitors into leads

Transcription

1 An Engago Technologies White Paper Nine steps to convert website visitors into leads Written by the Engago Team Date: 12 December of 13 pages

2 The company Engago Technologies Ltd. has been formed with the aim to provide web services solutions (SaaS) for companies and enterprises, active in both B2B and B2C businesses. Instead of following the herd into the web 2.0 hype of social websites, we focus on business opportunities in Enterprise 2.0. The company is strongly committed towards the development of new applications using the proprietary Appmetrx technology. This technology has been developed from the experiences as developers of Java and C++ software solutions in different web projects. Our development team's expertise comprises many years of developing and supporting secure and enterprise applications in the field. Our ambition is to provide organizations with the web services they require to take full advantage of the new technology of the digital age and to provide solutions for increasing or improving revenue and operating income for our customers. Engago Technologies Ltd. is based in the UK and privately owned. Date: 12 December of 13 pages

3 Contents Executive summary 3 Introduction 4 Problem Statement 5 Previous Option 5 Proposed Method 6 The Solution 10 Conclusion 12 Proposition 13 Executive Summary Introduction Every company in the B2B market has a website and visitors. SEO can bring traffic to your website. Problem Statement: Visitors <>Leads Traffic on the website is only an opportunity, which can lead to leads. Converting incognito visitors into lead is the problem Previous Option: A reply channel Offering a reply channel to your visitors hardly brings any contact details. Method: Nine step lead generation This lead generation program allows for converting website visitors into leads and into sales. Lead generation for lead acquisition. Solution: Seamless CRM integration Seamless integration of website visitor identification with CRM brings a new solution for this problem with new functions and features. Conclusion: Nine step program Proposition: LEADSExplorer Benefits Convert visitors into leads in 9 steps. Craft concise and appropriate communication messages. Allows aiming for conversations. More efficient Lead generation. 3 of 13 pages

4 Introduction: Website Marketing goal is Leads for Sales Since more than hundreds of years the conventional channels have been worked on and been fine tuned for generating leads. Print advertising and billboards were the unidirectional communication for marketing, exposing the products or services to the target market. The appearance and rise of the company website, as another one way communications channel, has changed the environment. Much effort has gone and much money has been invested into the content and design of the website. The goal of marketing is to bring more leads for sales, thus also your website SEO By using and applying many different methods and tricks for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you have managed to have the company website listed on a premier position on the search engines and obtained a high ranking. You have spent money on online advertising (text links) to have even more visitors. All these SEO efforts draw an impressive number of visitors to your website. 4 of 13 pages

5 The problem: Many visitors, however low visitor conversion rate A website is a one way communications channel. The visitors read what you have written. The problem with any one way communication, like advertising, billboards, radio is the missing response channel and thus the direct responses. A one way communication channel is easy to deploy, but hard to measure the response rate or success. Traffic of visitors is only an opportunity: The fact is: most visitors read your website content and then leave the website again without sending any response or submitting their contact details. The industry standard is about 2-3% of the visitors who submit their contact details. Even in case you have specific content to download like a white paper. Thus from all your efforts and money spend, you only are capable of contacting the minority of visitors. 97% just walk away from your website. This can not have a good Return on Investment, thus a method or system is required to have a communication both ways: Lead generation. This should allow you to be able to contact the majority of you visitors, improving the ROI of the website. Converting website visitors into leads is required and there for a lead generation program or method. Previous options: Proposing a second channel to the visitor Different methods have been tried out and implemented for getting responses from the visitors: Forms for sending comments or remarks Forms for Tell a friend about the website White paper downloads with registration On line chat buttons On line call back buttons Virtual agents using artificial intelligence These methods have been applied with different levels of success. Sometimes depending from the industry or goods the website sells. The Online Chat and Call methods require presence of an employee. Still in many cases visitors don t want to enter into a conversation. 5 of 13 pages

6 Proposed method: Nine step lead generation: Website visitor identification 1) Discover Once visitors have found and visited your website, a system should be present to identify them with all possible means and methods available. The visitors on your website need to be identified using the trails and traces they leave on the website for starting the lead generation process. This will be a long process, but the visiting parties have already shown their interest, thus a high chance of obtaining a real lead. Benefits of contacting website visitors: Their interests in the products or services Really interested parties: they have been pulled onto the website instead of being pushed Qualification can be done before calling: saving time effort and thus money. What can be revealed? The ISP name, can be the company or allows to obtain the company name The language of the visitor The country and even city The world location by office time zone (useful in case the company is a multinational) The number of unique visitors from the company This set of parameters gives a starting point for qualification and further investigation Interests and behavior of the visitor Their interests and behavior are given by: The search terms used The pages visits The time spent on the pages The click path The number of visits by page The returning visits: frequency, freshness of the visit(s) The hour of the day the visitor is on the Internet The origin of their visit: search engine, website, direct This information brings forward more clues about the visitors: like their interests and the possible department or the function. The search terms used bring forward the interest expressed in their wording. The originating website can indicate the function or department of the visitor. Combining these two, they will provide the best indication for the products or services required. Try to define the problems and needs of the company and their visitors. 6 of 13 pages

7 2) Qualify The visiting company needs to be qualified As many people from different companies will visit your website, not all companies can be closely followed up, thus a qualification is required from the first visit or from any of the consecutive visits. The decision has to be taken, to proceed with this company and to further investigate on, or just wait and see after the next visit. This decision can be based upon the nature of the company, the number of unique visitors, the pages visited, the time spend on the pages, the frequency of returning visits over a certain time frame. It is a subjective decision by the Sales man, using metrics provided by the solution. 3) Internet data mining The Internet information source: picturing the company and people The Internet is a magnificent source on all possible company information. It provides vast amounts of data about companies and in many cases also about their employees. Information can be from the company website, Press releases to participations in conferences, presentations or any public exposure will reveal company information and people to contact. Many different sources for information can be found using ranging from search engine query to specialized websites for company data and employees. These searches should be automated in order to retrieve data form as many resources as possible. Human intervention is required to screen, evaluate and decide upon the possible contacts. From all the available information you be able to craft a clear picture of both company and contacts. During this Internet Data Mining process, it is possible to find contact details of decision makers within the company, sometimes even with their addresses. Start from the problems and needs of your buyer personas 4) Craft a message or subject for conversation Preparing the message or conversation subject Instead of calling blindly using the typical generic subject or approach of your products or services, it is best to prepare the message or the conversation. People expect you to be knowledgeable about their company and industry, as they are aware about the available information. This is a measure for your skills and interest in their company. If the message is not prepared it will be too generic, thus you will be wasting the time of the person you are contacting. 7 of 13 pages

8 Moreover you will diminish your status and reduce your chance to get interest from the contacted person, thus the overall impression will be negative. Even with the best products or services, the chances of winning will be very low. In order to adjust the message it is required to: Imagine their environment Understand their needs and requirements Know the best suited features and functions Estimate their tangible and intangible benefits In case you can categorize your possible contacts in: Board members Signature holders Decision influencers Recommenders The message or conversation subject can be further adjusted, as people from each of these categories require different approaches to the subject or even different subjects. Understand that people crave authenticity and transparency: do not spin Don t send people generic messages; address their problems. Aim for building a position as a trusted resource. 5) Timing Timing is important: When in the decision process The communication can be too early or too late or right on time. As actions taken are triggered by the visits, the timing in the process is probably right, if not perfect. When during the day In case of Cold calling or even s, the timing during the day can bring more or less opportunity; this moment can be derived from the time of the visits of the company. Certain visiting patterns can indicate when during the day a communication should be sent or attempted. 6) Communicate Communicate: sending the message Case by case it needs to be decided how the company has to be addressed: by telephone by by letter by fax As the message, communication channel and timing is known, nothing else is needed to send out the message or attempt to start the conversation. The goal is to engage your potential buyers. 8 of 13 pages

9 7) Adjusting the message More visits more information As more visits are induced by your communications, the aggregated company data will even better reveal the real interest by search terms used and pages visited. From every contact you make or every conversation you engage, more information will be revealed, allowing adjusting the message with the functions, features and benefits to their interests and environment. In case of Cold calling upon the contacts, during the conversations people can mention the decision makers for the products or services. Next these people can be approached or called on their turn. 8) Matching visitors with contacts Visits induced by communications and conversations Whenever people are contacted, some will react immediately through the same channel: on the telephone or replying an . In many cases however their reaction can also be viewed by the induced website visit as they all have Internet access in their office. As these companies have interest in the products or services proposed, the communication message will generate website visit(s) from the addressee. Thus by analyzing the visits after a communication, the possibility exists to match the visitor with a contact. In case manual matching is not evident, the visitors are interested in the products, thus chances are high that the typical methods of capturing contact details (for instance white paper download) will be successful 9) Converting the visitor into a lead Acquire the lead From all of these analysis, conversations and website visits, finally a lead can be generated and lead qualification can be done. Of course the company can move faster and contact you or your company on their terms, thus speeding up the buying process. Perceived benefit for the customer: The potential customer will feel you understand his problem better and as you interact with him in a much better way than your competitors (if they don t have such a solution). It is likely your sales team will be winning more deals. 9 of 13 pages

10 The solution: The seamless integration of visitor identification and CRM The proposed solution includes two different parts, which are seamless integrated. Although they have different functionalities and features, they need to interact with each other during the conversion and sales process: Discovering the visitors and their interests feeding the CRM Visitor and lead relationship management (CRM) using the visit data. This combined solution is required for the Salesman to be able to: Discovering and managing companies Obtaining company information Find possible contacts Interpreting the behavior of the visitors and estimating their drivers Understanding the drivers or benefits for every potential customer Treating individual customers differently Allowing for timely communications, triggered by the visits The goal is to have a method for efficiently converting visitors into leads, allowing building your status as knowledgeable person or company for your leads. Website visitor tracking and CRM: All of the information and interpretations will provide a framework for wiring a web for your visitor by the communications of the messages and adjusted messages to his interest and instantly reacting upon the reactions from the potential company or visitor. This complete solution goes beyond two separate solutions: a website visitor analytics package and a CRM, integrated by an application exchange. What is needed is one powerful system to convert your website visitors into leads into prospects and eventually into sales without technical discontinuity. Solely a solution able of capturing the website visits by company and combining this with the Marketing and Sales efforts and communications to the visitors will be able to achieve the above mentioned goals. If the CRM and the website visitor tracking or tracing is not within the same environment, all of this tracking and tracing of interactions is not possible, even not with the best application exchange interfaces. Keeping 2 separate data base systems up-to-date all of the time, in both directions, without inconsistency in the two data bases, is imposing expensive technology more costly than the solutions themselves. Moreover such a solution is likely to fail one day, resulting in inconsistent data of the two data bases. Thus website visitor identification solution needs to be one unified and merged solution with the CRM, having the interaction of the communications of Marketing and Sales combined with the induced website visitors, for supporting the continuous inflow of data for immediate analysis. 10 of 13 pages

11 The integrated CRM and website visitor identification The benefit of having one integrated application is in the immediate data inflow from the website visits into the CRM, allowing for: 1) Visual analysis: It is known that any communication ( , telephone, and letter) is likely to generate a website visit. The visual analysis of the sales and marketing actions and communications with the induced visits can be used for: Adjusting even better your message to the potential customer Lead scoring: Select the companies to pursue and those not to pursue. Neglected companies: In case a company gets neglected by Sales, the Company can be remarked or found by the number of visits without any communication event. 2) Aggregated company data: Search terms used by all of the visitors of the company: thus aggregated by company Most popular visited pages by all of the visitors of the company: aggregated by company 3) Matching visitors and contacts: It is highly probable, in case a communication to one specific person immediately induces a visit on the website: it very likely this contact is visiting. 4) Alerts when a company visits again: As the visitor returns, it is time to take action for communications The Cold call is no longer cold: The Salesman will have gathered ample and precise information about the company and the person to be called upon; as such he almost starts to know him. The information ranges from company wide information to specific personal information found on the Internet. Combining all of the available information, the Salesman can pose the appropriate questions and bring the best suited solution. The business benefits of such a solution are: Get more leads Set-up conversations based upon visiting data. Setup conversations instead of sending messages. Be more concise, precise and appropriate in your communication More efficient Cold Calling by only calling upon the visiting companies Convert more visitors into leads into sales. Get Sales a reason to call, or send information by post Maintaining relations with customers and ex-customers more efficiently Have more effective prospecting by visitor and leads qualification and scoring Lower your lead generation and sales costs significantly 11 of 13 pages

12 The conclusion: The nine steps for converting visitors into leads The problem: There many more visitors on your website, than leads from your website: visitor traffic is only an opportunity. Solution: Use seamless website visitor identification and CRM service (LEADSExplorer) The nine steps: 1) Discover visitors of companies and their interests Company name revealed Pages visited, search terms used, originating website 2) Qualifying the visiting company From the data obtained, the companies can be qualified for further follow-up or not. To be decided after each visit of a company. 3) Internet data mining for information on the company and possible contacts. Get informed and learn about the company by searching the Internet, in order to get a view of how they perceive the world Find contacts using any source on the Internet 4) Craft a message or subject for conversation: This message or subject should be matching the company, the interest and the profiles of the contacts. A generic message will never have the same impact and thus results as a message showing to understand their problems and the adequate solution. 5) Timing As the people visit the website, the interest is present already. From the visiting time of the day, the typical time of being in the office is known. 6) Communicate by , telephone, letter or fax. Once all has been prepared and drafted, the communication has to be done. 7) Adjust the message even further to the additional visiting information or the referenced decision maker. Communications to people in a company are likely to generate more website visits. Or in the best case a real conversation starts. 8) Matching visitors with contacts The more conversation and interactions, the more information obtained from the conversations and the more clues are generated by the visits to mach them with contacts. 9) Convert the visitor into a lead during one of the next conversations You have shown the prospect your knowledge about their problems and your solutions. You have build credibility by using all of the information available and by spying on their visits. 12 of 13 pages

13 The proposition: LEADSexplorer LEADSExplorer is a web service, using the same method for capturing the website visitor data as web analytics. This is done by a java script line inserted in the pages of the website or the header page of the website. Thus this is a widely known method of implementation, requiring little html knowledge and little effort. All data is processed on the servers and the Salesman will consult and work on the information by the using a web browser. This allows access and operations from any Internet enabled work station.(even an Internet enabled mobile phone). The goals of LEADSExplorer are to: Effective and efficient Cold calling No more fear for the Cold call, as this is no longer a real Cold call. Cold calling using a personalized and appropriate communication message. Enable salespersons to differentiate from competition. Provide information about company Provide possible contacts and related information about contacts Provide information for communications and conversations with potential buyers. Qualification: select potential buyers with highest level of interest. Deliver just-in-time messaging. Track all messaging and communications. Minimize salesperson data entry. Track and monitor each opportunity. For further information, please visit: 13 of 13 pages