I have a client who complained that his website was not generating enough leads. So he hired me to critique the site and propose a new design.

When I took a look at the website, the problem was immediately apparent. As it turned out, his site was not capturing any leads because there was no incentive for his site visitors to supply their contact information. My client - by the way, my client’s name is Dave. If it’s all the same to you, I am going to refer to him as Dave (I’m sure he won’t mind), and I’m going to refer to his website visitors as “prospects”. Anyway, Dave mistakenly believed that having a “Contact Us” link was going to cause tons and tons of prospects to fill out an online form or to pick up the phone and call him.

Obviously the first thing I suggested was creating a lead generation campaign. Now, because Dave is selling a rather complex service, he also has a very complex sales lifecycle, and so our lead generation campaign needed to be a rather complex one. (You might want to refer to my complex sale graphic for more information on the complex sales process. Try to say that ten times fast!) http://www.modernimage.com/articles/complex-sale.htm

Here are the steps we took to improve his lead conversion - there are tons of ways you can customize this process to meet your own particular needs:

1. The first thing we did was actually create several lead generation devices in order to capture our prospects who are at various stages of the sales process. (Our downloads were a combination of PDF whitepapers and audio files.) We then advertised each of the lead generation devices on the home page with the assumption that the prospect will request the download that coincides with the stage in the sales process that he is currently in.

2. Next we created several different email campaigns using an online autoresponder system. Dave chose to use the same autoresponder system I use in my business because of its ability to link different email series with different product downloads. Depending on which lead generation device the prospect requested, he would be automatically registered for the corresponding autoresponder campaign.

Prospects at the very beginning of the sales cycle (the “Recognize A Need” stage) would naturally request the first lead generation device (because it was geared toward that prospect) and be automatically entered into Autoresponder Number One. Prospects who are farther along in the sales cycle (”Explore The Options”), who requested lead generation device #2, would be automatically subscribed to Autoresponder Number Two. Prospects in the “Narrow Down the Vendors” stage would be subscribed to Autoresponder Number Three, and so on.

The final message in each autoresponder series was an invitation to download the next lead generation device, and thus be automatically subscribed to the next autoresponder. The prospect did not receive a personal phone call from a company representative until after he completed the final autoresponder series.

Now I know you might be thinking, “Oh my goodness; you waited so long before any personal contact, you should have contacted the prospect by phone immediately.” However, in the course of critiquing my client’s original lead process, I discovered that the personal contacts were, by far, the most expensive step in his sales cycle. In addition, prospects really did not respond to personal contact when they were early on in that sales cycle. And so it was most cost-effective for us to wait until the prospect has cycled through all of the auto responders until making an initial phone call.

And obviously we thoroughly tested the landing page. We are currently running our A|B|C|D split test, and after several more months of testing we will be able to whittle down our controls and create additional pages to test.

Another critical change we implemented was simplifying Dave’s original registration form. His initial Contact Us form asked his prospects to provide information on everything including their shoe size (OK, I might be exaggerating a bit there). The form asked for so much irrelevant information that I believe it was scaring away too many prospects. We simplified the registration form and asked only for the most critical elements. As prospects ended one autoresponder series and were invited to download the next lead generation device, the registration forms became a little more complex. At that point in time, because we had already built up some trust with the prospect, we were able to ask for more personal information.

When we began the process, Dave was worried that we would not know exactly where the prospect fit into his sales cycle when the prospect first landed on the website. And, to be perfectly honest, we don’t know 100%. We’re making an assumption based on the lead generation device that the prospect requested.

Did the new campaign work? Well, prior to implementing this campaign, Dave was receiving literally no contacts from his website. Honestly, he received about two completed contact us forms per year. After implementing our lead generation campaign, Dave is receiving a steady stream of three to four new prospects on a daily basis. And because this is a complex sale involving a rather expensive service, three to four prospects a day, approximately 120 prospects a month, actually results in a hefty bit of revenue for Dave.

So, how can you use this idea in your own online marketing? First, take a cold, hard look at your website. If you want to capture leads, are you offering a REAL incentive for users to give up their precious contact information?

Next, consider the item or service you are marketing. Is it a no-brainer commodity that your site users will buy on impulse? Or is it a more complex, high investment item that might require educating the client before he is ready to make a purchase? A simple item can suffice with a simple lead generation process, but a complex item will require a complex lead generation campaign:

1. Create your lead generation devices for each stage of your sales cycle.
2. Create your autoresponder series for each stage of your sales cycle. Here’s the service that I use personally; you can sign up for a free 30 day trial: http://www.modernimage.com/autoresponder.htm
3. Optimize each of your registration forms, asking only for information that is necessary at the time.
4. Split test your landing page.

Time to implement: Now, I know I made it sound real simple. But to be honest, it is a very time intensive process. The split testing alone takes weeks. However, the increase in revenue should more than make up for the investment of time and/or money you spend revamping your lead generation campaign.

Web site sales not as high as you’d like? Here are 7 quick fixes you can easily implement on your site in one single afternoon:

1. Ask for the sale!
Don’t be shy about asking your customers to make a purchase. There’s no need to wait until the very bottom of the page before you include an “Add To Cart” button. Your site visit might be ready to make a purchase after reading only one paragraph of your sales letter. Add multiple buy buttons to each page.

2. Help the shopper make a decision.
With so many e-commerce sites and so many products to choose from, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Help your site visitors choose a gift by breaking your merchandise into categories. Can you create a “Gifts For Men” directory, a “Products for the Office” directory, an “Items Under $10″ directory, etc?

3. Include options for visitors not yet ready to buy.
Maybe your site visitor is in a “just browsing” mode, or is comparing several different merchants. What kind of compelling offer can you make to grab this visitor’s contact information? He will probably be ready to buy sometime in the near future.

4. Beef up your guarantee.
Guarantees are most effective when they are completely spelled out. Don’t leave your visitor guessing. What exactly does “Satisfaction Guaranteed” mean? Who will pay for return shipping? How does a shopper request a refund? Include a link to additional information about your return policy and your complete guarantee agreement.

5. Make everything clickable.
Studies show that web site visitors click a lot more often than webmasters expect. If you have a graphic or an image, make sure it’s clickable. Make sure headlines are clickable and include text links in addition to buttons.

6. Take advantage of your Thank You pages.
Believe it or not, after a buyer has made a purchase, he is most likely to buy again. Maximize this opportunity by including complimentary items on your order confirmation pages.

7. Take advantage of your transactional emails.
Studies have also shown that transactional emails are opened nearly 75% of the time. This is another awesome opportunity to present complimentary items and increase your sales volume.

Time to implement: Each of these 7 fixes can be applied in less than an hour or two. Take a day, or spend the weekend, reviewing your site and implementing these suggestions. You’re sure to see an increase in your e-commerce sales in no time.

While Ask’s share of the search market is comparatively small, it offers some great features that are sure to catch on. Consider grabbing a good ranking now before the word gets out and a tidal wave of webmasters start clamoring for top spots.

When Google “introduced” its universal search model, it grabbed tons of press for its “innovation”. Coincidentally, Ask has been using a universal search model since day one. So here’s a great place to get your feet wet and, shall I say, “practice” for optimizing for universal search. Consider these tips:

• Optimizing images for Ask’s universal search model is a little more complex than simply adding an alt tag. Yes, you still need to use an alt tag, and the alt tag should contain the target keyword. But in addition, the image’s actual filename should also contain the keyword AND the page text near the image should include the keyword.
• Create an account at Bloglines and add your blogs and feeds to your profile. Unlike most of their competitors, ranking in Ask Blogs is determined by relevance, not date. So be sure to maximize all your blog posts for your keyword phrases. Another feature of Ask Blogs is the ability to sort by popularity, so stickiness and incoming links become extremely important.
• Ask Mobile is a neat feature that provides mobile users with search results by reformatting websites into one column. Ask Mobile returns local search results to cell phone users (genius, isn’t it?), so be sure to include your address with city, state and zip on every page of your site to improve your possibility of being listed. And get yourself listed in Ask City by sending an email to askcitybusiness@help.ask.com. The email should contain the subject Ask City Feedback – Business and should include your business name and full address, your area code and phone number, your web address, your business category, your name and email address. Expect about one month before your listing in Ask City is approved.
• Be sure to submit your sitemap to Ask to ensure your site is thoroughly crawled. Without a sitemap, chances are your deep content will not be indexed by Ask. Put your sitemap in your root folder and add it to your robots.txt file. Then submit it to Ask by typing the following into your browser: http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://www.YOUR-URL.com/sitemap.xml. Obviously, replace YOUR-URL with your own web address.
• Ask provides users with a website preview, so they can glance at the site before clicking the link. To guarantee maximum clickthroughs, make sure your best content is above the fold and that your site preview looks compelling.

  

If you would like to keep these steps handy, I offer a FREE “Optimize For Ask” checklist which you can download right here: http://www.modernimage.com/freereports/optimize-ask.htm.