Your marketing team can capture leads on your website and contribute quite a bit to the top and the middle of your sales funnels.
Do You Capture Leads on Your Website?
Think about the visitors to your website who leave without purchasing. They probably make up about 90% of your traffic. Do you capture their contact information so you can keep in touch with them? Certainly, if you don’t capture leads on your website, there’s a lot of future business slipping through your fingers!
Did you know your marketing department can capture a good chunk of these visitors? They can also take steps to nurture them into qualified leads that can be passed on to the sales team.
It’s easy to do because marketing technology has evolved that much.
Perhaps You Capture Leads on Your Website Already
I hope this is true. If you’re like most distributors, I’ll bet you invite website visitors to sign up for your newsletter and then mail them once a month or so. That’s a great start!
Still, it’s what happens AFTER they sign up that we should examine. If you’re soliciting sign-ups for your newsletter, and doing nothing additional, you’re missing out.
When it Comes to Capturing Leads on Your Website, Here’s What Doesn’t Work, and What Does
You see, in a perfect world, the process of capturing leads that stem from a newsletter subscription would look something like the three steps below:
The example above is not a good way to capture leads on your website. Unfortunately, the reality is that only a small percentage of subscribers will read a newsletter and an even smaller percentage, of course, will purchase from it.
What Does Work to Capture Leads on Your Website
On the other hand, and, using the same scenario without making difficult changes to your website, here is how your digital marketing campaign(s) should and could easily run more efficiently:
(Notice that he never reads your newsletter!)
It may be a bit of a paradigm shift to have your marketing team build sales funnels, but it’s very easy to do. It’s also an excellent opportunity for the marketing team to capture some ROI.
Sales funnels like the one described above are automated, and what takes place within them is measurable AND trackable. Information that is trackable or measurable translates into valuable information about your prospects, your website visitors, and your sales cycles.
Lead capture and nurturing campaigns like these will also free up time for your salespeople and pass them the leads that have already shown significant interest in your company.
When Should You Start to Capture Leads on Your Website?
Many distributors’ marketing departments have been moving slowly toward digital. I’ve seen several dipping their toe into content marketing, social media, and eMail marketing. These are great steps in the right direction. If these steps aren’t measurable, and if there is no evidence that they’re leading to more leads, then spend the time and energy on strategies with measurable effectiveness. That would be time better spent.
Do you Say You Want to Innovate?
Digital marketing is an excellent place to start. The technology to capture leads on your website and create “smart” sales and marketing funnels is available, affordable, and easy to use. And, the ROI is great!
A good next step would be to explore various Marketing Automation systems and choose one that is right for your needs. You can read more about marketing automation on our website. Look for our (free!) eBook for specific guidance on choosing a system.
Let’s do this … Together!
Rather than struggle alone with decisions about what to change, where to invest, and what will work, bring in a team to support you. Together, we will discover the answers you need and teach you and your team to do it on your own. Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job so you can be self-sufficient!
Now is the time to take charge of your company’s digital sales and marketing efforts. I can help. Just give me a call, and let’s discuss the best options for moving forward.
We’ll define metrics, set goals, and measure KPIs going forward. You’ll watch your marketing efforts transform into a revenue-generating department that you can tie directly to a positive impact on your bottom line.
