Convert them today, retain them tomorrow

In the world of online marketing, we thought it was about time to discuss some key metrics, as metrics are the tools we should be using to refine and drive your marketing process.

We discussed in our last post the importance of strategic marketing, and how the knowledge of technology alone doesn’t cut it. This is our short list of metrics we believe “keep it strategic.”

Conversions

A conversion is simply a way of measuring that your marketing efforts are effective. Conversion code is placed at the bottom of the page you want a user to see, and you can track them from the source activity to the action you wanted them to take on the site. For example, if you wanted someone to sign up for a newsletter, you’d put the code on the “thank you for submitting your info” page, so you can differ from people who actually signed up, versus people who just viewed the sign up page. It is absolutely essential to track conversions. Why? It’s the way to track your marketing ROI. You can see what your best performing activities are, shift budget to better performing activities, and realize potential.

I also spoke briefly about conversions in one of my recent posts: Strategic Marketing: It’s Not Just Making it Look Pretty!. However, I want to offer some examples of how you can create conversions on your website.

• Visit to a key page on your website: In this conversion type, you want to drive a visitor to go to a key page. Maybe this page contains information about a product and you are hoping to provide information on a regular basis, so that, the user comes back to your site to take action again and again and eventually bookmarks your page/site.
• Event registration: This type of conversion requires a visitor to sign up for an event. Keep in mind, an event can be an online event such as a webinar. Regardless of what the event is you still require registration information from the registrant. This builds your in-house database which you can repurpose for other marketing efforts such as direct mail and email marketing. Additionally, you’re gaining valuable insight into the interests of your site visitors/prospectes. Those that attend the event can further be marketed to with the potential of a sales conversion being much higher as they’ve already showed extensive interest.
• Completion of an online form: This is probably the most popular type of conversion. You’ll see examples of this as “contact us’ form, forms required to download white papers, brochures, request more information/quotes, etc. Again, the visitor willingly provides information which helps build your in-house database.
• Online purchase: If you’re selling products directly from your website, this conversion is the holy grail! A good understanding of how the user gets to the purchase page, why they got there, and how we can get them back there again is essential. Also, thinking about up-sell opportunities is very important at this stage. You can gauge all of this through conversion tracking.

When designing (or redesigning) your website, think about the actions you want your visitors to take and funnel them to take those actions. Implement tracking analytics and studying your website’s performance as told by your visitor’s actions and movement around your site. Adjust and refine to increase conversions.

Going forward, make a conscious effort to understand:

• What you want your website visitors to do (Convert!)
• Make it appealing and easy for a visitor to convert
• Track, adjust and refine!

In our next post, we’ll discuss the idea of website traffic – understanding where it comes from, how we understand it, and how we can use it to our benefit.

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Pay-Per-Click: Work or Waste?

So I just came from a sales call and the prospect is a very successful business man who runs a very successful business. He’s tried his hand at online marketing, namely Google Adwords pay-per-click (PPC) and was “soured.” He claimed the leads coming from these two campaigns weren’t converting and the ROI just wasn’t there. I truly believed him. But I was there to change his mind. Don’t get my wrong. I don’t want to sell anyone anything that isn’t right for them but I am a PPC evangelist and to answer my own question, IT DOES WORK!!!! It works well……………if it’s done right!

Everyone from Verizon/Idearc to Yellow Book to ATT are getting into the Google Adwords space (because their products are dying and they have no choice) but I’ve found none of them do it “right.” I’ve also found that very few (okay, I haven’t found one yet) business owners who try their hand at it or have their nephew run it for them do it “right” either. Thus, their budget is quickly exhausted by unqualified clicks. Don’t mistake “clicks” for leads! They’re not the same.

So what does “done right” mean? Here are a few key measurements that I use to deliver a positive ROI to my PPC clients. 1) Track conversions. Conversions are not leads they are actual people who clicked through and took some sort of action (filled out a form, called, requested a quote). 2) Set positions. Your ad shouldn’t appear in a position below #3 on the first search page. 3) Quality score. Drive your traffic to pages on your site that are highly relative to your keywords. 4) Dayparts. With limited PPC budgets, use phone numbers in ads to reduce clicks (this is the only form of marketing where impressions are FREE). Also, turn campaigns on and off to fit the times/days/week/months of your sales cycle as well as when most of your audience is online. 5) Geotarget. I constantly see ads for companies that are in California that clearly don’t service my area. WASTE OF MONEY! 6) Trim the fat. Your keyword list will shrink over time. Eliminate keywords that are not converting and have limited overall traffic. Focus your budget on keywords that convert. This will increase the frequency of your ads and fuel what’s working. In the end, all of these steps will optimize your budget, increase qualified leads and return a positive ROI.

Yes! PPC does work - when done “right!”

Have you run a campaign that was a bust? Let me hear about it. How about those of you out there seeing positive return? What’s the highest return rate you’re seeing?