Does your company have a website? Does it “work”? As in – does your website drive leads into your sales funnel on a regular basis? If not is should be; and even better – it can be.
This article answers these two questions:
1.) Why doesn’t my website generate leads?
2.) What changes can I make to turn my website into a lead generating machine?
Want more leads? Keep reading…
Why don’t most websites generate leads?
1.) Self-Focused Copywriting. Your website is all about YOU
2.) You don’t have a lead magnet to actually generate leads
3.) You’re not getting enough of the right traffic (or enough in general)
1.) SELF-FOCUSED COPYWRITING – YOUR WEBSITE IS ALL ABOUT YOU.
Most companies and marketers make this mistake – they’re trying to sell their product, or service but all of the copy on their website talks about THEM – about YOUR company.
RULE #1 – Marketing is all about the CUSTOMER. Did you read that? Let me re-iterate – GREAT COPYWRITING IS ALL ABOUT THE CUSTOMER.
This is the most critical step in the process (and the easiest to fix). Recognizing that Copywriting, and marketing in general when done right is “Customer-Centric”, not “Product-Centric” or “About My Business Centric”. And this is where so many businesses get it wrong. When they start marketing they start talking about their product, their service, or their business.
Listen to this…
If you talk about your customers, and if you can enter in the conversation that is going on in their mind; if you can address THEIR needs,THEIR problems AND THEN make the connection to how your product, service or company meets those needs – you find that getting phone calls and generating leads for your business become a lot simpler and a lot more effective.
If you want to ramble on and on and on about how great your product, brand, or company is you’re going to find out that you have a fairly steep hill to climb.
So remember this – IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CUSTOMER.
What can you do to fix this?
I wrote a great article about writing customer-centric website copy here – read it, and you’ll learn how.
2.) YOU DON’T HAVE A LEAD MAGNET. (no an “E-Newsletter Sign Up” doesn’t count)
So what’s a lead magnet and why do you need it…
A Lead Magnet is a small “chunk” of value that solves a SPECIFIC problem for a SPECIFIC market that is offered in exchange for an opt-in – for contact information.
THIS IS NOT A LEAD MAGNET
EITHER IS THIS:
GREAT LEAD MAGNETS…
Make a SPECIFIC Promise
Give a SPECIFIC Example
Offer a SPECIFIC Shortcut
Answer a SPECIFIC Question
Deliver a SPECIFIC Discount
Here’s the key…
Your Lead Magnet must be used or consumed by the potential customer for it to have any value.
The perfect Lead Magnet will offer tremendous value within a few minutes of the opt-in.
This is merely a “rule of thumb”, of course, but we don’t recommend, for example, a mini-course delivered over 3 months or a 200 page ebook as a Lead Magnet.
These Lead Magnets take too long to consume and are unlikely to be specific.
Notice how simple and specific this Lead Magnet is…
The goal of an effective lead magnet is to give your potential value first. Give them an offer they can’t resist and are willing to exchange their name and email for – you just generated a lead.
Want more examples of lead magnets? Lead-Magnet-Examples and get the skinny on the different types of Lead Magnets.
And if you want more lead magnet ideas read this article by Ryan Deiss at Digital Marketer (this guy is the King of lead magnets – not to mention he taught me everything I know)
3.) YOU’RE NOT SENDING THE RIGHT TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE. (or not getting enough traffic in general)
If you’re not currently getting a lot of website traffic, or you think you have a traffic problem; like most businesses – Let me first dispel this myth.
YOU DO NOT HAVE A TRAFFIC PROBLEM.
Why do I say that? Simple…
Right now as you’re reading this, Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Linked, just to point out the obvious, are lining up to sell you targeted traffic. Here at Objective UI, we would love to do Search Engine Optimization for you to send more traffic to your website, or we could set up some Google Pay-Per-Click ads, and again you would get traffic.
Right now we could do any one of these in the next hour and you would start getting new traffic to your website.
The right question would be, “Where do I start running traffic” – Better question.
For most situations, I recommend starting with Facebook advertising because…
- It’s easy to use and anyone can be taught how to use it in a matter of minutes.
- The targeting options are insane. You can literally target your customer by using Facebook’s custom audiences and targeting options.
- Right now Facebook have over 1.3 billion users; which means there is a lot of room for scale on this platform.
But I get it – Facebook isn’t for everyone. If your market isn’t using Facebook simply ask yourself – “where are they online?” If you’re selling a product to women; I’d try Pinterest. if you’re selling B2B, a good place to start is Linked In. Regardless of your traffic source I recommend this…
Become a master of s single, steady traffic source.
SEO: Hire an SEO agency and start getting organic traffic.
Facebook: Set up a Facebook Account, use FB’s targeting options and put some high value content in front of them.
Twitter: is your market younger and tech savvy? This may be a great place to start.
Pinterest: Are you serving women?
Linked In: Are you selling high dollar products or services B2B? Or trying to reach people by a specific job title?
Google PPC: Use this if you have a PROVEN offer from other traffic sources or an offer that is difficult to target with interest or demographics targeting. Make sure to do retargeting here.
