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Now the Internet dust is
settling, the real business emerges. Companies
from across the spectrum of sizes and industries
are quietly getting to grips with the Internet as
a tool for marketing and sales.
Lead generation - the piece of the mix
which fills a company's sales pipeline with
qualified prospects, is ideally suited to low key
internet use by all firms.
The Internet-ideal that small Irish firms can sell
into exotic new markets, is in fact possible.
However, the bread-and-butter domestic business
can now also be sourced online.
A key question all business managers are asking
about their Internet activities is 'Where's the
Return on Investment'. Inbound golf tour operator,
JD Golf Tours Limited, (www.jdgolf.ie) have
answered this for themselves in the past 6 months.
Their revamped web site with an initial online
lead generation effort has yielded a half-dozen
tours confirmed for 2003. This amounts to a 1500%
ROI to date.
For an operator targeting overseas customers, the
Internet makes an obvious promotional channel and
it is essential that it performs well. For
conventional domestic businesses, online promotion
is also proving its worth.
Businesses like River Lodge Communications and AAA
Security Services are generating a substantial
portion of local business online.
For River Lodge Communications, (www.rlcomm.com)
focusing their online promotion around niche
keywords such as 'Telephone Answering Ireland' has
yielded several hundred qualified leads this year.
Properly filtered by their web site, each lead is
a hot prospect and results in a high percentage of
sales conversions.
AAA Security take a different approach. Their
online promotion is low key. Most visits to their
site result from prospects viewing their AAA.IE
domain on alarm boxes on the front of customers'
houses. It just goes to reinforce that offline
promotion continues to be relevant and that
Internet activities are complemented by
traditional promotional efforts.
When visitors arrive at the site their conversion
rate is very high because of the use of a powerful
conversion tool - a quotation engine. Visitors can
play around with prices and configurations that
suit them, in a low commitment way. There's no
request for personal information to inhibit them.
When they are ready an automated quote is issued
which gives them a justification to call AAA. The
call that then occurs is further along the sales
process - it's not about information gathering
rather concerning how soon installation can begin!
So what activities are recommended for small
businesses to switch on Internet lead generation?
 Web
page optimisation
get your web pages search engine read
Search
engine submissions
Gateway
pages
do targeted search engine promotions
focused on specific keywords
Keyword
sponsorships |
Getting the visitors to the site is one thing.
Converting them to qualified leads is quite
another. It's important to think carefully about
what those visitors want to do when they get there
Some conversion tactics to consider for your
online presence
Estimation
engine -
allow the customer to play around with options)
Open
up the pores - give them plenty of ways
to contact you.
Use
Newsweaver's newsletter service to manage
an e-mail newsletter for your company |
Remember to monitor your
sources of business. There is little point in
performing lead generation activities if you don’t
know where the leads are coming from. This is as
true of the Internet as of any other marketing
medium such as the Golden Pages, Leaflet drops and
so on.
The Internet is statto's heaven!
There is so much data available about web sites
and what goes on there that it can be a bit
overwhelming. To measure return on investment,
focus on the leads and where they have come from.
It must be possible to trace a lead back through a
particular page on your site, how they got there
within the site and further back where did they
come from? If they came from a search engine, what
activities were done to get your site high up on
that particular search service. It's clear that
you need a chain of evidence to trace your leads
back from whence they came and do more of that
activity.
Naturally we recommend using Internet marketing
services! However you do it, make sure you put in
the chain of evidence when preparing your online
marketing. Otherwise you'll be back talking about
the infamous adage, half advertising working but
not knowing which half works!
Can I do some marketing of our own?
On November 14th,
Active Online is running a half day seminar on
internet lead generation. For €495, we take you
through what you need to do to generate leads
online. This is a serious seminar, for people
examining the return on investment from their Web
sites. Contact us on 01 838 0878 or visit
www.activeonline.ie/seminar
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Overview