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12 Replies Last post: Jun 9, 2009 1:44 PM by studio 525

Converting web Visitors to Clients - How?

Jan 29, 2008 11:10 AM

Click to view SecureID's profile Professional SecureID 4 posts since
Jan 28, 2008
We currently do some direct sales, word of mouth with friends and family and business associates. Our site is doing pretty well with ads on Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Affiliate programs are cost prohibitive since our rates are not in line with what most of these companies want to receive. My question for our company is two fold: 1) We have traffic but conversion of visitors to clients shoudl be higher (our thoughts are maybe most people do not know what we are promoting - please visit www.NDMIS.com and give any insight - Is the information easily understood) 2) Any insights on cost effective ways to drive more web business?

Currently we are selling direct, word of mouth and online. The costs are too high for radio. TV or Print and our staff is too small for an all out direct selling effort.

Thank you in advance for any feedback.
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Click to view LUCKIEST's profile SCORE LUCKIEST 7,933 posts since
Aug 6, 2007
1. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Jan 29, 2008 11:24 AM
Converting web Visitors to Clients takes planning. You need an Advertising or Marketing Plan.
Advertising is tricky. Doing a LOT of advertising is expense.
In the old days when I was an accountant, I brought in a sales telemarketer to get me new accounts.
It worked for me.

Another suggestion: It does take time and is a cost effective way to get more customers and business.
Know your customers
Learn the customers decision making process.
Build relationships with the customer (not just sales).
Focus on the customers business needs.
Show how your product or service meets customers needs.

LUCKIEST
Click to view SecureID's profile Professional SecureID 4 posts since
Jan 28, 2008
2. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Jan 29, 2008 11:37 AM
in response to: LUCKIEST

In my full time job - I take a consultative approach to my sales. This is for high level enterprise applicaitons. I must first learn the client, their needs and then develop a solution that meets or exceeds their requirements. 100% of my clients come from cold calling or referral - they are not web traffic.

You bring up another point which is - How do you develop a relationship with clients when the medium (web) itself is by nature less relationship and more "do it yourself". We have partnered with some great names that should bring a sense of quality as well as value to the service.


I agree with you 100% on showing our clients that our service meets their needs and maybe that goes to the site itself not petting the story across. All the people involved in this endeavor have a technology background. From a marketing standpoint I wonder if what we all take as absolute facts is information that goes over the non-technical persons head.

Thanks.

Click to view xenopod's profile Mogul xenopod 109 posts since
Dec 28, 2007
3. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Jan 29, 2008 11:46 AM
in response to: SecureID
Your site has a lot of big name people on it, but you said earlier that you are targeting smaller companies. I know you are using products from these larger companies, but you might make more of an effort to emphasize that you are willing to work with customers of any size small to large.

Since you have clients currently could you get some testimonials to post on your site? What about getting them to authorize using their company's names and/or logos on your site to list some of your clients? You might also ask that some of your current clients make a specific mention to you and your services on their websites.

That would really help boost confidence and confidence is important for conversion.

I hope that helps.

www.xenopodinc.com
Click to view Lighthouse24's profile Mogul Lighthouse24 2,396 posts since
Oct 10, 2007
4. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Jan 29, 2008 4:10 PM

I visited your website and immediately noticed that the product is "recommended by the Wall Street Journal" -- but I only recall Walt Mossberg naming Mozy as the preferred online backup service (and not once, but twice). So I started thinking in terms of comparing and contrasting your product with theirs.

The pricing on your site offers 100Gb of back-up for $1,400.00 a year -- by comparison, MozyHome (for individuals) offers unlimited backup for $54.45 a year, and MozyPro (for businesses) offers 100Gb of back-up with what reads like vastly superior security, performance, and support for $593.45 a year. (I'm not saying it IS superior -- I don't know -- it just SEEMS superior based on the website information available for all products, and it is far less expensive.) In fact, your pricing for online backup is about the same as the cost of having a redundant system -- in other words, I could just buy a second iPod, laptop, or whatever for the cost of backing up the one I have for a year using your service. So my conclusion as a potential customer was "this service costs way too much."

Again, no criticism of your product or website intended -- just sharing my impression as a visitor and trying to help you identify why sales/conversions may be lagging below expectations. Best wishes.
Click to view vikassah's profile Authority vikassah 14 posts since
Jan 26, 2008
5. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Feb 2, 2008 2:27 AM
Conversion of traffic coming to your site can be greatly increased once we study your expectations and the your domain and carry out experiments with your landing page.

Please feel free to consult with us : http://www.empoweredseo.com/traffic-conversion-services.html
Click to view TGA000's profile Mogul TGA000 33 posts since
Jan 17, 2008
6. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Feb 3, 2008 5:55 PM
Your methods are pretty good.

#1: Provide more real information and value on your pages.

Right now I'm hit over the head with a lot of info about how your company has done this and that... great but WIIFM? (What's in it for me?) I'd try talking directly to your customer about the value of what you do. A fellow named Frank Kern calls it "Results in Advance". Give your customers something up front they need.

Think of it like a time line:
A = Where your prospect is now
Z = Where prospects dream destination

Results in Advance will essentially give them something they can use right away to move them a bit further down the stick towards point Z.

No cost to you, just some great information, and it's not selling.

Doing it like this increases your word of mouth beyond anything you could ever hope for.

I would challenge you to take a hard look at all your correspondence and see how 'sales pitch esq' it is. If you think you're selling something... get rid of it.

On top of that, break up your copy more. Your landing page is a bit crowded.

Those 3 buttons accross the top are a bit to angry. Red is the color of anger.

In fact, the first 1/2 of your page is all header, angry buttons and logos. Chop it all out. Move it somewhere easy to find but smaller and less intrusive.

Right now you're focusing on you. Focus instead on your customer and what they want. Then you give it to them.

By doing it this way your prospects will begin to wonder:

"well, if they're giving us this much information right now... just imagine how amazing the stuff they charge for will be!"

Hope that helps increase your conversions.

Remember this: search engine users are in a problem solving mindset. Totally different than direct mail, phone call and/or any other type of communication you have.

Once you begin to increase your conversions you'll want to focus on SEO.

You could also dip into the PR side of things. Both of these are how I drive my business.
Click to view websolutions's profile Mogul websolutions 191 posts since
Feb 4, 2008
7. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Feb 4, 2008 5:10 PM
in response to: LUCKIEST
Yes, SEO all the way! I recommend optimizing your order page if you have not done it already but this is just one thing out of hundreds. Do you have any site analytics running on your server? If not, let me know, I can recommend solutions.

Best,
WS
Click to view goodedc's profile Professional goodedc 5 posts since
Feb 5, 2008
8. Be straight, myself get bored with your web content Feb 5, 2008 7:59 AM
Why? Let's see, I guess most of your customers are not the tech geek, they browse your site, they have a rough idea maybe this guy can protect my data, but who cares....pass on...not becoming a customer...

I am not sure whether you analyze your potential customers or not, what I suggest is that you really need a much better copywriting for your site, you can start with:

1. add more testimonials
2.write real story why people need your product, (not those simple column under "basic facts"!!)
3.show customer a demo

Feel free to contact me if you think my humble suggestions worth something.

Liren Wang
Click to view SJCarpentry's profile Mogul SJCarpentry 30 posts since
Feb 6, 2008
9. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Feb 6, 2008 8:53 AM
in response to: websolutions
In looking at your website, my first thoughts were:

1. You need a better call to action. The 30 day free trial offers no detail on what I am trying and secondly, seems out of line with such a serious topic. Do I want a free trial of something so critical or do I want to be convinced this is the best solution?

2. Lots of sites are having success with the ability to somewhat instantly have phone contact with someone. Maybe you should have something prominent that says if you want to learn more you can send an e-mail and someone will call you in the next 15 minutes. I bet you can get a version of whatever software lets people do online appointment setting.

3. Lastly, the home page is amazingly cluttered. You really have to work to understand what you are selling. I would clean it up dramatically and focus on the key 4-5 pieces of yoru value proposition
Click to view besonix's profile Professional besonix 9 posts since
Feb 10, 2008
10. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Feb 10, 2008 5:25 AM
Check out my thread here:

http://smallbusinessonlinecommunity.bankofamerica.com/thread/3371?tstart=0

This is exactly what you need.
If you got a customer on your website, you can see the page he is on, what he googled for, what pages he visited, and many other informations.
If you see he wants to order, but has problem doing it, you just double click the visitor in the list and write him a message ("May I help you?").
Then he will see the message on the website and have 2 options: open chat or refuse chat.
If he clicks open chat, you can chat to him in realtime, just like Instant Messaging.

It will also give the visitor a reason to visit you again, because he knows he got realtime support.He knows if he wants help on it, he can contact you and get it in 1 minute from a professional (your customer support operator).
Click to view GSOL.US's profile Authority GSOL.US 12 posts since
May 13, 2008
11. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? May 14, 2008 12:31 AM
I've been in the Search Engine Marketing field going on about 7 years now.

I have even developed software to help increase conversion rates (SuperPageSplitter.com).

But the thing is, even my software would be useless to you unless you know more information about your visitor base!

Have you considered "surveying" your visitors. .. ??

Literally. . .surveying them.

You can offer a 90 day free subscription (for one lucky winner obviously), if they take your 2 minute survey.

In the survey ask them the questions that matter:

1) Are you planning to use our services?

2) What need do you have to utilize our services?

3) Have you had data catastrophies in the last 90 days?

4) What do you think our services should cost for 1 year?

And so on. . .obviously these questions may or may not be right for you to ask, but you get ths jist.

If you don't ask you won't know. I've surveyed visitors on client website many times, and the results have always been incredible.

They will usually tell you what you're doing right/wrong, etc, and how you can ultimately win their business.

Then, you simply implement the things the majority of your survey takers asked for, etc, and that will start you moving in the right direction.

Just my 3 cents.

Eric Gillette (egillette@gsolutionsonline.net)
Click to view studio 525's profile Mogul studio 525 59 posts since
Dec 14, 2007
12. Re: Converting web Visitors to Clients - How? Jun 9, 2009 1:44 PM
On my company website I have a free 43 page Special Report that shows exactly how you can increase highly targeted traffic and convert a high percentage of that traffic to customers. Since you are already getting traffic, it may not be as highly targeted as you would like. SEO is good because you are pre-selecting your visitors according to the keywords they use to search for your products. In other words, they're already looking for you. We have several resources on our Resource page to help you fine tune your keyword search for even better, more highly targeted results, also how to lower pay-per-click costs.

But the main problem you state is conversion. You can have all the visitors in the world, but, if they don't buy, nothing happens.
This is what my company and I specialize in. I've been a copywriter for over 30 years working for one of the major ad agencies. On the website you can see some of the dramatic results we've achieved for our clients.

If you're the do-it-yourself type, there's a ton of information and resources on the site to help you be successful. The free 43 page Special Report includes detailed information on many proven website conversion techniques. Things like creating mini-sales, breaking through the trust barrier, powerful copywriting and design techniques, and creating irresistible offers.

Don't feel badly if your website isn't converting a high percentage of visitors. Most websites don't use these techniques, including web marketing and design sites. But if you put even a few of these techniques into action, you should see your conversion results move up sharply.

Here's our website url: http://www.studio525.com

Good luck and good selling,

Peter

Peter Cutler
Principal/Creative Director
studio 525
http://www.studio525.com

We don't just create websites.
We create results.