Are the leads that you’re harvesting “qualified”, or anywhere near the mark of the “Ideal Client” for you?

I made a “Post” blunder on Monday on my www.SmarterWebsites.com.au site. I stuffed up.

I needed to narrow the niche that I’m marketing too so I was refining my lead generation “Funnel” on my site. Trouble is I forgot that the auto update was turned “On” so the edit that I did went out automatically to my list.

This would have been the starter of the email you got…

Attention: Self Employed Professionals & Small Business Owners!

Really am sorry about that, it was just an internal site edit and wasn’t supposed to go out.

Anyway, the blessing is that it’s a good subject for a post.

Are the leads that you’re harvesting “qualified”, or anywhere near the mark of the “Ideal Client” for you?

It’s a valid question.

I had people signing up left, right and centre but in running them through my “process” I realized that in building this list some of these leads weren’t after what I was offering. Now, you could argue that it doesn’t matter because it’s all done online that it doesn’t cost me anything.

Well, yes, and the extra traffic to my site can be a good thing for ranking but obviously if we can all refine our process to attract that “Ideal Client” then the faster our business will grow and the quicker we’ll slip into the serious money stream.

Un-qualified traffic can also be a negative too – if they come to your site and leave quickly that will increase your “bounce rate” which is the percentage of single page visits. This is bad if it’s too high, it means they’re not finding what they came for. Google God demerit point!

The point being, always “Test and Measure”.

• Check your offer – how many clicks on your offer (Your button or newsletter opt-in) compared to new visitors?
• How many people are then following through and filling in their details to get your stuff?
• How many “unsubscribes” down the track?
• How many convert into a paying client?

Here’s a quick starter check hit list – In Google Analytics (which we install on all our sites – that was subtle “sell” on one of the many sexy things we do) you should be looking to compare – “new visits” to “click throughs to your opt in page” to “actual opt ins”.

Test and measure and refine always. Websites are a work in progress!

The issue is too many ideas and not enough time.

I’m sure you’re the same, with that entrepreneurial spirit there is never a shortage of ideas or opportunities, our problem is we only have one life to try and fit it all in.

I’ve just come from a great mastermind session this morning. A colleague who has become a good friend John Denton runs these “Connect” groups and we meet on a monthly basis.

The power of ‘connecting’ with others, ‘networking’ and having ‘mentors’ is very powerful!

In this session I was able to help a member, Andrew Huffer with a particular marketing piece and he just sent me the following email. I don’t show this to boast but to simply draw attention to the power in what I call “Third Party Objective View”.

Andrew is pretty savvy in his own right and is a very powerful facilitator – hence the marketing piece he had created which had lots going for it but sometimes we’re to close to be able to “nail it”.

From: Andrew Huffer & Associates
Sent: Friday, 17 April 2009 1:30 PM
To: Peter
Subject: Revised flier

G’day Peter

Thanks for the feedback on the flier

A revised version is attached.

Now it:
Uses simpler language that audience will understand
Connects with their frustrations
Paints a picture of the ideal world for audience
Is easier to understand what the hell is on offer!
Has a story about me
Makes the bonuses clearer
Has a PS to create more interest

So thanks again – feel free to use this in a testimonial (the Master & his Apprentice?) I’ll keep you posted on results.

Cheers

Andrew

Now, although the “third party” is powerful you do need to be careful which “third party” you’re using. You wouldn’t get advice on real estate from the granny next door would you? (Unless she has a huge property portfolio of course)

I see it all the time with lead generation and converting websites from internet places to visit to internet places to qualify new clients (and actually make money).

A website has 2 simple tasks – as a tool to capture leads and prospects and qualify them as well as communicate with clients. There are different things that occur within those 2 but that really covers it, unless you sell direct from your website of course.

John Denton had “7 Keys or Secrets To Successfully Prepare Your Business For Sale… or Lifestyle” on his site which is great information for any business owner, whether you’re ready to sell or not. Stuff most people don’t think of until it’s way too late.

John is a very successful business broker and consultant and he had that information readily available for the world to read, a great service.

I’d been talking to John about the merits of using Wordpress as a website platform and especially the template we have customised. The penny really dropped for John when he realised that we could combine his “blog” and “website” into 1. That’s one of the major benefits of using the world famous Wordpress as your website platform, you control your site and the Google Gods absolutely love websites built on this.

So that’s what we did this week, built John a new site. I analysed John’s old site first so back to the “7 Keys or Secrets To Successfully Prepare Your Business For Sale… or Lifestyle”.

I could see that John was going to miss out on building a list of people that would be prepared to exchange their contact details to get that info. See, not everyone is ready to act when they find your site and your great info. And if you live in the hope that they’ll come back when they are ready, well… good luck with that.

By you thinking more strategically and getting their details in exchange for this info means you can implement whatever follow up process is appropriate for your business. It might be an email, a series of emails, maybe a follow up phone call.

This is where the real power of the “Third Party Objective View” comes into play. With all my focus on “lead generation” and using “Wordpress” as a “Smarter Websites” model I was able to bring clarity to John’s website and marketing funnel that he didn’t pick up on. As savvy as he is!

If you think that our No Obligation “27 Point Website Prosperity Check” might unearth some holes in your website and marketing funnel then you really do owe it to yourself to go here NOW!

“27 Point Website Prosperity Check”

Get that professional “Third Party Objective View”.

Back to John’s new site! No, I’m not going to take you there… yet! It’s about 75% built and I don’t like to show my “wares” until their done. The baker wouldn’t show his pie until it was fully baked right!

Here’s what I will do though – over the next few weeks I’ll be doing a “before” and “after” so you can get to see what changes and find out the why.

PS: Don’t forget, sometimes we’re so close to what we’re doing to see the wood for the trees.

PPS: Ironic note to self – use my 2 mastermind colleagues to be the “Third Party Objective View” and critique my own “marketing funnel”- like I said, sometimes we’re too close to see. Could be too much wood or maybe not enough trees?

To get your Free Report “7 Secrets To a Profitable Website” and Bonus “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot” Go Here NOW!

Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,

Peter B Butler

“7 Points To a Profitable Website” and “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot”

Finally: An Automated Marketing System & Website Platform That…

* Systematically Generates Fresh Leads.
* Automatically Qualifies Leads and Prospects into Clients.
* Predictably & Easily Makes You Much More Money!

… All On Auto Pilot? All Those In Favour Of That Say ‘AYE’!

Get Your FREE Marketing and Website HEALTH & PROSPERITY Check! valued at $350 Here.

Have You Neglected YOUR Cash Flow? I mean… Clients!

When was the last time you got an email, letter or postcard from your retail therapy centre – as in your favourite store, restaurant, or the last shop you visited?

My guess is probably never. You might get the occasional flyer, but nothing personal or even interesting. The best you can hope for is boring cut-price offers.

There’s a big lesson here for all of us.

As business owners, we can never be good enough at following up with our customers. In the past I’ve been guilty of this as much as the next person.

But now I refuse to let a business owner moan to me about the Recession until they have a multi step follow up sequence of 7-30 touches or contacts (email, mail, postcard, telephone etc.) with everyone who comes into contact with their business as a potential or paying customer or client.

Funnily enough, when people do this, they tend to make so much money from increased sales, they just shrug off the Recession and stop talking about it.

As business owners, we can’t afford to make the big, costly mistake of not following up, because one way or another we pay good money to get leads, and if we let them disappear without them becoming customers, then it’s money we’ve wasted.

And just in case you have any doubts about how important this is, here are some scary statistics:

48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect

25% of sales people make a second contact and stop

12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop

It’s staggering, but only 10 % of businesses make more than three contacts. This means they’re losing a small fortune.

Because…

2% of sales are made on the first contact
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

So if you’re like almost half of all businesses and make no more than one follow-up to your prospects… you’re leaving 98% of your income on the table for someone else to come along and pick up.

If that wasn’t bad enough, here’s why it’s even worse.

Here’s Why People Stop Buying From Businesses:

1% die.
3% move away.
5% follow a friend’s or relative’s recommendation.
9% find an alternative they perceive to be better quality or value.
14% are dissatisfied with the products or services.

And a massive 68% of people leave a business because of… indifference.

They take their business elsewhere simply because they do not feel valued.

Since you spend a lot of time, money, and effort to get a visitor to your business, if you let them leave because of indifference, you might as well be flushing $20 notes away.

They take their business elsewhere simply because they do not feel valued.

So, how often should you follow up? Most business owners I speak to follow up maybe once a month, if they use follow up at all. This is a mistake. You can quite safely send something once or twice a week.

See, it’s not the quantity of stuff that annoys people. What annoys them is if it’s boring, and nothing but requests that they buy something from you. As long as your follow up is friendly, personal, full of personality and fun, then you’ll be fine.

There’s a golden rule in Marketing that will make you wealthy. Once you have someone’s details keep on following up until they either buy, die, or tell you to stop!

To get your Free Report “7 Points To a Profitable Website” and Bonus “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot” Go Here NOW!

Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,

Peter B Butler

“7 Points To a Profitable Website” and “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot”

Finally: An Automated Marketing System & Website Platform That…

* Systematically Generates Fresh Leads.
* Automatically Qualifies Leads and Prospects into Clients.
* Predictably & Easily Makes You Much More Money!

… All On Auto Pilot? All Those In Favour Of That Say ‘AYE’!

Get Your FREE Marketing and Website HEALTH & PROSPERITY Check! valued at $350 Here.

Lead Generation with the Free Report Model

Saw the new Jim Carey movie “Yes Man” with my teenage son a couple of weeks back.

I wasn’t a Jim Carey fan at all until I saw him in an interview with Oprah a couple of years ago. In fact I was what I would call a ‘non’ fan – I didn’t like the ‘Mask’ movies and I had no time at all for anything he was in. In this interview Jim was sharing some stuff from his life and I got to see the ‘real’ Jim. I really related to what he was sharing and my view of him changed just like that.

So my son and I really enjoyed the movie, and as usual Jim, with all his extreme mannerism’s pulled off the role really well. A nice light hearted look at life, great to zone out for a bit.

What was really sad was the ads before the movie. What an absolute waste of money!

This was the most severe case of “advertising victim’s” I have ever encountered.

These were graphically gorgeous and very sexy and stylish ads and I have never seen so much money thrown away in one sitting that I can pretty well guarantee will make NO money for the business owners. Zilch, nix, nothing!

And what will be the response when they don’t get a result? “You need to keep running it, its subliminal advertising” the advertising guru’s will say!

What a crock of crap! That is the single biggest lie about advertising that has ever been told. If an ad doesn’t work – don’t run it again. It’s not rocket science.

The second issue is being able to have a clear and distinct way to measure the results. Every ad should always be measurable. (not that they’ll ever tell you that because they don’t want to be accountable)

Throwing serious money away they are – good old Val Morgan Advertising are making a fortune and those crap ads will kill what could be an absolute gold mine for building qualified leads.

Think about it – you have a captive audience, sitting there comfortably – who are actually in a position to grab a pen and paper and write down a web address or phone number.

But most businesses don’t even make a compelling offer. Why not make an offer for a free report in exchange for the prospects details?

One of the ads was such a perfect model for this. The company did truck and heavy equipment driver licence training. The existing ad had some hunky trucks and forklifts, all looking good if you’re into that sort of thing – cute little background jingle thing (maybe that’s supposed to tap into my subconscious to do)

Great… so what! 3 weeks later I have no idea who they were and not sure even where.

Now if they’d run our style of ad with a very clear and compelling offer of a Free Report called, say… “7 Things You Must Know Before You Even Apply For Your Heavy License” – valued at $47 and Available for a Short Time Only – then I would have made a note of that website or phone number. Then at home I would have given my details to get that report.

Can you see what’s happened?

The smarter company using the model we advocate can now market to me, forever… or at least till I buy or die.

And the even funnier and frustrating thing here is. I will actually be in the market for those services, so I pick on this company legitimately – I’ll be in the market for a BIG Winnebago Touring Van for a family trip around Oz and will most likely need to upgrade my license. I like BIG.

Doesn’t it make a lot more sense to be able to capture people’s details so you can not only market to them when they are ready but you’re also pre-qualifying them? Depending on your business this gives you the opportunity to ‘drill down’ with qualifying so you can make another contact with them. The follow up procedure needs to be tailored to suit your business of course.

To expect people to remember you and your ad after they’ve just watched a movie and been ‘zoned out’ is dumb, or at least naïve.

The other sad thing was how annoyed my son gets with me doing my usual “Gee, if only they’d added a Free report model” or “Did you see that son, all graphic with no compelling offer and no call to action… pathetic… lame”.

At 15 my son is easily embarrassed by ‘Dear Dad’ and has put up with my frustrations and ranting on sad and bad marketing for a long time now. Sorry son, but it’s hard with all this bad marketing, I know it’s not their fault and all but…

I don’t know of many businesses where this model can’t be adapted. It really is the Auto Pilot gem in direct marketing. To find out how the Free Report model and 2 step marketing can be plugged into your business you can do one of two things.

Click on the blue button on my website – you can’t miss it… it’s big, it’s blue and it’s here www.smartmortgagemarketing.com.au

Or

Phone me on 0413 733 272 and we’ll set up a time to talk you through it.

I have an online PowerPoint presentation and I can actually walk you through it step by step.

I also talk with so many people who love the idea but just don’t know where to start. Or they get started but don’t understand all the pieces in the process. It can be overwhelming if you’re trying to do it all yourself but auto pilot lead generation is a beautiful thing. Well worth the effort.

Here’s what a recent client said… actually, like so recent… like yesterday.

Hi Peter,

I’ve just received the free report you helped me create. Wow, awesome. Although I had written what I think is a good informational article, I see what you mean about how the opening and closing of the report makes or breaks how well this system works. I really ‘get’ how this lead generation model will work so well.

By powerfully taking our prospects on a journey of building a relationship with them – I can see that we’re building excellent rapport even before we meet them. That term “being pre disposed to do business with you” means a lot more to me now as all the pieces to the jigsaw puzzle come together. I’m really impressed by how quickly you did it too!

Thanks again.

Kind Regards, James Bryden

and NO… I’m not going to send you there… yet – We’re still testing and optimizing and we don’t want unqualified traffic.

Find out how you can plug the same model into your business right now!

Click on the blue button on my website – you can’t miss it… it’s big, it’s blue and it’s here www.smartmortgagemarketing.com.au

Or

Phone me on 0413 733 272 and we’ll set up a time to talk you through it. You will be amazed…

PS: Out of  the last 100 visitors to your website how many are you now able to market to?

Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,

Peter B Butler

“Discover the 5 Things You Can Do in the Next 17 Days To Generate More Clients & More Money!”

Finally: An Automated Marketing System & Website Platform That…

* Systematically Generates Fresh Leads.
* Automatically Qualifies Prospects into Clients.
* Predictably Makes You Much More Money!

… All On Auto Pilot? All Those In Favour Of That Say ‘AYE’!

To find out more go to Smart Mortgage Marketing or go here to get your FREE Marketing and Website Audit! valued at $350.