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Many websites place all sorts of barriers and distractions in the path of a prospective Sales lead. For instance, asking a
website visitor to fill in his contact details is expected, but turning this procedure into a ten-step slog requiring an IQ of 210, is not. Visitors will leave.
Placing enough barriers and "required confirmation steps", etc. will convince them that your Company, as represented through Your Website, doesn't really want their business or to help them. Make it hard enough and you don't get the lead. 
People love window shopping. The same goes for on-line shopping. Web visitors will browse and fill their "shopping carts" and go through all the motions of buying on-line and 70% will abandon the sale somewhere along the line!
Make it hard for them to actually buy or find the exact right item and you lose them. Don't how them a big enough picture, they leave. Make your pictures too big, you lose them.
definition:
Qualified lead (noun phrase)
- an individual or company, who has expressed interest in your product that meets the qualifications necessary to go from prospect to paid customer.
In internet marketing getting a Sales lead occurs in dfifferent steps: someone clicks on an ad, then lands on your web site and (hopefully) fills in a contact form. This is called a "conversion". Essentially the sequence is the same, the terminology is slightly different because there are more possibilities to accurately measure what's generating qualified sales leads and what's not.
Conversions are not always Sales Leads...yet.
There are always some "worthless" conversions, i.e.: people that fill in a contact form who simply are not a prospect. You have to take out the "bad" email addresses and phone numbers. When you get to the bottom of the list, the number of potential leads gets smaller. However the point is to determine how this sequence is faring:
The performance of keywords, ads, landing pages and total conversions all make up this sequence. Each step is essential and each step needs to be monitored. Certain keywords cause more waste than others - keep an eye on that.
Don't look too closely at how much waste there is (within reason of course) and always remember you're trying to get sales leads. Many Sales people really appreciate your efforts if you can provide them that stack of leads. Don't try and explain how you got them though. They just want the end result: a sales lead. The journey ends for you there, but for them it's just the start.
Take time on the set up of an AdWords account and it will pay off dividends later. Understand how to sell by:
They know the key selling points that resonate with potential buyers..
- We're thinking of investing in internet marketing because our traditional means of advertising (trade shows, magazines, etc.) isn't creating enough leads anymore, and our competitors are already in the online space.
- Our sales department says the leads our web site is generating are "no good", therefore they're not bothering to follow them up!
- We've spent money on internet marketing and we're getting a lot of traffic but none of them are turning into actual sales leads.
- I'm sure the web site is generating more qualified leads for the sales rep's than it's getting credit for.
- We've got stiff sales targets and need to generate more leads to make those targets.
- As the online marketing environment gets increasingly fragmented and specialised, with so many ways by which you can attract qualified potential customers to your site, and increasing accountability requirements, how do we know where to start?
Believe it or not generating on-line leads is not as hard as many people believe.
In the B2B environment, the age-group that is at its peak right now in sales is usually over 40. They are what has been called "digital immigrants". They are not natively technically minded. They have a mobile, but few have iPhones. They don't usually know what blogging is. Hence, when it comes to being SEO-savvy...you have an advantage.
If you're convinced that your web site isn't reaching all of those people, or isn't turning them into leads have no fear - a correctly constructed website and some decent SEO advice should sort that out.
If you're looking for a way to Increase traffic to your web site from visitors that fall within your target customer profile. Better explain your complex products/solutions on the site in order to more effectively qualify the leads that do get sent to your sales department.
Make sure the personnel resources available to you for web site marketing (creative team, IT team web marketing specialists) are used as effectively as possible so you don't lose them. Audit your existing web site, to find out ways you can increase its conversion performance.
Accurately measure the activity on your web site to be able to correlate the traffic generated by your various marketing campaigns to the number of qualified leads and £'s, €'s or $'s sales (whether they are on or offline).
To learn more about generating Sales leads, go here. To simply get more Sales Leads fill in the "Get more B2B Leads" contact form at the top of the page.
