Your Website is your Online Salesperson – Digital Marketing

If one of the goals of your website is to deliver new leads to your business via digital marketing, then your website is your online salesperson. And just like a real salesperson representing your business out there in the world, it needs TLC and attention to make it thrive for you.

Any great salesperson will have had training, support, coaching, guidance and investment in developing their capabilities in order to get better at selling for you. The same principles can be applied to your website.

The amount of time and effort you currently investing in your salespeople would be translating to sales. Do you have a measure for this and do you know what the return is on your investment in training? If you do, then you can apply the same principals to your website.

Whatever the digital marketing channel is – organic, email newsletters, direct advertising – you should be able to work out what each lead to your business via your website costs you. From here, you can determine the cost of each sale.

An Example of ROI on Your Website

For example, if you were spending $1000 per month on a digital marketing campaign that delivered 200 visits to your website, that is costing you $5 per visit. Further, if your website converts at an average of 5% – an average website conversion – then this means 10 of the 200 visitors would make contact with your business. This means each lead to your business costs you $100.

If you know you can convert one in five or 20% of your leads to a client, and your average cost of sale is $3700, then you can predict that your $1000 monthly investment is delivering approximately $7400 of new business.  You can extrapolate this model across the board – Google AdWords, Facebook, your SEO efforts to increase traffic, email newsletters etc. Every online activity you invest in that is intended to create new leads and sales should have an ROI number attached to it.

Of course, this is a general rule and your business is unique, but it is a general rule that many of our small business clients use successfully to decide where to put their digital marketing dollar, and it also makes good practical common sense.

The expression “what you put in, you get back” holds very true for your website’s performance online. If you nurture it, look after it and put the time and effort in, both parties benefit from the shared experience.

When we’re working with clients to develop their content and online presence, we look at all the ways their website is performing online. You can compare these to a real salesperson’s qualities, it makes sense to do so.

What are Some of the Qualities of a Great Salesperson?

• They have excellent knowledge of your product and services
• They handle objections very well
• They network and are always ready to make a new contact
• They find new business
• They stay in touch with clients
• They are responsive, attentive and listen to what your clients are asking for
• They deliver ideas and solutions to a problem

All these Qualities Translate to your Website’s Performance in the Following Ways:

1. Excellent knowledge: your content and images, does it tell your story and answer questions clearly and succinctly?
2. Handles objections – does your website have a way of dealing with natural objections well? For example, an FAQ page is an excellent tool for this purpose.
3. Networking and making connections – is your website SEO optimised so that people can find you?
4. New business – have you identified digital marketing channels that bring in new leads?
5. Stay in touch with clients – do you have a social media strategy to keep your client community up to date as well as reaching out to new contacts?
6. Responsive and attentive – does your website make it easy to engage with your business and send enquiries? For example, easy to find phone numbers, forms and live chat?
7. Delivers solutions – do you have a free give-away online that helps people see that you are more than capable of delivering a solution to their need?