Optimize Online Lead-Gen for Offline Sales
Better technology and persuasive planning will not only increase lead generation, but also measure and optimize it.
Better technology and persuasive planning will not only increase lead generation, but also measure and optimize it.
Internet Retailer reports Internet retail sales in the U.S. are ballooning at a very healthy rate, about 25 percent in 2004. But as I reported last year, the Internet still influences more offline spending. When the transaction is completed somewhere other than an online shopping cart, how do you measure and optimize your site’s role in the conversion process?
With the new marketing and advertising landscape, companies are demanding greater accountability for their ad spend. Current technology and better persuasive planning can help a company not only increase the lead/cross-channel pipeline but also to measure and optimize it.
Drive Mass Media to Your Site
If your company spends a significant amount of money buying mass media, tracking effectiveness can be tricky. It may not be completely accurate, but you can likely measure which channel generates the most traffic for your site:
Optimize Online Campaigns
When customers arrive at your site from online marketing channels, measuring and realizing their intent and optimizing persuasive scenarios become much easier. Whether you send leads to an offline call center, a partner, your in-house sales department, even a brick-and-mortar store, there are several ways to measure and optimize marketing channels and their effectiveness.
A recent case study outlines Merchant Warehouse‘s success with the ClickPath technology to optimize call-center leads. Here are some of Merchant Warehouse’s goals:
Merchant Warehouse achieved its goals by:
Merchant Warehouse optimized ad sources, keywords, and site paths with spectacular results:
Maximize Sales Opportunities Lead by Lead
In addition to optimizing and maximizing its lead pipeline, Merchant Warehouse used ClickPath data to accelerate and maximize sales opportunities. Visitors’ site path data was tracked; when visitors initiated a call, ClickPath captured the call event and bridged the call data with the online session. The call center got a glimpse of what the prospect was looking at on the site. This obviously helped the call closure rate and allowed the company to optimize the offline sales process.
Optimize Paths Individually
When companies measure multiple marketing channels’ effectiveness for efficiency and reducing CPC, they can be tempted to abandon certain channels too early in the optimization phase. We’ve seen many companies attempt to throw out a “less efficient” campaign source only to find that with some optimization and proper A/B testing, they can salvage the channel.
Meet Bryan at Search Engine Strategies August 8-11 in San Jose, CA.