8/19/2010
Is Your Website Selling or Just Sitting There?
Would You Tolerate This Sales Performance?
A while ago I wrote a post asking, What’s Wrong with This Sales Call?
SALES REP: … and that’s how our product can save you money and streamline your operation. It should save you $10,000 a month.
PURCHASING AGENT: Wow! That’s fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like this. It could completely transform our business.
SALES REP: Good enough! Thanks for your time. (Leaves office)
PURCHASING AGENT: (Calling out through the doorway.) Hey – do you have a business card?
Fred Schlegel observed the sales rep was talking to the wrong person.
Robin Dickinson noticed a number of problems. The sales rep didn’t flesh out the benefits. He didn’t outline any next steps. He didn’s show any empathy.
Andrew Heaton saw all this and more. In particular Andrew lambasted the rep for being fuzzy on the details, rude, and pretty much oblivious to all the fundamentals of sales.
Karen Swim observed several things, most significantly that the rep did nothing to move the sales process along.
No sales manager in his or her right mind would employ a sales rep like this. No sales rep could survive more than a few weeks handling sales opportunities in this manner. And yet, businesses all over the world tolerate this sort of sales performance day in and day out, year in and year out, and squander opportunities as big as this one – and bigger – that they never know they lost.
Think of Your Website as a Sales Rep
The situation I’m referring to, if it’s not obvious by now, is the website that fails convert visitors into customers. More precisely, I’m talking about websites that fail to try to convert visitors into customers. Look around the Web – you will see b2b and b2c websites by the score that fall into this category.
Does Your Website Pass the “So What?” Test?
So what?
Does your website have brilliantly crafted content that lays out your products and services with the eloquence of Cicero? If it does, so what?
Design and content in and of themselves don’t convert. Visitors don’t come to a website hoping to be dazzled. Visitors come to your website to:
- Quickly figure out what you offer
- Quickly figure out if you can help them
- Quickly figure out how to contact you
Unfortunately, too many business sites perform like the rep in our little drama. The customer sees value, the customer wants to buy, but the sales rep is making it exceedingly difficult for the customer to take the next step.
Exaggerated or not, this drama should give any business leader pause: How many sales is my website turning away? How many prospects am I handing over to the competition?
A website with poor conversion characteristics is like a sales rep who forgets to leave his business card. It’s like a sales rep who runs off to the next call before trying to close the one he’s on.
If you ask any company why they have a website, they’ll say, to generate leads. If you ask what the company is doing to convert visitors into leads – you’re likely to get a blank stare. Sound crazy? It is, but I’ve seen it a thousand times.
But that’s not the worst of it. You would think a company with a sales rep like the one in our drama would fire him on the spot. You would think that a company with a website that wasn’t converting would fire that website on the spot and build a new one.
But in the real world, what happens is this: the bungling website gets a promotion! The company invests big numbers in SEO and PPC to drive even more visitors to the website, so even more people can say, “So what?”
10 Telltale Signs Your Website Needs a Conversion Stratetgy
AHA!
- No toll free phone number
- No easy to find toll free number
- No email options
- No customized landing pages for PPC campaigns
- A contact form that’s too complicated
- A contact for that’s overly simplistic, that doesn’t guide the inquirer
- No signup opportunities – subscribe to our blog, subscribe to our newsletter, etc.
- No calls to action – e.g., “Contact us now for more information on xyz.”
- Proportionately low pageviews of your Contact page
- High bounce rate on your Contact page
If your website needs sales management in the form of conversion optimization, Straight North can definitely help. There’s just no reason to settle for a website that dashes out of the room when the prospect starts throwing out buying signals.
10 Responses to Is Your Website Selling or Just Sitting There?
Brad, great set up! You are so right we would not tolerate this from a human sales person and yet we do not hold our web sales “person” to the same standards. Our website may be a customer’s first encounter with us, or it may be a follow-up to a phone call or live sales call. It should move the process forward not stall it completely. I was going to relax this weekend but I think I have some work to do! Thanks Brad for the helpful list and the great way in which it was presented!
Hi Karen, Just trying to shake things up a bit – it appears I’ve succeeded with you … this all came about when I was having lunch with a sales rep, and (as usual) I was having trouble getting across the importance of conversions. He started making comparisons to sales, and after we took the conversation in that direction everything was clear.
I agree with Karen, if we wouldn’t tolerate a human making these mistakes then why should we keep a website that doesn’t do the job. I really do think the best way is to simply start again if your website isn’t generating sales, because something is definitely going wrong. I do think the design plays a crucial part in keeping a potential customer interested in your website. If the content however, isn’t selling the product and you are not making it easy for the customer to take that step to get in contact, then you need to re-think the strategy that has been implemented.
I love your 10 telltale list. I see several I should changes I should make. Our company site is currently being revamped so its very timely. Thanks Brad.
Pat – Glad it helps – it’s funny how easy it is to get very deep into a Web dev project without focusing on conversion content. Logically, every project should start there, but they seldom do.
Mandeep, Design is very important, but the mistake that’s sometimes made is assuming that a killer design is going to magically inspire visitors to reach out and contact you. I don’t think that’s the case.
This has been a great discussion and as I read the comments it occurred to me that I have not heard website visitors (with the exception of other website owners and creatives) comment often on the design of a site. A business must of course have a design that reflects their brand but it seems that the average visitor looks for usability and information rather than beautiful design. In fact, there are some niches where the designs would have you racing for cardio meds but “regular” visitors don’t notice or care. It is yet another instance where too often we focus our efforts on the aesthetic and neglect the items that are more essential to driving sales.
Karen, Excellent observations. It’s so important to judge all of these issues by putting yourself in the shoes of the visitor. This goes against our natural tendencies (ego?) and we wind up with a site we like but doesn’t work for the visitor.
Brad,
I have a test for a well designed web site. if site visitors can find what they are looking for within five minutes, then the site is well designed. Vice versa if this is not the case.
(Note here that I am talking about ‘visitors,’ in the general sense rather than customers in particular. Customers and prospective customers are obviously the first and foremost consideration in web-site design, but depending on the size of the enterprise and the scope of the site, target visitors may also include suppliers, prospective employees, investors, media or members of the general public as well)
I am amazed at how many times I have visited web sites and the contact information is difficult to find. I am also amazed at how often the contact information is poorly laid out. (Contact information should ideally include the company name, address, phone number and email as well as a clearly laid out contact form. It should never consist of a form only – visitors should be able to contact you using the means of their choice, and failure to provide other forms of contact leaves users with a negative impression of the company.)
On the other hand, some web sites suffer from the opposite problem. Some are too ‘salesy’ and create the impression that the company is more interested in getting money from you than in serving your needs as a customer or other form of visitor.
Last week, I used the analogy of fishing. I repeat that analogy with web site design. If you fish in clear water, and you notice a fish swimming toward your line, there are two things you don’t do. One, you don’t withdraw your line from the water (though you might slowly reel it in just a little) – if there is no line in the water, the fish cannot get on the end of it. The other thing you don’t do is move your line in the direction of the fish and try to shove your bait down it’s throat – that would probably make the fish swim away. Instead, you think about what offering the fish would like, you place it where the find it easily, and you leave it there. This gives the fish a clear means by which to get on the end of the line.
Same with web site design. Good web sites will be easy to find, showcase an enticing offering and give the customer a clear means of taking action – be that ordering a product online, contacting you or whatever other action you want them to take.
Andrew, I like the fishing analogy. So much of good Web design and content is understanding behavior. I like your test, too, in principle, but I think you are being awfully generous in allowing five minutes. For me, five minutes is an eternity on a website. If I’m not seeing what I need in a minute or two at the most, I’m gone. But that’s where analytics comes in – people can easily see how long people are staying on a web page – my guess is some companies would be shocked when they looked at those stats.
Hi Brad,
This is my first visit to your blog. Very helpful and informative work!
I really like this article. I have a new site, http://www.sleek.ie , which appears to tick most of the boxes but our conversion rate is VERY low. I can’t figure out why… We’re cheaper then our competitors, more accessible (I think) than them and offer great returns and refunds policies yet a low conversion rate!!
Drives me insane!!
Keep up the great blog though!
Best wishes from Ireland,
Lorna