After Acquiring Sales Leads
The toughest part of Corporate Website Marketing is getting potential sales leads to a corporate website and converting them to sales leads. Sales leads are those who have filled out an online form with their contact information. What is done with this information is just as critical as getting them to the website; if you do not use this information in a timely manner to convert the person who filled out a form on your website into a sales lead and then into a sale, then you do not get any return on the investment. It is suggested that the results of forms filled out on the website be made available for viewing online, in real-time. This way salespeople and other appropriate company employees can view the information at any time.
A sales lead’s contact information should also be exported into a database format or any other acceptable format that can be imported into contact management or CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.
In order to turn sales leads into sales, a company must do several things:
- Identify and sort the leads. Get the potential leads into the contact management software or database and delete, discard, or mark the obviously bogus ones, such as competitors and fake contacts.
- Identify what products or services in which the potential lead is interested.
- Get the potential contacts to the appropriate salesperson in a timely fashion so contact can be made within 24 hours or within a reasonable amount of time.
- Contact the sales lead (via email, for example) and get them more information about the specific product in which they are interested.
In order to turn a sales lead from a corporate website into actual sales, there must be very specific processes and procedures in place. These should identify the person responsible for getting the sales leads entered into the contact management database and getting the contact information to the salespeople. There should be a target time period set up for contacting the website sales leads (e.g., contact them within 24 hours). Also, it is recommended that you pay particular attention to those registered users who come back to the website more than once. This type of information is typically available through website statistics.
Contacting people who fill out an information request at a corporate website and turning them into sales leads is different than email marketing, and should be treated differently. In fact, they should be treated as different sales strategies. People who have filled out an information request on a corporate website have expressed an interest in a specific product or service and perhaps have downloaded a product brochure. These people are generally more interested in a product or service than someone who might sign up for an email newsletter.