Brochure vs Heart Rate Monitor for your SMB
In the “olden days”, a web site was part of an SMB’s collateral; you had one because it equaled credibility, or because everyone said you had to have one. It was part and parcel of the main “all or nothing” goal of marketing; get them to call your phone number. You were sceptical of anyone who came near you wanting to talk about Web Marketing because the ROI from your website was terrible.
Since the “olden days” Google has fundamentally changed the landscape. How many of us recycle the last version of the yellow pages unopened when the new one comes out?
The study found an overwhelming number (85 percent) of business buyers go online during the purchasing process, and 83 percent found the vendor from which they eventually purchased online. Of those using the Internet, over 70 percent start with a search engine.[source]
So the new goal is to get found by Google through Search Engine Optimization (SEO), driving potential customers to your website. Other tools drive traffic to your site; PPC and banner ads, email campaigns, link referrals, and drip or nurture email campaigns, are all ways to increase the number of visitors and eyeballs looking at your website.
But instead of just pushing these visitors to do what the brochure of old asked them to do (call your business phone number), a new breed of software – Marketing Automation Software - is letting your website be much more than a brochure. This new breed of Marketing Automation software, of which ActiveConversion is one example, uses a well designed SaaS based solution as a heart rate monitor, measuring which of your potential customers have a faster pulse. By faster pulse I mean which ones spend a lot of time on your site and visit a lot of pages vs those that see one page and leave. Which are so interested that they come back a second time, and execute goal clicks, calls to action, or fill out forms? Which among your anonymous visitors exhibit the same behaviours, and are worth cold calling?
This class of SaaS based solution keeps a long-term history of the heart rate read-out for your website, they spot trends, show buy signals by showing historical click streams, and announce when a potential customer is worthy of one of your limited sales cycles, worthy of a phone call from you, instead of passively waiting for them to contact you.
Strap a heart rate monitor on your website!
I do most of my home renovation shopping online — from appliances to faucets and tiles. All the while, a stack of reno brochures from the Home Show collect dust at my bedside.
This heartrate tracking product definitely has merit. Great article.
Kevin Van Es
27 Mar 09 at 3:21 pm
As I have experienced it in B2B, Automated Marketing solutions lets you maximize the frequency and relevancy of your contact level with the prospect… all set by the prospect.
You can now know the prospects level of inquiry in your product… based on his now measurable/trackable level of interaction on your website.
Automated Marketing is the tool to measure the level of interest.. and feeds the prospect follow-up information accordingly. Just enough and Just in time marketing.
The prospect gets the information he needs to keep him engaged and active in the sales process when he needs it… and you start building a relationship with him.. all based on his measurable interaction with the website.
You now have the opportunity to become a trusted advisor/industry expert with honest, topical and educational content sent to the prospect in emails, newsletters, webinars, and white-papers.
Automated Marketing is a great tool to further develop a prospect.. but it goes hand in hand with topical and relevant content to present at the right time to the prospect.
good article.
John
John Rynsburger
30 Mar 09 at 8:10 am
Great article. Something that can be taken a step further by integrating marketing intelligence tools into interactive PDFs. Read more here http://www.targetinfolabs.com/2008/11/how-about-using-spiced-up-portable.html
Zaki Usman
13 Apr 09 at 7:52 am
Great analogy. A good saleman is a solution provider. She presents viable solutions to people with a real need, and tries not to waste time on the no-need or no-solution cases. So if you could guage level of interest (heart rate) in specific message elements, you would, firstly, identify who to focus on, and secondly, shape your solution offering accordingly.
Merv Matson
13 Apr 09 at 10:49 am