Why throwing more money at online marketing won’t improve your sales (but having a free lunch from us might…)

There are a lot of online agencies in this part of the South coast, and many of them seem to offer the same services- pay per click, SEO, email marketing, web design.  FirstExact is keen to approach things in a more structured way- we believe that a “one size fits all” approach is wrong, and that many forms of online media are unsuitable for many businesses, even entire verticals.  From conversations with organisations both local and national, it’s clear that very often traffic isn’t the issue- most already run pay per click campaigns, have had their sites optimised for the search engines, and have a portfolio or other on and offline activities.  Where they tend to need help is in understanding why more of these visitors don’t turn into leads.  After all, targeted advertising should lead to targeted visitors, so why don’t more of them pick up the phone, or fill out a form, or email for more information?  Of course there are many potential reasons for this, but we believe that a structured process of analyzing what your current visitors do, and helping you convert more of them is the logical first step to take.  Only then, when you have seen an improvement in conversions, and understand where your most valuable customers come from should you think about increasing (or decreasing) your media spend.

Consider this: your current agency may already be providing you with stats about lead conversion.  So you know how much it costs for a lead.  Do they work with you to improve this figure?  Do they know what percentage of visitors start filling out your form and then abandon it and leave your site never to be seen again?  And how important is lead cost anyway?  Why not start thinking in terms of customer acquisition cost?  Anyone can send you cheap leads, but what if they don’t turn into customers?  Isn’t cold hard cash the oil that keeps your business going?

If you want to know what really happens on your website, and how we can help you turn more of your visitors into leads, and leads into customers, then give us a call.  We offer a free one hour marketing audit in our offices in Bournemouth, and if you come at lunchtime we’ll even buy you a lunch cooked in the natural food cafe which happens to be above our offices.  All we ask is that you currently spend over £500 a month on your online marketing and are serious about converting more of that spend into custom.  There’s no hard sell though, we’re too busy for that and only want to work with companies who ‘get’ us.  Come and take us up on our offer, and let us show you ways you can immediately make more out of your spend.

Tags: marketing, ROI