Plug Your Website’s Sales Leaks

Fix inefficiencies in how you handle and follow up with visitors once they do get to your site.

Many people pay a lot and work real hard on getting visitors to their website, but miss opportunities to close more business once the visitor is in the sales funnel.

It is easy to increase the number of visitors to your your website by spending more on advertising, using social media, etc. to create more traffic.  However, many websites are missing a great opportunity to simply increase the conversion rate from those visitors they already have coming.

A website that I’ve been working with since 1997, PlanetUrine.com, is a niche business that helps pet owners with the very common problem of their pets urinating in the home.  They sell and ship a lot products to help pet owners train their pets who have this problem, as well as help them rid their home of stains and odors as a result of this behavior (don’t laugh – if you have a pet, chances are you need their help).  They have over 700 visitors per day coming to the site, and one of the lead capture systems is designed to allow pet owners to ask a question of a specialist about a problem their pet is having (Ask a Specialist).  The form gets a lot of questions every day and helps customers make the decision to buy.  However, when I was reviewing this system in depth it revealed holes that may be losing more sales than it’s gaining.  Following are four areas that are contributing to some major inefficiencies:

• A semi-automated process
  At the end of everyday, a person reviews and replies to each question.  Yes, they are using templates so the messages don’t have to be written over and over, but somebody still has to take a 1/2 hour to an hour to reply to everybody.  How much money has been spent over the years on this process that could be completely automated?
• Only one message
  They close a lot of sales for this particular lead capture system, however it is done with only one message.  What about the person who didn’t read the first email, or the person who got busy after reading the first message and forgot about them?  Industry best practices generally says it takes up to 5 messages to close the deal so I believe my client has been missing out on a lot of sales.
• Only one ‘bucket’
  The lead capture form inevitably attracts pet owners to ask questions for problems that my client does not sell with his niche products, but think about it; these are pet owners that have a problem of some sort.  Why not sign up with an affiliate and refer these people and capitalize on that visit?  Cost recovery in action!
• A bit antiquated
  The messages have always been well written and personal, however they were all plain text.  Most people have HTML email now and studies have shown that nice graphics, and especially images – in this case people with their pets – really enhances the warmth of the messages and increases conversions.

The great opportunity is that there are a number of lead capture and sales systems like the aforementioned that have gone untouched for several years.  For all involved – my client for more sales, me for more consulting work, and most important the visitor for their enhanced experience – we have an opportunity to make improvements and leverage new technologies to take PlanetUrine.com to a new level.