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Conversion Tracking You Can Do Yourself, Cheap

This is a follow-up to Is your business converting as well as it could?.

To figure out your conversion rate you need two numbers.  You need to know how many total times you had the opportunity to make a conversion – e.g. website visitors, phone calls, or walk-in customers.  I’ll refer to this number as impressions for the sake of clarity.  You also need to know the number of successful conversions.

Note: Be sure to measure these over the same time period!

Then there’s a little math.  Don’t worry, I’m a professional.  Whip out your calculator and key in:

Conversions [divided by] Impressions [equals]
That will give you your conversion rate.  Bump the decimal place to the right two spaces and you’ll have it as a percentage.

Example: Your website got 328 visits and you made 16 sales.  16 divided by 328 equals 0.04878.  Bump the decimal over and you have a 4.878% conversion rate.

Okay, that’s the math.  What about getting those numbers?  Obviously, if you have an ecommerce site it’s pretty easy to figure out the number of visitors and the number of sales.  It’s a little trickier if customers visit your website, then call in an order or visit the store.

The answer here is training.  Train your staff to ask callers how they found you.  Train your clerks to ask while they ring someone up.  You can keep a clipboard by the register and the phone where your staff can mark down the answers.  Heck, you could even use a fancy spreadsheet.

Spend some time figuring out how to phrase your question.  Be specific.  You probably don’t want to ask your regulars “How did you hear about us?”  You’ll do better with “How did you find us today?”

If you’re tracking phone conversions be sure to tally how many total calls there were in addition to the number of sales made on the phone and how people found your number.

Another option is to get an 800 number that forwards to your main line.  Then put that number on your website instead of your regular number.  Now you can track the number of calls that came from your website.  Of course, that’s another monthly expense.

Now, on the web there are a lot of ways to track conversions.  For instance, you can define goals and funnels in Google Analytics or use Google Conversion Tracking. There are great click-tracking systems you can install like Crazy Egg or ClickTale. That’s a separate article though.

This post first appeared in my e-mail newsletter.

March 30, 2010 by Peter

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: conversion, metrics, newsletter, small business

Is your business converting as well as it could?

What do I mean by converting?  I mean converting browsers into buyers.

A conversion is when someone looking at your offerings decides to take the action you want them to take, i.e. making a purchase or providing you with their contact information.  On a website, the conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who make a purchase or give you their e-mail address.

I'm  just browsing. -> Conversion -> I'll take it!

When you know what your conversion rate is and what the average value of a conversion is, you can calculate return on investment, ROI, very accurately.  When you know your ROI you can make the most informed and profitable decisions about the allocation of your marketing budget.  The higher your conversion rate the greater your ROI.

Next month I’ll get into measuring conversion rates, and I’ll have a special offer for newsletter subscribers who want some help getting a system in place to provide these metrics.  Now, I want to tell you about how to increase that conversion rate.

[Read more…]

February 16, 2010 by Peter

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: conversion, newsletter, optimization, small business

Does your small business have room to grow, horizontally?

Horizon Expansion

The sky's the limit when you expand toward the horizon.

There are two directions to grow your business, vertically and horizontally.  Vertical growth is selling more to your existing market and expanding your share of that market.  Horizontal growth is selling new products or services experiences to your existing market and adapting your offerings to fit new markets.  At least that’s the way I look at it.  An MBA would tell you that horizontal growth is all about acquiring companies in other sectors.  That’s not very useful to most small businesses.

When you start thinking about growing your business horizontally it’s really helpful to properly understand what it is you’re selling.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m sure you have a masterful understanding of your products and the services you offer.  

[Read more…]

January 5, 2010 by Peter

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: Marketing, newsletter, small business

Email Marketing Services & Their Ads in Your Footer

I absolutely hate it when email marketing services advertise for themselves in the footers of their paying customer’s messages.  I mean, you’re paying them right?  Why the heck should you have to advertise for them too?  So, here’s a breakdown of email marketing services and their policy of intruding into your messages.

  • Aweber – No footer ads, ever.
  • MailChimp – Footer ads can be disabled easily in your account if you’re a paying customer.
  • Vertical Response – You’ll have to contact support to get the ad removed.
  • Constant Contact – Same, you’ll have to put in a support request… adding your logo costs extra.
  • iContact – Pay 10% extra per month (minimum $4.95) to remove the ad.  In their defense, iContact does have the least intrusive footer ad, plus they’re based right here in Raleigh, NC.

While I’m at it, I have to tell you why I hate Constant Contact.  It’s the name.  Sure, you want to be in constant contact with your list, but I’ll wager you’re readers would rather not hear from you constantly.  Years ago, I actually unsubscribed from a local company’s newsletter because of that Constant Contact logo at the bottom.  “Constant Contact?  I don’t want that.  My in-box if full enough already!”

Got a tip or something I missed? Share it in the comments below!

This post first appeared in my monthly small business newsletter.

November 17, 2009 by Peter

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: email, email marketing, newsletter, small business

Stand Out to Take the Lead – Newsletter 9/2009

The Sun is a Master of Standing Out

I have a question for you this month.

How many marketing messages (commercials, phone calls, junk mail, web ads, everything.) do you think the average American encounters every day? Seriously, stop reading for a second, and take a wild guess.  Once you have your guess, read on for the answer.

Marketing is everywhere.  Can you think of a single website that doesn’t have marketing in it?  They are few and far between.  You can’t drive down the street without seeing some marketing.  Check your mail or pick up the phone, and it’s there.

Our brains have learned that there are many many distractions in our lives that will lead us to parting with money or at least wasting time.  We’re used to it.  So we tune the vast majority of it out.  We are all skilled at ignoring the noise.

Ready for the answer?  First, let me guess what you guessed.  I bet you guessed somewhere between three hundred and a thousand.  The actual number is a bit hard to measure as you might imagine.  According to Bill Glazer (A very successful marketer for those who don’t know the name) the average American encounters 3,191 marketing messages and ads per day.  According to J. Walker Smith of Chapel Hill, NC based Yankelovich, in a 2005 USA Today article, the number is between 3,500 and 5,000.  Today, it’s likely even higher.

So, why did I spend all this time just to get to that number?  Because, I want you to understand just how vital it is for your marketing messages to break through the noise and get noticed.  Before long you’ll be competing with ten thousand other marketing efforts every day.  To really get that, it helps to think about the question before you learn the answer.

You have to stand out from the competition to take the lead.  That goes for websites and search engine marketing in addition to everything else.  When your website uses the same looks, lines and messages as your competitors you stay a part of the background noise.  When your page comes up in search results it has to grab the searcher’s attention to get clicked.  (Being the first result is a great way to get noticed!)  When your pay per click ad shows up it will be right next to other ads.  It has to stand out.

Get the point?

So, how do you stand out?  I say be creative, bold, and real.  Bill Glazer will tell you to be outrageous.  Don’t be afraid to do something different.  Make bold statements.  Never underestimate the importance of an eye-catching headline.  Whatever you do, be real.  We’ve all learned to expect phoniness and misleading statements from marketing.  Stand out by being yourself: honest and human.

One last tip.  Stop copying your competition’s marketing strategies.  The best that can come of that is that you’ll keep pace, a little behind the rest.  The worst case is when they’re copying you too.  You’ll end up with marketing about as effective as a photocopy of a photocopy is pretty.

As usual, if you’d like some help making your business stand out, get in touch with me.  You can hit that reply button right now and get your message straight into my primary in-box.

Know someone who might benefit from this message?  Forward it on!

To the Success of Small Businesses Everywhere,

Peter Grandstaff

PS: Hang Gliding is amazing!  I can’t recommend Kitty Hawk Kites strongly enough.  They also provide a nice example of standing out.  Once you pay for your lesson you get all of it, no matter what.  If you can’t make it, the wind won’t cooperate, or you just chicken out they will give you a ‘wind-check’ to come back and get whatever you missed at no additional charge.  Wind-checks never expire, and they are transferable!  Have you ever heard of such a thing!?

October 6, 2009 by Peter

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: Marketing, newsletter, small business

August 09 Newsletter: School is Back, Attract Student Business!

This month, I have some tips for marketing to the local student population and a little news about Google.  First, a quick update: Canine College is continuing to fill it’s board and train program.  If you missed last month’s story about their SEO and Pay-Per-Click campaigns, you can read it on my blog.  I’ll try to tone down the internet marketing and talk about strategies you can put to work today.

School is winding back up, and the local economy is breathing a collective sigh of relief.  Around here many markets are kept above water by the steady influx of cash brought in by all the students.  Just counting the three largest universities here in the Triangle, there are suddenly 70,757 students around.  Hopefully, we’ve seen the worst of this recession, and we’ll see the horizon by the new year.

What can you do right now to help your cash flow?  Promote.
[Read more…]

August 31, 2009 by Peter

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: Marketing, newsletter, search engine optimization, small business

SEO & PPC Case Study: Success in the Recession – July 2009 Newsletter

As promised, here is the web version of my July e-mail newsletter.  Read on to learn how a small business is making more sales now than before the recession! Thanks to SEO & PPC advertising this dog trainer is selling out his high-end program

I bring news of success in this recession.  Best of all, the methods used are accessible to all of you.  If you’re not up to reading all this, scroll on down and at least check out the pictures.  Then, imagine what this could do for your business.

SEO & PPC Case Study: Canine College of Chapel Hill

[Read more…]

August 7, 2009 by Peter

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization, Small Business Tagged With: case study, Marketing, newsletter, north carolina, ppc, recession, search engine optimization, small business

Newsletter Sneak Preview: Success in the Recession Case Study

I’m putting the finishing touches on July’s Small Business Newsletter. Use the handy form to your left to get a copy delivered to your inbox!

This month’s issue will feature a case study. I’ll explain how exactly one of my clients is doing more business now than he was before the recession!

[Read more…]

July 28, 2009 by Peter

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization, Small Business Tagged With: adwords, case study, google, ppc, search engine optimization, small business, Web Analytics

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