Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:16:20 by Matt Hopkins
 We spend a lot of time analysing and tuning the performance of search marketing campaigns. With SEO, we look at the number of rankings, the traffic, the keyword growth, weighted strength, and of course - conversion rate. On the PPC site we are constantly reviewing the CTR of ads, the conversion rate of both keywords and ads, and the overall CPA (cost per action / acquisition) amongst others.
I'm sure that many of you have your eye on similar sorts of metrics that help you understand and improve your search marketing campaigns.
Its easy to get caught up in analysis and measurement and miss the point of the marketing campaign in the first place - to generate more business. And so what is the point of spending money on marketing if the leads are coming in and you are doing nothing with them?
We're currently looking for a new PR agency. Naturally I used the search engines to locate a few local companies that I thought would meet our needs. I filled in the enquiry form and waited. Nothing. Amazingly only one out of four companies I contacted have actually contacted me back at all. I found two of these companies by clicking on their PPC ads. I'mflabbergasted.
A few months back, I wrote about inbound email enquiries ending up in you junk email folder. This happens a lot. I don't know if this is the case with these PR agencies but they have spent money on their marketing to reach me. They spent money when I clicked on their ads. They probably review their key performance indicators such as clicks, traffic, rankings, CTR, conversions and CPA in their marketing meetings. Who knows, they may even pat each other on the back for a job well done for their achievements.. but they are sort of missing the point. They are generating the leads alright - but they are not acting on them.
Is this happening to you? Are leads getting lost somewhere? Do you have the same sort of systems and procedures for tracking the leads generated through to closure as you do with the earlier part of the sales funnel?
Here's a few tips:
1. Make sure that your leads are being sent to you in a consistent way and that these are flagged as being "safe" by your junk email filter (Outlook etc).
2. Scan your junk email folder every day
3. Eliminate any single failure points in the process - are the leads only being sent to one person? What happens when they are not around? Perhaps you should have them sent to a distribution group such as "sales@yourcompany.co.uk"
4. Record the leads and track them in the same way you do with your search marketing.
5. If you can't get back to someone right away or within 48 hours - at least have someone send them an email to let them know that you will get back to them on such and such day.
Let's not forget that search marketing should have a purpose - and for many companies this is to generate business. No matter how great your SEO or PPC campaign is performing, you have to make sure that the leads being generated are contacted.
Matt Hopkins
Managing Director |
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