April 2011 Archives

If your customers can't find your website you won't see results. One of the top ways to increase traffic to your site is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - the use of various techniques to optimize your site to appear at or near the top of search engine results pages and thus attract more visitors.

One important component of your SEO strategy is link building. There are two types of links that are important for SEO - outbound and inbound. Outbound links are links on your site that lead to an external page, while inbound links come from an external website to yours. Inbound links are important because search engines view them as a measure of the popularity of your site.

However, all links are not equal. Below are a few important factors for quality inbound links:

1. The anchor text used in the link - Ideally, your links will have your keywords or variations of your keywords in the anchor text. For best results, mix it up - don't use the identical keywords for all of your links.

2. The trustworthiness of the linking domain - Links from reputable domains, particularly Government (.gov) and Educational (.edu) domains, are often considered more valuable by search engines than .com pages.

3. The popularity or page rank of the linking page - A link from highly ranked www.nytimes.com is considered to have more authority than a link from a poorly ranked website.

Getting the most out of your marketing dollars is all about return on investment: the ROI is just a measure of how much you spent compared to how much you got back. It's a simple concept, but when we talk to companies that are part of our program, we're often surprised to see how few actually measure ROI in a consistent, ongoing way.

If you use a comprehensive sales tracking system, like Salesforce.com, Sugar CRM, or similar software, you've already got a leg up: those systems make it easy to track each lead back to its source. But what if you don't?

We want to help. We're working on a simple ROI calculator that you can use to compare the performance of all your internal and external lead gen programs, as well as do basic lead tracking. Want to check it out? Download it here: BuyerZone Lead Tracker.xls

It's just an Excel file -- no software to install, and no real CRM features like workflow, dashboards, or automatic importing or exporting from other tools. We're not saying you can use this to run a large sales organization. But what you can do is use it as a guideline for calculating the ROI for BuyerZone or any other lead gen program.

What's in the calculator

The first tab, basic ROI, lets you calculate a simple ROI based on the number of leads and their cost, or your total expense on a program. If you'd like to use this tracker for multiple programs, you can copy that sheet and reuse it for each program.

The second tab is a basic lead tracker where you can enter each lead on its own line. This information feeds into the next sheet, results, which gives you a basic breakdown of each of your lead sources and how they're performing.

What SHOULD be in the calculator?

Now you tell us. What else should a basic lead tracking sheet like this do? Would you like a breakdown by month, for example? What other information should it contain on each lead? We want to make this a useful, free way for businesses to get started tracking ROI on lead gen programs, so any feedback you have is appreciated.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about how the daily deal model might be the next wave of lead generation. Earlier today, eMarketer published an article on how receptive potential customers are to these offers:

Are you considering a daily deal type offer to generate leads for your business? Let us know in the comments below.

At small companies like BuyerZone, you pitch in where help is needed, and over the past few months, I've been helping our Quality Assurance team test a wave of new features and improvements to our RFQ platform.

It's been an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Just when we think we've tested every possible combination of both inbound and outbound leads, we find another potential situation that requires testing. And of course, it's never the straightforward, everyday situations that cause the bugs -- it's the edge cases, the unusual combinations that reveal a bug or a design problem.

This QA time made me realize how marketing and sales organizations could apply broader testing strategies to their efforts. Sure, most companies will test a new landing page, or measure the return they get from a new marketing program. But there are opportunities for testing up and down the sales channel. Here is just a sampling:

• Test the offer: the most basic type of testing you can do. Which is more attractive - a 30 day free trial, or 5% off your first order? Should you push the 10-user license, or unlimited license with the subscription fee? Should you offer a "free estimate," a "consultation," or an "audit?" Try different offers in identical lead gathering settings to see what grabs the most attention.
  
• Test landing pages: this is probably one of the most commonly tested parts of a lead generation campaign, and for good reason: they make a huge difference. When you test landing pages, don't get too bogged down in details: test large changes in design and copy first, then refine the winners. 
• Test forms: it doesn't matter if it's a one-field newsletter signup form, a full-fledged sales cart, or anything in between: the design and functionality of your information-gathering form can make a huge difference in a campaign's performance.
  
• Test performance of different channels: do leads that come from your own web site behave differently than those you purchase from a lead aggregator? Your marketing channels may require individual testing and customized messaging or approaches.
  
• Test salespeople: you should look beyond, 'are they following up as they should'? are one rep's tactics more effective than another?
• Test follow up schedules: how many calls and emails should you place, and when?
• Test messaging: every email or call script is fair game for testing.
  
• Test nurturing materials: measure response rates as well as eventual sales from drip marketing campaigns. 

Of course, most of this is comparative testing: which one of two (or more) approaches is better. Don't forget to do some basic functional testing as well: how does your web site perform during peak busy times? Do all the phone numbers you use actually ring at the right desk? Is all the information you're gathering correctly making it into your CRM?

Your turn -- what kinds of testing have you found the most valuable? Do you stick with the basics, or do you test end-to-end?