Acquiring Leads via Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is the traffic that finds your website via a search engine or an ad. These visitors are not familiar with you in any way, and have found you by pure luck on your part. There are literally billions of sites any given user could end up, and having them find yours is like hitting the lottery. Now that they’ve found you, how do you keep them?
These organic visitors are your potential leads, and you must give them something if you expect them to come back. I’ve said it before, successful businessmen know the value of giving something free. It can be as simple as a free PDF, or as extensive as a webinar, but giving them something free will make them come back, and often refer their friends.
When you design your website you must have something to offer that your visitor can’t get anywhere else. Still, if they download and walk away, that’s not good either. You can acquire leads by placing targeted freebies, contests, offering a newsletter or simply asking them to join your web site as a member. Whatever method you choose, you will be asking them for their contact information. You must develop a privacy policy, and it must say that you will not share their information. You can ask permission to share offers from your affiliates with them, but most people opt out of that. Remember that if there isn’t something in it for them, 90% of your traffic will remain anonymous.
Your landing page should have content or an offer that will make people want more. Make sure you have contact information available, and ask for their comments and suggestions. You may have seen blogs where the comments section has an e-mail address or sign up required. While that may seem like a great idea, you might employ a “Guest Book” page, or offer a Newsletter in order to get those all important leads. Remember to have your privacy policy link next to your sign up section. Be sure to ask “Where did you hear about our site?” to find out if your visitors have referred their friends. If they aren’t referring anyone then you need to up the ante, make your content or offers more interesting.
You should have a special offer just for those who share your site with others. Many people have gotten away from sharing their friends e-mail addresses. Don’t ask your visitors to give you the addresses of their friends. Use the various other options available, such as the Facebook Like Button or Share Button. You can also ask them to share on Twitter. Make sure they know that if their friends tell you of the referral, they will get a special discount. Add other sharing options to your site. If you look at the share section on You Tube you’ll see Stumbleupon, Orkut, and Blogger to name a few. Join those sites as well as Digg, to give your visitors every opportunity to share your site.
Follow up! This is the most important part of internet marketing, and the reason Auto-responders were invented. Your customer does not want spam, so keep it simple. Make sure your comments get to you via e-mail, and respond. There is nothing more powerful in business than that personal touch. It’s so important that some businesses employ a team to answer all queries and comments. Do not skip this vital step. Be sure that any e-mails you send have the required “Opt Out” link.
Finally, be real. In the world of e-commerce humans are missing that personal touch. Any salesman can tell you that people buy things from people. They buy more things from people they like. You must be able to sell yourself before you will ever sell your product or service. If you think I’m lying, look at the commercials where the owner, not an actor, promotes his own business. People laugh, they say he can’t act, or that he is making a fool of himself, but they remember him and his product. They visit his store, they buy, maybe he wasn’t making a fool of himself after all.
