At any given point in time your business is likely suffering from starvation or indigestion. If your marketing is not generating any website traffic, leads and sales, then you’re obviously starving.   Just like we need a steady supply of food to stay alive, a business will not last too long without website traffic and leads.

On the flip side, just because your marketing is driving website traffic, leads and sales doesn’t necessarily mean your business is healthy.  In this case you’re probably suffering from indigestion.   As humans we get indigestion when we eat the wrong types of foods or when we eat too much and our bodies can’t digest fast enough to keep up.  The same thing can happen in your business.

Now let’s take a look at your business.  Is it starving or does it have indigestion?  In this article I’ll explain what to do in each scenario to keep your business healthy.

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Why Are You Starving?

If you’re starving for leads and sales, then you must first determine why.  There are two main reasons that could cause starvation:

  1. Your marketing is not driving traffic to your website
  2. Your website is not converting the website into leads and sales

If you have Google Analytics installed on your website, then you can figure this out fairly quickly.  Google Analytics will tell you how many people are visiting your website each day, week, and month.  Obviously, if no one is visiting your website, then no one is going to call or complete a contact form.  That means you need to focus on marketing tactics that will drive more prospects to your website.

For example:

  • Search engine optimization
  • Digital advertising
  • Direct email outreach
  • Referral partner email campaigns
  • Even offline tactics like direct mail, print, TV, radio that include a call to action to go to your website for more information

Now, if your website is already getting traffic, then you need to focus on marketing tactics to increase your website conversion rate.

For example:

  • Improve your website sales copy and include a more compelling offer
  • Improve your website layout and usability
  • Add a lead magnet to collect prospect contact information and then use email follow up

Continue to add and improve on your tactics to drive more traffic and increase your website conversions until you’re no longer suffering from starvation.  At that point, you can move on to relieve your newfound ailment, indigestion.

 

What’s Causing Your Indigestion?

Like we did earlier, we need to start by identifying the root cause of your indigestion.  Again, there are two main reasons:

  1. You’re eating the wrong types of food
  2. You’re eating too much

It’s pretty easy to know if you’re eating the wrong types of food because you’ll hear complaints from your sales team.  You’ll hear comments like, “The leads are crappy” or “Everyone is unqualified.”  That’s a red flag that your marketing and sales are not aligned properly, which is causing your indigestion.

Take a look again at your Google Analytics, but this time review the source of your leads.  Are the leads coming from relevant keywords where the person was obviously looking to buy your product or service?  Or are the leads coming from a funny blog article that is ranking for mostly irrelevant search phrases?  As my business partner, Pete Kennedy, likes to say, “If you put crap into the system, then you’ll get crap coming out the other side.” That’s the technical way of saying you need to make sure your leads are coming from high quality, relevant sources. :)

Finally, let’s discuss my favorite cause of indigestion: over eating.  Even if your marketing is working perfectly to drive qualified website traffic and leads, it’s still possible (and even likely) to suffer from indigestion.  That’s because every business has a fixed amount of leads and sales it can process based on the size of its sales team.  If your marketing exceeds that limit, then guess what happens?  You either turn down sales or you try to win them all and end up doing a lousy job across the board.  Of course this is a good problem to have since the solution is to simply increase the capacity of your sales team.

 

Do You Need More Help With Your Marketing?

To help you finish 2015 strong, I’m offering a special low price on my guide to create an effective online marketing plan. It’s called: The Online Marketing Action Plan.

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