Too many marketers don’t seem to consider their internal organizational processes as they devise digital marketing campaigns. The customer journey continues after reaching your website.Here are some quick questions to ask if you want to get more bang for your digital buck :
[ Note: This post was published on March 3, 2016. It is updated on March 8, 2021 with a new image and the idea that you really get customer impact when you consider her entire journey that includes after arriving at your website.]
Q1. What do you want your web visitor to do, after they arrive at a particular page? This could be from Google AdWords, Facebook advertising, LinkedIn advertising, email campaigns etc.
Ans 1. Whatever it is, it should be easy to do. Think usability i.e. don’t have a long form to fill at the arrival point. Be welcoming at the landing page. See the LinkedIn post on Landing Pages.
Q2. OK they filled your form-Now what?
Ans 2. Who deals with inquiries should be crystal clear. An interim response is great- saying that you’ll get back in 24 hours or whatever. But please do what you promise.
Q3. But we can’t service some locations- do we need to reply?
Ans 3. Yes. Your problem is that you have not clearly set up the geographical targeting. In Google AdWords you can do this by town. Also you can exclude towns where you don’t want your ad to appear. There is also a setting to have people only physically in your chosen location to see your ads.
Q4. Our telephone messages from advertising go to voicemail. Is that a problem?
Ans 4. No, that’s not a problem. Check your voicemail greeting length. It is unfair to have a caller go through two minutes of a voicemail greeting including several “press 1 for accounts payable” and “press 2 for our names directory”. Real Estate and Insurance folks have incoming calls that transfer to agents every three rings. Again the main message is – be welcoming. Don’t force your caller to give up in despair.
Q5. We get some calls and forms but many don’t buy- what should we do?
Ans 5. Every caller/inquiry should go into a data base. Prospects have different levels of understanding of your product and services unless you are an e-commerce business. According to research people need upto 9 touch-points before they decide to buy after they have shown interest. Have a CRM system and follow up diligently.
If you think that the above points are obvious, check in your own organization. We think that you’ll be surprised to find that down the line these obvious things are frequently missed.