A recent report by e-consultancy suggests that reality is setting in for web marketers. 94% of those surveyed see online lead generation as a growth area (this number up from 82% last year). In addition the proportion of company respondents who believe that their organizations are effectively exploiting online lead generation as a way of growing their B2C business has decreased from 44% to 41%.

I see this as a good sign that marketers are realizing how poorly the web is being leveraged overall. With typical conversion rates in the single digits, we still have a long way to go.

I read an interesting article yesterday on the Practical eCommerce website called ‘When to Ignore a 50% Conversion Rate’

It discussed the issue of data validation - meaning that if you launch a new keyword in your pay-per-click campaign, then the first visitor from that keyword goes ahead and converts, then your conversion rate for that keyword is 100%. However, because you’re only looking at the behavior of a single visitor, you don’t have a large enough sample size for that data to be valid.

Initially what struck me about this article was how obvious that was. But as I’ve pondered it a little bit, it occurs to me that many people may be making the mistake of making decision on too few data (although I suspect most marketers don’t make decisions based on a single click).

So, how big does a sample size need to be? Now, if you ask a statistician, I’m sure that you’ll get a different answer, but for the typical marketer I’m assuming that we’re looking for a best guess. Here are a few thoughts that might help your guess be more accurate.

1. If you’re looking at impressions, look for at least 1,000. If you’re looking at clicks, look for at least 200.

2. When comparing conversion rates of two Google ads, I like to calculate what percentage would be expressed by one more conversion. Simply multiply the number of clicks by 0.01 (or multiply by 1%) - the answer is how many percentage points would be represented by a single conversion.

3. Our friends at Vertster also have a little tool that measures the difference between CTR’s and tells you if the sample size is big enough.

I’d be interested in your feedback, and any other techniques you might use for this sort of data validation…

I just returned from presenting at the Software Marketing Perspectives Conference in Santa Clara, CA. My topic was Online Lead Generation Best Practices for Software Companies.

I covered some best practices for Home Pages, Structure, Navigation & Flow, Offers, Forms, and Split Testing. Since it was only an hour long, my presentation didn’t go into vast detail about these topics, but I think I presented some genuine nuggets, as well as prompting more serious thought by the attendees about the effectiveness of their websites.

Feel free to contact me for a review of your website based on these criteria.

When it comes to B2B lead generation, remember that the most compelling offers are those which provide value to the visitor whether they make a purchase or not. In other words, offers like ‘Sign-up for a discount’ tend not to be very compelling.

Here are a few ideas for compelling offers for B2B lead generation:

• Offer a guide to selecting the right
• Top tips, or a checklist for accomplishing
• An essential guide to
• A free audit or consultation
• Webinars relating the the hottest topics in the field/industry

A great example is the Free Website Conversion Analysis offered by Conversion Results.

Inside CRM just published a pretty helpful list of ‘50 Ways your Site is Discouraging Conversion’.  It’s a good list for both lead generation and ecommerce.

For a moment, I’d like for you to reflect on your experience of driving along the freeway.  Have you ever seen a new billboard, but before you could understand what it was, you were past it? 

Your web site home page, and other landing pages, aren’t so different.  The visitor’s mouse hovers over the ‘back button’, just waiting for a reason to click.  So, your goal is to provide a reason for the visitor to stick around and delve deeper into your site.

One of the problems with many homepages is the sheer amount of everything.  Ideally, viewing your entire homepage wouldn’t require any scrolling.  In addition, in a split second it should be pretty clear what you offer, and to whom you offer it (remember the billboard drive-by).  There should also be a few very specific places to click next.  Any extraneous information is likely to be a distraction.

 
To-do list:

• Identify any information that really doesn’t need to be there (your goal is to reduce the overall page length to eliminate scrolling).
• Reduce the overall number of possible links, and make sure that the main items visitors are looking for are more visually prominent than other navigation options.
• Replace any detailed text with a ‘positioning statement’ that describes your main value in less than 25 words.  Use effective graphic design to make this positioning statement stand out.

In essence I would suggest that you build your site backwards. In other words, beginning with your site goal (i.e. a conversion) and creating a site structure that effective leads up to it.

For example, instead of creating a very open navigation structure, consider reducing the number of clickable links in order to drive visitors down a specific path. Let me tell you why I think that is important. Imagine you have the opportunity to sit down with a potential client to do a sales presentation, my guess is that you have a ‘story’ that you tell in a specific sequence. In other words, layer-by-layer you build the intellectual and emotional reasons for owning your product/service.

I believe that effective websites use this exact same strategy, pointing visitors down a specific path that builds an understanding of the value of your product/service.

Just like any other marketing copy, your web text really needs to be concise, clear, and compelling.

Concise: We’re all busy, so don’t use 57 words when 7 will do.

Clear: I understand that some target audiences are more technical than others, but if your message requires a PhD or a dictionary to understand then you’ve probably lost most of your visitors in the first sentence.

Compelling: You need to appeal to emotion as well as intellect. Tell me why I want it before you tell me what it is…

In order to calculate your conversion rate, you must identify two individual metrics; first the number of visitors that your site receives, and second, how many of them take an action that you consider a conversion. Once you have those numbers, the math is simple:

By way of comparison, a ‘good’ e-commerce site conversion rate is considered to be in the high single digits. For lead generation, a ‘good’ conversion rate is the high teens.

If your site is ‘average’, you’ll probably be between 0.5-1% for e-commerce, and 3-5% for lead gen.

If you target group is diverse, you might want to consider creating multiple websites – especially if you have different products that attract different groups. At first glance, this option might seem cost-prohibitive, but we have found that the difference between a 3% conversion rate, and a 10% conversion rate can often justify the extra expense of creating multiple sites, and provides a return-on-investment after just a few months