74% of small businesses do NOT use e-commerce to transact business on their website! But, many of them also don’t use an online lead management tool either, and that’s where the problem occurs.
It’s great when we get a customer who has an ecommerce site because it’s fairly easily measure performance and ROI. However, there are a lot of companies out there who manufacture goods, deliver services, or sell products that just can’t be sold in a shopping cart. So, what happens when a site has no ecommerce? Is it possible to track lead relationships, measure performance, and calculate ROI? I am hear to tell you, YES!
If You’re a Non- Ecommerce Website…
If you’re a non-ecommerce website, this means that you don’t have a website and shopping cart enabled where online searchers can buy your products right off your website. Depending on the products and services you sell, that’s completely fine. No need to worry.
But, what you do need to worry about is how you plan on tracking your small business leads with an online lead management tool. If you’re not using an ecommerce store, you undoubtedly have CTA (calls to action) in place on your website to motivate web searchers to contact you and get the sales process started.
Some examples of non-ecommerce website lead CTAs are:
- Phone calls from print, tv, trade shows or other forms of traditional media
- Website form completions, Contact Us, Request for Quote, etc.
- Downloads of documents after contact info is given
- Email sign up
- Phone call placed after visiting the website
In lieu of an ecommerce site, small business can use all the above mentioned tools to gain leads.
So, how many of those metrics are your tracking in an online lead management platform? If you are like most small businesses, probably not many of them. In the last couple years, technology advances has allowed businesses to start tracking their customers’ journey in a way that helps those businesses understand customer value and relationship in-depth. We no longer are left to guess or speculate on ROI, revenue, and sales cycle numbers. We have the tools to specifically track those numbers so we can be better prepared to serve our customer, gain more leads, and succeed in the long term.
Using and Choosing an Online Lead Management Tool
Many small business spend a lot of money to market, sell, and advertise their company’s products and services without a specific lead and/or customer tracking program in place. I often hear “Oh, we know where are sales are coming from.” But, that’s not actually possible unless you have a system in place that directly attributes and tracks leads that come from your website, and then tracks where those leads are in your sales cycle.
So, what is an “online lead management tool”?
At it’s core, an online lead management tool is platform or program you would use to track a lead/prospects movement through your small business’ sales cycle. This platform would include all the necessary information about your lead like:
- Point of Contact Name and Position
- Business Name
- How they found you (referral, advertisement, web search etc)
- Projected sale/deal amount
- Who followed up with the lead
Tracking this information for each lead may seem tedious, but it really is the only way you’ll be able to effectively track your ROI, success, and growth for your small business website. Plus, when that lead does convert into a customer, you’ll want all the above mentioned information to deepen your customer relationships, perfect your sales and marketing campaigns, analyze your business budget and so on.
Luckily for you, there are some great online lead management and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools out there for you to use!
Here are some of the highest rated online lead management and CRM tools available:
- HubSpot
- Pardot
- Sales Force
- Marketo
You can’t afford to not track your small business leads and prospects. You have the tools, you know the benefits, now get started!
In Conclusion
After all these years, digital marketing is finally tangible through online lead management tools. We are now closer than we have ever been to understanding our customers and their buying habits. The days of looking at nebulous stats like rank, impressions, visits, and click-through-rates as the sole indication of digital marketing success are over. This is an exciting time! Don’t get left behind!