4 replies
I recently had my very first sales call as I am starting to build my own offline consulting company.

I did my research, recognized that the only thing they ranked for in the serp's is their business name, the website is horribly optimized, there are absolutely no visible backlinks to the site, and I thought I was looking at a great prospect so off I went to the appointment.

I find out that a local company hosts their website and have done so for nearly 2 years now. The business owner, who obviously has no idea about anything internet, claims he has done no real marketing for the website other than business cards at fairs, festivals, and events.

So anyway, to my point. At the meeting, he shows me his google analytics and it claims that he is getting 1400 local hits a month within a 50 mile radius of his business.

i am baffled about this. Am I not as adept at this marketing thing as I thought or is there some kind of funnel this business might be using in order to make it seem as though they are getting that many visitors a month? The problem that I was unable to help the business owner understand is that he isn't tracking anything related to his website and has no idea how many of those visits are actually converting into anything, especially monetarily.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    What isn't he tracking? He is getting 1400 local hits. Did you look at the report? Did it tell you where were coming from? Did you talk to him about what his customers say about his website. I don't personally need to know how many of my customers come from our website when I know that 90% plus view our website during the buying process.

    I don't know his business but maybe the key here is that the way he is marketing is helping people find him. Are his customers looking online or is he better getting them from fairs and events?

    Are they searching for his type of business or had he branded himself so they merely know his website or know to search for his name?

    That being said if people are looking for his kind of business and not finding him he could be losing business and this is where you can help him.

    Also are the people finding his website getting the info they came for? Is it making them convert into customers? remember we make websites for our customers not for google bots. SEO is always secondary to getting the customer the info they need to help them convert into sales.

    I think so many people here seem to think you can take what you did online and convert it to offline and it will work. It doesn't at times. Also if what you did online was "working" why on earth are you yourself not still doing it? These are all things to step back and think about.

    Each business and each client you have will be different. That is why so many offline "gurus" tell you to focus on one niche. Why learn multiple businesses when you can learn on niche and modify that info for each client in that niche.
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  • Profile picture of the author beeswarn
    Originally Posted by degcommunications View Post


    i am baffled about this. Am I not as adept at this marketing thing as I thought ... ?
    Yes.

    The prospect didn't tell you that he's doing no real marketing. He told you that he's doing no real marketing for the website other than distributing business cards at fairs, festivals and events.

    That is marketing and it is, manifestly, working for him. He showed you the stats.

    He's not interested in more functionality in his website traffic analytics program. He's interested in earning more business.

    How can you help him get more unique visitors within or beyond that 50 mile radius?

    Don't tell me. Tell him.
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  • Profile picture of the author degcommunications
    I am still learning but I am taking steps.

    I did look at the report and saw the numbers for myself. I would say that a good 95% of the visitors were direct traffic so that would lead me to believe that it is via conventional marketing methods that those leads are coming from and are most likely using his website or looking at the site for informational purposes.

    He hasn't tracked anything about his website in terms of how many people who visit his site actually take any kind of action, which at this point, would be to call him and order. He does know for a fact that the sauces he offers for sale on his site (only by calling him and i did suggest building that up so they can order online) have had 0 results so far.

    I am not looking for anyone to give me all the answers here. I am simply trying to get perspective so I am better able to help the next person I get a meeting with, and the next and so on.

    I agree that I should consider a specific niche and stick with that. It would make things tremendously easier.

    In all honesty, I froze up and lost my train of thought in the meeting when I saw that because I didn't expect to actually have him getting visits to the site. I assumed, my mistake, that since the site was so poorly built, optimized, and marketed that it would be simple to show him the number of people he isn't getting. Which, it seems I was wrong about.
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  • Profile picture of the author annaglobolstaff
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    • Profile picture of the author David Miller
      I've known a lot of people who confuse page-views as the number of visitors.

      Is he getting 1400 UNIQUE visitors?
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