Scott Ginsberg, that guy with the Nametag, wrote a great article on Friday called “Be (Somewhat) Predictable” about building and reinforcing brand expectations in your customers.

The basic idea is to choose your brand’s identity and teach your customers that you will reinforce it again and again. That is, be predictable.
He suggests three actions to drive the predictability of your brand. As you read, think of the implications for your online marketing and branding efforts.

Here’s a list of three ways to maintain brand consistency:

1. RECORD Brand Moments. Keep a log of your branding “moments of truth.”

For example, write down any time a customer says, “I figured you would do that!” or “It doesn’t surprise me to see your company…” or “That’s exactly what I expected your website to say!” After all, what people remember about you is what you are.

2. REMIND Brand Moments:

In your office, post a bunch of sticky notes that read, “Is what I’m doing RIGHT NOW consistent with my brand?” This will keep you accountable. And if you’re ever not sure if the answer is yes, well, consider that a hint.

3. REINFORCE Brand Moments:

Any time you do or say something consistent with your brand’s values, tell people. For example, if you email a prospect and say, “Well, my consulting fees are available on my website,” don’t forget to punctuate that sentence with, “…because that’s the way I do business,” or “…because that’s what clients have come to expect of me.” They’ll appreciate your integrity.

It is easy to translate Scott’s thoughts on branding to your online marketing efforts. Be consistent in your writing style, honesty, and online customer service. Answer your emails in a timely manner, get back to customers who contact you, and continuously add content based on feedback you hear from them.
When site visitors or customers compliment you on your service or the website or friendly sales people (or fast delivery or excellent quality or whatever) record those compliments, remind your employees of the payoffs their efforts have produced, and reinforce what those compliments are based on with further investment in the same improvements.

With a little consistent nudging from you or your management team, Scott’s three R’s could create a positive cycle that will keep rolling and snowball into a very strong and (somewhat) predictable online brand.

SEO Tips, Traffic Builders, and Other Tools

Check back often as I will be updating these SEO and Traffic Building Tools regularly. If you have a post or tool that is worth listing here, please contact me at chris@leadoptimize.com. Or, just contact me to introduce yourself. I am always glad to meet new friends and colleagues.

SEO Tools

Top Three Keyword Research Tools. Obviously, I could have listed them separately myself but Alan at SEO Image.com gives a great explanation of them.

Listen to this short podcast “snippet” from Mr-SEO.com about types of links and optimizing for local search.

Different spin: Top 5 SEO Techniques to AVOID by INVESP Writers.

Top 5 Factors for Successful Web Sites in 2007 from SEO Services Blog and also Tips for Increasing Google Page Rank.

Traffic Builders

“What’s your blog’s worth?” from Liza (Lorelei) of TOPTUT: I especially like her simple explanation of PageRank and the introduction to the Blog Juice Calculator, which I had never seen before.

10 tips for getting more blog traffic by The Blog Consultant should be called “10 of the basics everyone should do for more traffic” but it is a very good top ten that everyone should do and certainly deserves a spot here.

Mr SEO assembled a list of 40 social bookmarking sites for you.

There’s a Blog in My Soup gives us 5 Tools and Resources for Building and Promoting Your Blog.

FitForFreedom gives us the Ultimate Resource List.

Other Tools

HTML + CSS Refence by Example: htmlPlayground

Maximize Your Adsense Revenue with this information from Lorelei at TOPTUT.

Updated Top Paying Keywords on Google Adsense.

Top Three Keyword Research Tools. Obviously, I could have listed them separately myself but Alan at SEO Image.com gives a great explanation of them.

Jonathan at SmartWealthyRich has compiled this amazing list of tools in “The Tools I Use to Boost My Blogging Productivity.” This is a must-see list.

Another magnificent list of tools for blogging from QuickOnlineTips.com: Free Essential Tools for Blogger Blogs.

Rotating list of web design tools from Topsafelistbiz.com.

There are four ways to increase leads from a website.

Of course there are multiple methods you can use to accomplish each but there are only four ways to increase site leads. Doing the opposite of each will decrease the number of leads you receive.

Four Ways to Increase Leads From Your Website

1. Make the product you are selling as desirable as possible to your target customers. That is, display every possible benefit in every possible way.
2. Make unclear who is NOT your target customer. That is, make people on the fringes of your target market (or those completely outside your market) believe your product might be for them.
3. Remove all possible barriers to contact. Make it as easy as possible for a visitor to give you their information.
4. Make the act of contacting desirable. For example, give something away for contacting you.

There is a theoretical absolute maximum for each of these. For example, it is possible to show every possible benefit in every possible way to your exact target customers but how do you know when you have achieved that absolute maximum and when you have gone over it? Should you include mental telepathy as a method of contact? Someone might prefer that, after all.

The Effects of Each Action on Sales Leads and Conversion Rates

Number 1 Increases Qualified Leads: Number 1 produces qualified sales leads. Increasing number 1 will not negatively impact lead conversion rates - although it will not necessarily positively impact lead conversion rates either.

Number 2 Increases Valueless or Wasteful Leads: Number 2 produces bad sales leads. Increasing 2 will negatively impact your lead conversion rates.

Numbers 3 and 4 are Catalysts to Lead Optimization: The effects of numbers 3 and 4 depend upon the degree to which 1 and 2 have been effectively (or ineffectively) implemented. That is, if all possible barriers to contact are removed and/or the act of contacting is desirable then ALL types of leads will be more likely to contact - qualified or unqualified, good or bad.

There many more issues to cover around this topic including conversation rates, methods to affect each, and the values of the ranges of leads you can receive.

There will be a complete series on this topic and it has become an entire chapter in the Lead Optimize book.

We all know Google is always improving their tools but I especially like these two for improving Lead Optimization. Try using them to improve the ROI of your paid search listings and your search engine optimization efforts.

Google Trends was updated on the evening of May 22, 2007.

Now, in addition to viewing the top countries and cities that searched for a term, users can view the top “sub regions” (e.g. states within the U.S.) across more than 70 countries. Users can now compare the leading presidential candidates around the country, for instance, or find out what region in France is crazy about cognac. Hot Trends is Google’s newest tool for users who want to keep their finger on the pulse of what the world is searching for.

Google Analytics has also been improved.

Products with longer sales cycles will gain additional sales from a simple a lead nurturing system. It is an obvious point, right? Yes, but unfortunately excellent sales leads for future-projects are often left to become stale while salespeople get back to responding to current leads and immediate sales. While those long-terms leads (potential customers) remain un-contacted they are looking for other suppliers or being contacted by your competitors.

Brian Carrol of Start With a Lead describes lead nurturing this way: “What’s lead nurturing? Lead nurturing is all about having consistent and meaningful communication with viable prospects (those that are “a fit” for your solution) regardless of their timing to buy. It’s not “following-up” every few months to find out if a prospect is “ready to buy yet?” Lead nurturing about building trusted relationships with the right people.”

In his review of a RainToday.com report about lead generation, Jon Miller of Marketo includes a chart that highlight the results of a survey of companies indicating that on average 25% of leads are disqualified immediately, 25% are “sales-ready”, and 50% require further lead nurturing.

Barry Harrigan of Accelerating IT Sales reviews a study which indicates potential buyers of IT products prefer certain methods of follow-up contact over others. The most preferred method is a website or micro-site with information about the product. While nurturing your leads, consider using all of your contact options including phone, email, information on your website, and in-person discussions.

Long-term leads should be developed (through various methods) into customers through a process of relationship building and discussions about their projects, requirements, and wishes. Nurture leads by developing a fruitful working relationship with them. Offer helpful information and ideas and ask questions to help you understand their projects how you can be ready to supply when they are ready to purchase.

Other Lead Optimize Articles:

How To Reply To Contact Form Leads

Follow Up! Manage Your Sales Leads

Always work to improve your writing no matter what background you come from - whether from writing, designing, or coding. The sites and tools listed here should help. These are in no particular order.

1. A List Apart’s Writing Page: A full list of articles from A List Apart.
2. Copyblogger: Possibly the best available blog dedicated to copy writing. There is always excellent content here.
3. The Copywriting Maven: Copy writing tips, articles, and courses. Even includes some SEO writing tips.
4. Michel Fortin: “My Seven-Step Copywriting Process”
5. LifeHack.org: Fifty Tools Which Can Help You in Writing
6. How to Teach Your Clients About Effective Blogging by Christine at SEO Content Solutions.
7. Sharon of Sharon’s Writing Lab teaches about some of her lessons from writing reviews and gives a brief overview of three writing styles - Academic, Journalistic, and Review.
8. The Article Marketer gives us the Small Business Online Marketing Survival Guide. This is a great article there are many excellent articles throughout this blog. Make sure you also go to this page full of writing how-to’s and marketing guidance.

State the purpose of your form. You don’t have anything to hide - right? To get more sales leads, tell your site visitors how to use your contact form and how you are going to use it to help them.

You have a beautiful website and your visitors learn a lot from it but if your contact form makes them feel like they are sitting at the edge of the unknown they will leave with what they learned and find someone else to contact. Here are some ways to put your site visitors at ease.

Promise Not to Resell or Redistribute Information

This is a no-brainer and everyone knows but if I do not mention it, I will get an email about it. Make the promise and mean it. State it clearly. The number one question on the mind of someone staring at the first blank of your contact form is, “how much junk mail am I going to get from these guys?” Ease their minds with reassurance that you respect their privacy and the information will stay between you and them.

Ask Only for What You Need

Some form requirements don’t make any sense. Why am I “required” to give you my mailing address when I am just signing up for your newsletter? Here’s a nice fake address for you! Enjoy your useless data while I smack on the bad taste in my mouth about your newsletter - and you.

Keep your contact forms as short as possible and only require they information that is absolutely necessary. To help you decide how long the form will be and what you should require consider how you are going to use the information you collect in your contact form leads. There is an inverse relationship between how much information you ask for and how many lead responses you get - and how accurate it will be. If you require too many fields you might find that you get creative address field responses such as “666 Up Yours Lane.” I have seen more creative ones but that one always stuck with me. You should have seen the zip code (it wasn’t a number).

There is a balance you will have to find through some experimentation and, of course, you will always get the occasional joker - sell them something anyway!

Define what you want to do with information from the contact form leads. If you are only using it to reply via email, then you only need an email address. However, if you want to send postcards you need addresses and if you want to call them you need phone numbers but it needs to make sense that you would do so and you should always ask for permission with a check box.

Clearly State Your Purpose (How You Are Going to Help Them)

Tell potential leads what you will do when you receive the form. A simple line such as, “We will respond to your comments/requests via email within 24 hours.” or, “One of our friendly customer service representatives will contact you by the method you prefer.” (and give them options). The idea is to tell your visitor what to expect after filling out your contact form.

Explain the Steps

This can be mixed with the previous point to be more concise. In very simple terms, maybe through a small numbered list, explain the form process. For example:

1. Complete the short form below.
2. Press the submit button (only once).
3. We will contact you via email within 24 hours.

Most people know how forms work but, again, you need to reassure your visitors that the process is as simple as 1,2, and 3 and and you take care of step 3. Many people are still hesitant about the internet and their concern is not always regarding fraud.

People (remember that’s what your site visitors are) often feel like contact forms are a waste of time so they leave. Reassure them you are trustworthy and that their time will be well spent.

– Chris Denny

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Welcome to the May 15, 2007 edition of the Lead Optimize Blog Carnival

To those of you who submitted but are not included in this carnival, please submit next time. I welcome your submissions, enjoy reading them, and consider all of them. I will include all articles that add value to the current carnival.

ATTENTION - Next month’s Lead Optimize Blog Carnival posts will be considered for bonus chapters in the Lead Optimize book, which should come out later this year. Contributors whose work is included in the book (with your permission) will not be financially compensated but will, of course, get full credit for the content of the respective chapter. Contributors whose work is included will also get a complimentary copy of the book.

On with the carnival…

This edition is very short. I chose three quality articles and am including this Lead Optimize article, Make Your Site Say, “Can I Help You?” to put little emphasis on something I hope we see more of - websites that sell by helping people choose the best products to solve their needs (or wants).

Marketing

If you have to make a lot of calls this will be an excellent read for you, especially if you have ever considered Skype. Chris Pangburn presents Increase Cold Calling Productivity With Skype posted at AeroDesigns Blog, saying, “Decrease the amount of time you spend dialling or searching for contact numbers by using Skype, which, when combined with a few easy techniques can prove to be a powerful sales tool.”

Sales

Charles H. Green provides us with an excellent example of how salespeople can kill long-term relationships in their last-ditch efforts to get a single sale in Trust-Destroying Selling posted at Trust Matters, saying, “How two salesman destroyed a long-term relationship in the quest for one sale.”

Yes, this is another article from Charles H. Green. This article focuses on paying attention to the relationship between a salesperson and a client and how that relationship is managed. Trust Tip 57: Don’t “Handle” Objections posted at Trust Matters, saying, “Perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to “overcome” that sales objection…”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Lead Optimize! and your article will be considered for the Lead Optimize book. Submit your article through the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: lead optimize!, blog carnival.

Service-oriented retail stores can teach us a great deal about how to improve visitors’ experiences on websites - and how to generate more sales leads. We only need to pay attention and apply the practices appropriately.

Retail stores make buying easier by having salespeople or associates available to help customers with questions about products or services or to help them carry their products to the register. The outdoor sporting goods store, Gander Mountain, is excellent on this point. Gander Mountain stores offer excellent customer service - and achieve excellent sales - by placing many salespeople throughout the stores who will be certain to ask, “May I help you?” If a customer has a question or concern or wants alternative suggestions for a product a salesperson will be nearby to offer the information and speed the buying process.

Home Depot has sales associates throughout their stores and offers wall or shelf-mounted buttons customers may press to call for assistance. There may not be a sales associate within immediate view but at the press of a button, someone will come to the aid of the customer. Additionally, Home Depot offers seminars and how-to lessons for everything from floor installation to painting and gardening tips.

These two stores make themselves available to customers to make buying easier while engaging, and even teaching, customers about available products and services.

Applying Customer Service Online

These principals can be applied online to increase sales leads from websites. No genius is required and the technology and services to enable increase sales leads through improved customer service on your site exist now.

Make your site say, “Can I help you?” Imagine each page as a department - or an aisle, for that matter. There should be a “sales associate” at the end of each aisle ready to help. Where appropriate, visitors should be able to press a button for immediate assistance and bring on chat, your contact form, an email, or maybe even a fax form for a few industries or project types.

You can improve your visitor participation and engagement like Home Depot and offer lessons or hold online seminars – with up to 1,000 at once – with GoToWebinar, the new do-it-yourself Web event service. Try it free! To improve your availability by phone look at the services available all around you. RingCentral.com offers online fax and toll-free services, Via Talk offers affordable internet phone services to help businesses connect easily with customers and, of course, Skype allows customers who also use Skype to immediately call for free (free for both parties) from their computers.

Live chat is an excellent way to offer immediate contact and great customer service (one of my favorites). However, few things are more frustrating that getting a chat rep who is only taking notes to pass you on to the next person. Overstock.com does a great job of handling online chat and they have an interesting way of making their site say, “May I help you.” After a few minutes of browsing, an online chat box will drop onto the screen offering a real-time chat service to answer questions you might have about products or services. It is an excellent reminder that they are there if you need them without being too invasive.

Availability is the Key

The most important point is to make yourself available to visitors. They need to be able to contact you quickly and easily - to GIVE YOU THE LEAD. Whether through your contact form, real-time chat, or by phone there should be multiple methods of contacting you which are made available and obvious throughout each page of your site.