Traffic Doesn’t Equal Revenue: How to Generate More Qualified Leads

By Natalija Pavic, Senior Solution Engineer, Commerce Cloud, Salesforce

One of my personal pet peeves is frequently misunderstood and misquoted numbers and statistics. Mistaking correlation for causation can lead people to think that more traffic equals more revenue, but it’s not so simple.

In Season 2 of American TV Show, Silicon Valley, the character Russ Hanneman gives advice to his colleague Richard Hendricks saying: “If you have no revenue you can say you are ‘pre-revenue’. It’s not about how much you earn it’s about what you are worth,” a reference to the companies in Silicon Valley that can easily drive traffic and users but haven’t figured out how to monetize yet.

Driving engagement/traffic and generating revenue are two different concepts that may not necessarily be related. There are many complex businesses operating profitably with infinitesimal brand awareness, but this isn’t the case for most B2Bs. If you’re finding that you’re getting a large amount of traffic but not many leads, these tips can help you obtain more qualified leads from the traffic you generate.

Don’t Engage in Indiscriminate Advertising 

Instead, focus on improving the quality of your leads by targeting your advertising efforts towards your ideal buyers. So while Facebook may generate a large amount of traffic for your website, if your ideal audience is on LinkedIn, then that’s where you need to be. Prioritise the audience that best matches your buyer personas – even if it results in less traffic. The quality of your leads (and your sales team) will thank you for it.

Treat Your Website as a Resource 

Your website is more than just a place to display your products and contact information. Think of it as an additional opportunity to provide value. Good content will draw leads back to your website – even after they’ve become clients. Providing resources to clients at different stages of the buying cycle will help you build trust with clients and prospects alike, and turn more of your visitors into qualified leads.

Content is King and Information is its Currency 

Buyers don’t want to be marketed to, they want to be given the products, services and information that might just solve some of their biggest pain points, and more importantly: they know what they’re looking for. Ensure that you’re creating the content that will best meet their needs by analysing their activity on your site. If the majority of your visitors are spending time with your case studies, then you should devote your main efforts to creating and promoting that type of content.

Keep in Mind that Most of Your Visitors will be On Your Website to do Research 

80% of the prospects that interact with your brand but don’t buy now will do so in the next 24 months. –SiriusDecisions

78% of prospects will buy from the vendor that responds first.

–SourceHarvard

Now pause here for a second. Why do so many people buy from the vendor that replies first? You would think that most people would compile their research, narrow down their choices and then pick the best one, but most of the time the decision comes down to convenience and speed.

Make sure your website provides the kind of information that can help your visitors make quick decisions about your products and services, and closely align with your sales team to make sure that when someone contacts you, your business can be the first to respond.

By focusing on attracting and marketing to your ideal buyer, you can positively impact your bottom line. Allow yourself to exclude prospects who are not engaging by either funneling them into a lead nurturing program, or removing them from a particular campaign.

Segmenting cold or dead leads can increase your engagement rates and may allow you to salvage those leads later. If specific content on your site attracts a high volume of traffic but doesn’t generate many leads, then consider taking it down and working to target it more closely to your ideal buyer. This laser focus on your target audience might initially decrease traffic, but it may also increase your close rate.

Article first appeared on the Salesforce Pardot blog.

Lava is an authorised Salesforce Partner in Malaysia and has more than a decade of experience in cloud solutions which includes marketing automation, CRM implementation, change management, and consultation. We pride ourselves in not just being a CRM partner but in also understanding the needs of our customers and taking their business to the next level.