So what are your objectives? More sales? More leads? Both? What’s keeping you from getting them?

If you’ve been in the online business for some time now, the latter becomes the big question that seems impossible to answer–even with fancy web analytics tools.
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I was thinking a lot this weekend about how different online “sales” teams are from traditional sales teams and how they should really be much similar. In the online world, we talk of “visits, visitors and “conversions” in the traditional sales world we talk of things like “contacts, leads, and closings.” That isn’t the big deal. The big deal is that where traditional sales teams have a sales methodology that they follow I haven’t encountered any online teams that have and follow a sales methodology.

What is behind a good sales methodology? It starts with having clarity on the different types of people that buy each individual product. This is key in any real selling effort. With that clarity, you can then build the process for finding and persuading those people to buy your product.

Now, in a traditional sales environment it quickly becomes clear when a list is bad and you are spending all your time with non-qualified people. In the web world, this traditionally remains a mystery and leaves you assuming that everyone on the site is there to convert. They aren’t.

Using win-loss analytics tools are key in working to really understand who each visitor is and if they are getting to the right information on the site and how that information is being received. One thing is certain, those that refuse to develop a sales methodology and adopt tools that provide better insight into the individuals will continue getting the results that they have always gotten. Unfortunately, these results tend to be in-spite of your efforts and not because of them.

A tale from the desk of Elemental Business’s graphic designer. May has proven to be a very enlightening month for me. We kicked off the month with our new website which had the goal to help people better understand our product, amongst the noise of web analytics. I joined Elemental Business 6 months ago and they are constantly reminding me that we aren’t web analytics. Read the rest of this entry »

In this early phase of win-loss analytics, we find that many people confuse it with web analytics. I suppose that is natural. I can remember when TiVo first came out and how quickly I dismissed it as a very expensive VCR. Shame on me. Little did I know that the value of TiVo wasn’t in recording shows, but in giving you complete flexibility in what you watched and when you watched it. Of course even that statement sounds weak for anyone that isn’t a TiVo user. But trust me, it is changing the entire television industry.
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How much do you know about the visitors that are on your site and what their intentions are? It is interesting to me to talk with prospective clients and hear what their conversion rate is and how they measure it. In the vast majority of cases, the conversion rate is less than 5% and it is measured by taking all the conversions and dividing it by ALL the visits to the site. Is that how you do it too?
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You are going to start hearing more and more about Win-Loss Analyticstools. I predict it will become a new category with many players–just like Web Analytics is today. So what is Win-Loss Analytics? In its most basic form, it is uncovering why an individual did or did not convert. Knowing this information is what enables good decisions and real improvements to be made. Think about it. With your web analytics tools, you can see all those that said, “No!” The problem is, you aren’t getting the rest of the story. “No, because…”
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