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Matchmaker - Fiddler on the Roof

Recently a fellow on LinkedIn asked about developing Web content for lead generation. His company produces equipment used in manufacturing. This equipment is sold through sales representatives who can work with prospective clients to choose the product best suited to their needs. Thus the goal for his Web site is to solicit qualified sales inquiries from prospective customers.

Generating leads is different than generating direct sales.

If you are marketing books, you can sell directly to the customer via the Web. On a site like Amazon I can look at a product description, read some reviews and make up my mind right away. If the book sounds promising and the price is right, I'll click the "add to cart" button and be on my way.

But what if my purchase represents a more significant investment?

What if I'm shopping for a $500,000 machine that goes "bing." This is not the kind of thing I'll blithely add to my online shopping cart. This is the kind of thing I'll research. Based on the (hopefully) thoroughly prepared needs of my organization I'll start my research on the Web looking for product information, recommendations, etc. The information I find on the manufacturer's Web site, via Google and Yahoo News, on Twitter, etc. will help me narrow down my list of potential vendors.

If you happen to market a machine that goes "bing" and have made my short list, then I'll become a qualified sales lead as soon as I fill out your online contact form. At this point it is up to your sales staff to match my needs to the right item in your product line. If all goes well, I'll buy the machine, it will serve my needs, and the next time I visit your site will be to share ideas, tips and tricks on your customer forum or to buy another machine.

The costs of dissatisfaction—what we want to avoid

Alas, not every story has a happy ending. But the level of unhappiness depends on the situation.

If it's spring and I'm ordering herbs from your online catalog, I have certain expectations. I want the plants to arrive healthy and ready for the garden. If the mint plant I ordered turns out to be basil, I'll be disappointed, but I'll probably just end up making pesto and e-mailing you to see about getting the mint.

If I've bought a machine that is supposed to go "bing" but instead goes "ploing," my unhappiness level goes up considerably. If the machine doesn't perform as expected it could frustrate the staff who operates it, produce inferior products that my customers don't want, increase my costs, decrease my revenues, etc. Who will I blame for my unhappiness? I'll blame you, the manufacturer who made the machine. Who will hear about my dissatisfaction? In this age of social media, it could be anyone. Obviously I'd start by seeing if my sales representative could resolve the problem. But if not, a quick grumble on Twitter, Facebook or a blog can ripple through the Internet quite rapidly.

Now everyone's unhappy including your attorney, sales department, media staff, other customers who begin questioning the quality of their machines, etc. This negative turn of events could lead to a return of the product, a lawsuit, bad press, the loss of my future business and the loss of business from other customers.

If you're a legitimate organization interested in generating repeat business, rather than making a quick sale and skipping town, this is obviously a situation you want to avoid.

Preventing unhappiness—qualifying leads on the Web

With big ticket items much of the decision making is done during the sales process, after the lead from your Web site is turned over to your sales representative. As Web marketers we can't do much about that, but what we can do is manage expectations by providing clear and accurate online material on what our products or services can or cannot do. This will help to insure that the leads we pass onto the sales team are from well-informed consumers who have an actual need for our product or service.

Our job, as lead generators, is to make introductions. Just as a matchmaker vets her clients to ensure they are potentially compatible, we want to vet our site visitors to ensure that they:

• Are in the market for a product or service we offer.
• Can afford to purchase the product or service we offer.
• Wish to make a purchase in the near future (they aren't just window shopping).

We also want to educate our potential customers so they can assess us. They will want to know that:

• Our product or service will serve their particular needs.
• We offer the most efficient and cost-effective solution to their situation.
• It won't require undue amounts of modification to do the job.
• Our customer service team will offer ongoing support to help them get the most out of their purchase.
• They can trust in our quality and expertise both now and in the future.

The material on our site should give our visitors the knowledge they need to determine if our offering has the potential to meet their needs. For example, if you are in the market for a Web site, my Web services page will show you the types of services I provide, and my portfolio and this site overall will give you examples of my work. If you want to dig deeper, this blog and my Planning Your Web Site Tutorial will tell you more about my Web philosophy. From this you can learn that I can develop a site that will serve your academic department, small/medium business, blog, etc. so that you can inquire about how I may help you develop a site suited to your goals.

I don't publish pricing, because there are too many variables involved—you can assume that I'll cost more than your nephew who taught himself HTML and less than some giant uber cool design agency. Not listing prices is common in lead generation because customers often have a budget in mind and may exclude a vendor on price alone. If our actual costs are fixed, we could publish prices to let clients make the choice immediately. But if pricing is flexible, it better serves our clients if we can work with them to find a service or product that fits their budget while still serving their end goal.

It's also important that our sites provide enough information to let customers know if we're not the right solution for them. If my services aren't right for you, it's better for you to know that from the start. If you're the Behemoth corporation and you need a new 15,000+ page site that will require a large team to input the content, write custom programming and shoot video it makes perfect sense that you'd be better served by working with a larger firm.

I'm continuously tweaking my site to better serve the above objectives—and have come up with some new ideas while writing this article—but in the end my site (and yours) must serve the needs of our visitors.

If our Web presence (which may extend beyond our own sites to include social media and news sites) can match qualified parties with the right product or service, while weeding out those who would be better served with something else, then we'll have done our jobs. Our sales team will be one step closer to making a sale that will be satisfactory to both parties.

Content development for matchmaking

This all seems obvious enough but how do we do this? How much information should we provide to entice customers to make an inquiry? If we offer too much information, such as pricing and detailed product specifications might we accidentally turn away customers who would actually be a good match?

That all depends on the product or service we're offering. Each situation is unique, but it all comes down to educating our audience. We have to let them know the core qualities of our offer so they know whether it has the potential to suit them. And we have to let them know where the wiggle room exists in situations like pricing. If there are specific areas or features in which questions may arise, we should use these as opportunities for them to make an inquiry.

College and university admissions Web sites can teach us a lot about this. While university Web sites, as a whole, tend to offer information on almost anything you would want to know about a school, the admissions sites are aimed specifically at recruitment. As we all know, a university education is very expensive. It also requires a time commitment. You'll not only pay a lot to go school, but you'll be living there for at least four years. What you experience in those four years will affect the rest of your life, so picking the right school is one of the most important purchasing decisions most of us will ever make.

Admission sites usually provide a good overview of campus life and academics, but they know we can't make an application decision based on student quotes, course listings and pretty pictures alone. They're also quite aware that they're in the matchmaking business, they want to attract students who will benefit from what they have to offer and they want to accept students who will add value to the school through their research, leadership, volunteerism, personality, etc.

To help students through the process, schools may:

• Ask students to join a mailing list so they can get updates from the university.
• Publish calendars of regional events where students can meet admissions counselors in their hometown.
• Invite students for campus open houses where they can spend a weekend on campus with a current student.
• Blog about the admissions process and what to expect.
• Showcase the availability of financial aid to show that the school is more affordable than tuition would indicate.
• Arrange for them to interview with alumni.
• Help them connect with a sports coach or professor in their field of interest.

These are all opportunities that allow the school to connect with—and help guide—the potential student, just as a sales representative might guide a prospective customer. Each place this information is shown—on the Web—creates a lead generating moment in which the student is given the opportunity to connect online or in person with someone who can answer questions and provide more in depth information.

Admissions officers are well aware of the factors a student considers when choosing a school so they focus on the core factors as areas to generate leads on their Web sites.

But similar information is available in the corporate world. If you're developing content to generate leads, talk to your sales representatives. They can show you what factors apply to your product or service. They may also be able to introduce you to current customers who can give you insights into how they made their purchasing decisions.

Happy endings: educated site visitors are more likely to buy

You may send out e-mails and brochures, but your Web site is online 24 hours a day all year long. For many customers your site is the first impression they'll have of your organization, product or service. If you give them the information they need and offer convenient points for them to make contact you'll have started them off with a good impression and you'll provide your sales/admissions/recruitment team with leads who've already expressed a sincere interest in your product or service.

This will make it easier for the sales representative to match the prospect with the best product or service for his/her needs and make the actual sale. If the sale is made and the match turns out to be well-made then our long-term benefits are greater than the one sale alone. Most of us want repeat business. If we're making heavy equipment we want to sell more of it to our current customers. If they're happy with our products and service they will buy more. If we're a university we want the relationship with our students to continue past graduation. We look to alumni to become donors, volunteers and good will ambassadors for our schools.

We can't achieve all of that with a Web site alone, but we can use our sites to lay the foundation upon which the rest of the relationship is built. If we're generating leads, we're not selling widgets. We're making introductions that could lead to long-term relationships.

What's your story?

Do you have a lead generation story you would like to share? What's worked for your site? If you have tips or best practices, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

Related Marketing Articles

• MKTG 101: Web Content Should Serve Visitor Needs
• Copy Writing: Long vs. Short, Does it Matter?
• Don’t build your Web site in a vacuum

Edu Blogger Scholarship Update

I didn't win the top prize, but I did win one of the two smaller blogging scholarships. Thank you all for you support and kudos to fellow Ohio blog, The Old College Try for the winning entry.

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