Who’s Stealing Your Leads?

Who’s Stealing Your Leads?:from Business 2 Community by Mike Lieberman

Someone is stealing your leads!

This isn’t a joke, lead theft is a growing challenge primarily because most business owners, executives or marketing professionals don’t even know their leads are being taken from right under their noses.

How do you know if someone is stealing your leads?
First, look at the number of unique visitors landing on your website each month. These are people who want to buy from you. After all, they found your site right? They searched or were referred to you and they actually visited your site.
Here is an example. If you had 1,000 visitors to your site, you should expect to get around 2% of those visitors turning into leads, meaning they reached out to your company as a result of their visit to your site. That means if you had 1,000 visitors you should expect to get 20 leads per month from your website. If you aren’t getting 2% of visitors turning into leads, someone is stealing your leads. If you are only getting 5 leads a month from your website, someone is literally stealing 15 leads a month from you.
Do the math on your own site. If you don’t know how many unique visitors you are getting, find out and find out fast.
Who is taking them and how do they know who my leads are? Great question. Your competitors are taking them. They are taking them because your website is failing to capture the attention of your “ready to buy” prospects. After they leave your website, they are going to your competitor’s website and they are getting those leads.
How do I know this? I know this because buyer behavior has changed and 88% of buyers start doing research for products and services online. I know this because Google told me that 9 out of 10 people visit your website before calling you, clicking through, or reaching out in anyway. I know this because Microsoft reported that people typically spend 10 seconds on a site before hitting the back button and looking at the next site. Is that enough hard data?
If you’re not worried, you should be.
Now, how do we stop lead theft? Its actually quite easy to stop people from stealing your leads. The first step is recognizing you have a problem and starting to fix it. It starts with a more effective website. Here is a quick assessment you can do on your site right now.

1. Make sure your website has the right messages on the home page. These messages must connect with the prospect quickly and emotionally.
2. Make sure your home page is designed in a simple to read, easy to navigate format. If your visitors have to think too hard, they are going to leave very quickly.
3. Your website must have educational information all over it including videos. Buyers want to be helped not sold to. Give them educational content and they will stay on your site.
4. Your website has to make your visitors feel safe and sure that you AND ONLY YOU can help them. The more remarkable your products or services the better your buyers will feel about your business.
5. Your website must have testimonials, case studies or success stories from other people. Your visitors don’t believe you, they want to see what other people like them have to say.
6. Your website has to work right, the first time, on all browsers, smart phones, and tablets. They are unforgiving. If your site doesn’t work or looks strange the back button is just a click away.

I know it sounds basic, but you would be surprised how many website fail these six simple tests. Take a long hard look at your site, I bet you are losing leads to your competitors right now.
To see for sure if your business is getting its leads stolen, click here to have us investigate your site. We can tell you in 15 minutes if someone is stealing your leads.