Saturday, August 18, 2012

Marketing Expert Gets HUGE Dose of Humility

Since starting my marketing consulting firm in 2008, I have had some very impressive successes with many of the over 300 clients I have touched.  Happy face.  (Possible rationalization alert) In almost every case where the results have not been impressive, the reasons generally have to do with intractable client issues.  And, believe it or not, in a couple of cases I've just plain whiffed.  Happily, that has not happened often. 

But today I think I have uncovered a called strike three that was right down the middle.  And as embarrassing as it is, I think there is a possible wake up moment of all of us in my own exasperation.  How would you feel if you found out 1200 people checked out your most detailed presentation of your unique sales proposition, and almost no one was acting on it.  You've come up to bat 1200 times and have almost no hits to show for it. 

First, I would have a moment of being pleased.  1200 potential clients (in this case you'll see they were qualified and relevant for the most part) came to this page and checked it out.  I must be doing something right to get that kind of traffic to that page.  But then my heart would sink.  What I have created on that page is not converting anyone. 

Ok, the details.  My blog, www.help4smallbusiness.blogspot.com gets about 20 visitors per day.  i have been ramping up the activity on that page to where that is now double and climbing, but that has been the average.  I don't do a lot of selling on my blog.  It is really a DIY place with a ton of punditry about every aspect of running a small business.  On this blog, there are several "pages," which is Blogger's name for static entries that are more like internal pages on a website, and these show up on a menu bar at the top of the page.  One of those on my menu bar says "Hire Us."

Generally speaking, someone has come to this blog because they have found a useful headline and then read the post.  While there they notice the Hire Us menu item, and then click.  In my opinion as a marketing guy, those clicks are worth $$$$$$$.  Therefore I have been blowing stacks and stacks of money because my Hire Us page isn't converting.  OUCH!  I have some ideas as to why, but while I take a week or so to redo that page, I'd love to hear from you as to why you think that page is such a stinker.  Here is the URL  http://help4smallbusiness.blogspot.com/p/hire-us.html

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