Don’t Let Your Hot Leads Cool Off

The other day, I was looking at some of my top selling leads and noticed that they all had one thing in common – they were cold leads.

As a marketer, you know these are the best leads for your business. Cold-leads often have not yet been touched by another sales person or received poor service from their current provider. However, I saw that these leads were all still on page 1 of Google's search results.

You know what this means: the pages are fresh enough to be discovered and converted by new buyers. But if you don’t act quickly, these leads will slowly slip away below the fold of your website and into oblivion.

In an effort to get these leads out of the cold, and into the hands of a sales person, I decided to try something new. I began using a "bounce back" or "thank you" page to immediately redirect leads who find my site on Google. A bounce-back page is simply a landing page that redirects visitors to your call-to-action after they have entered their information.

I wanted my bounce-back page to be very clear about what they would find when they called this number – specifically that they would first speak with a sales person and then someone from our customer service team. In the past, my bounce-back pages only offered a link back to the homepage.

In order to make sure my bounce-back pages were fully personalized, I had to write them entirely myself. The key here is that you can customize any part of your bounce-back page using CoolingOff.com's pre-written landing page templates. You simply select which template you want and then it’s as simple as copying and pasting the code into your own website.

I also used the CoolingOff.com logo generator to create a custom image for each of my bounce-back pages. Using the generator was quick and easy. I simply filled out the form with the name of my business and then uploaded a high-resolution PDF version of our logo. In minutes, I had a new customized image that I could upload to CoolingOff.com and insert right into my cold-leads landing page template.

In order to track the success of these bounce-back pages, I decided to create an advanced segment in Google Analytics that looks at traffic coming from any page with "thank you" added to it (e.g., https://www.google.com/thankyou-demo ).

What I discovered was that these bounce-back pages turned my cold leads into warm leads at a rate of almost double (7.9% to 13.3%). It’s pretty amazing how much this simple step can affect your bottom line in so short a time.

One of the biggest concerns when it comes to cold leads is the idea that this might be an indication that you aren't converting them effectively enough. As you know, we can't control what happens on a lead's first visit to your site, but your bounce-back pages give us the chance to take action right away and start turning cold leads into revenue.

My bounce-back landing pages promise to:

Reduce search traffic from Google by redirecting them to call-to-action phone numbers.

Turn cold leads into warm leads.

Help you boost your bottom line with powerful new lead tracking segments in Google Analytics.

Here are the details of my first bounce-back landing page...

Ilona is the CEO and founder of CoolingOff.com, the leading provider of custom crafted, open source lead management software for B2B businesses and startups alike. She has been involved in all aspects of business development and software development since 2001. As the brain behind CoolingOff.com, she designs and builds the company’s marketing and sales solutions, including the lead tracking system and fully customized website landing page templates. She's also responsible for coming up with new ideas to help businesses better market through the creation of compelling call-to-action pages that are designed to drive customers towards a specific action or decision.

You can connect with Ilona on . You can also reach her by email at ilona@coolingoff.com.

Chapter 27 – Profit From Your Blog: How I Recovered From a Stolen Domain, DDoS Attack and Huge Google Penalty in One Month

The biggest lesson I’ve learned about blogging over the past year is that it’s really hard to get traffic from search engines and social media. So much so that I haven’t even bothered writing an article for three months due to lack of time (and motivation).

One month on from my last post, however, I think it’s time to take another stab at the whole blogging thing given a few recent positive developments.

And, just to be clear, the only reason I’m writing this article is because I want to share my thoughts on how it’s possible to recover from a blog that has been hit by burdensome traffic, technical issues and Google penalties.

To use the analogy of an ice cream stand (don’t ask me why), I believe that there are three stages of traffic you need to bear in mind when planning your blog:

Traffic Saturation = Hot Chocolate On a Cold Day

During the cold winter months, there’s nothing better than a hot cup of cocoa to keep your hands and feet warm. But, as the weather warms up, the once comforting warmth gives way to a tepid disappointment.

The same principle applies to blogging. During the winter months, there’s nothing better than a blog post to keep your attention and gain traffic. But, as the weather warms up, the once comforting warmth turns into a tepid disappointment.

When I went through this personal experience last month, I reached saturation point when Google slapped me with a penalty and sent my blog traffic plummeting.

Conclusion: A blog has to be consistently popular and highly trafficked in order to succeed.

Traffic from Search Engines = Hot Chocolate On a Cold Day

It’s always difficult to predict the kind of traffic you’ll get from search engines or social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. The traffic doesn’t just come and go – it comes, dips and then recedes. It doesn’t come in a steady stream but ebbs and flows like the tide.