inbound-marketing

CHAPTER 8Convert Visitors into LeadsYou now know how to get your web site and other contentfound by your target market using various methods,including how to pull people into your business using blogs,Google and Social Media. However, simply getting visitorsto your web site isn’t enough. You need to convert thesevisitors into qualified leads and paying customers. The truepower of inbound marketing lies in its ability to not onlystretch the top of your sales funnel (and pull more peoplein), but also stretch the middle (get more to convert).“Conversion” is the art and science of encouraging sitevisitors to further engage with your business. You do thisby helping people take some sort of action: subscribing toyour e-mail newsletter, filling out a form or adding your blogto their RSS reader. It’s important to provide a variety ofdifferent ways for visitors to further engage—versus simplycalling your company or buying something from yoursite. This is because not everyone who visits your site isat the same place in the buying or sales cycle—meaningsome people are ready to buy now and some won’t be readyuntil three to six months from now—or longer. It’s betterto provide people with options to engage at whatever levelthey’re comfortable, from handing over only a name ande-mail address for your e-newsletter to filling out a longer129