In some sales-heavy organizations, it is believed that the website serves the purpose of validation. The sales team owns the prospect outreach, networking and connections, then the website needs to serve as a place where the prospects go to do their research and to validate what they have heard from the sales team. In this case, the businesses are not focused on metrics from their contact forms, because they believe that no one fills them out and they are solely focused on engagement metrics on the website. We unfortunately run into this scenario far too often and wanted to spend sometime discussing why this is a bad idea for long-term growth.
Before we go too far…
We do want to say first that engagement metrics are good to measure from the standpoint of understanding if you are producing valuable content, is your content easy to find, are the right people (Ideal Customer Profiles or ICPs) visiting your website to consume information, how are they flowing through your site, how frequently do they come back and what is most interesting to them. These pieces are a critical part of your full-funnel strategy. However, if your business philosophy is to only lean on your sales team for prospect outreach, then you are missing out on your true growth potential.
Let us ask you a question…
Would it benefit your organization if your sales team could spend more time fulfilling on qualified leads that actually came to you educated and with a purchase mindset?
Did you answer yes? If so – then maybe it would be beneficial to look at your digital growth / demand generation strategy. With a strong demand generation program in place, it should begin to create an importance on your website contact form as a primary metric and eventually start to shift your sales focus from outbound to inbound fulfillment.
So to check yourself on this, if you are not currently receiving qualified leads through your website, then step back and look at your current digital marketing program. Think about what you know about your ICP and think about what you do differently than anyone else (what is your value proposition). Consider if you have marketing that is reaching your right prospects and speaking to them in a way that gives them a solution that uniquely answers problems that they have and leaves them knowing that you are the best and only option for them.
After your assessment, if you do not believe you have a strong program that demands interest and action, then that’s probably answering why your contact form isn’t being filled, why you don’t care about it currently, and why your sales team is doing the heavy lifting on prospecting.
But you should know there is an answer. And there is a formula to get there. You just have to start shifting your philosophy from reactive marketing that supports sales to proactive marketing that creates demand and feeds your sales team.
In closing, we’ll leave you with this thought. There’s no better day to start then yesterday. But the next best day is today.
So if you don’t think you have the right program in place to drive demand, then the best thing you can do is to get started evolving your program today to start to drive the demand that fills your contact forms.
As always, please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you evolve your program.
