Who is following up with your prospects before you do?

If you’re like most business owners, you’re working hard at networking events and sales calls across the country each end every day, but you may not be getting the results that you deserve for the effort that you’ve put in. This is because in between the time you leave your prospect’s office and the time you call them back or stop by again, they have probably visited your web site to learn a little more about your company, and if they weren’t impressed, they didn’t give you another thought until you followed up with them. Since at least a few days have probably passed, much of the impact that you created may have already dissipated, leaving you to start all over again.

This is where a effective web site can make a tremendous difference in helping to convert your prospects into clients. Chances are that they aren’t going to look at your web site right away, instead, it will probably be some time after you’ve left and things have slowed down near the end of the day. Now, if you have an effective web site, what happens is that it will make a powerful impression on your prospect without any additional effort on your part. This means that you’ve now reached them two times with the same amount of effort as it used to take you to reach them once. By the time you call them back or stop by again, you will have reached your prospect three times – and that’s if they don’t visit your web site again or call you back first.

So how do you know if your web site is effective? Well, first of all, make sure it presents a professional image of your company. This includes proper grammar and spelling. You should also make sure that it doesn’t contain any broken links or images, and that it loads quickly.

Once these basic criteria are met, you can start by asking your existing clients or customers, as well as your prospects, what they feel is missing from it. In most cases, your visitors will be looking for your web site to be functional and informative. For example, if you sell industrial hardware, your web site should at the very least contain the specifications on your products as well as their prices. Most visitors want to have the necessary information to make a buying decision at their finger tips. Statements such as “call for pricing” will only frustrate them in most cases. Remember, a web site is all about leveraging your time and resources, so the more that you enable yours to do for you, the higher your sales and profit margins will be.

You should also provide multiple ways for visitors to contact you. Some may prefer email while others may want to call you and get an answer right now. Make it as easy as possible for them to reach you how they want to.

Finally, be sure to update your web site on a regular basis. If your prospects visit a few times and realize that your content is rarely updated, you can be sure that they will come back less frequently, and then eventually, stop visiting all together. Make an effort to add content to your web site at least once each week.