REPORT: 128 Online Leads in 4 Months!
Posted by Simply Frank | Posted in Bloggin Case Study, Conversion, Email Leads, Traffic Trends | Posted on 06-05-2009
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Ok, so a few days ago, I posted an update on my Facebook profile stating that I need help. I have so many online inquiries that I cannot keep track of. As a matter of fact, yesterday I spent some time going through my history of emails and fond 10 (TEN) emails from the past 2 months that I had lost track of, and what I mean lost track of is not that I did not reply to them, but that I did not follow up with a reason why they had not responded to my last email. Most had already hired another DJ and 2 were still interested but would get back with me (more following up, IS THERE AN EASIER WAY TO DO THIS?)
Now, that’s not that bad compared to how many inquires I get from my online forms.
- January 2009 31
- February 2009 27
- March 2009 31
- April 2009 39
So this year I’ve had a total 128 leads as a result of having an online form as I suggested in a previous article about converting bridal show leads into online clients using the power of the net. Now, since I have not done any bridal shows in over a year, and I only advertise in one magazine, Premiere Bride, and I have only one online ad that I pay for, The Knot, and since keep track of where all my web visitors come from, I know a few things for fact.
- 90% of those 128 leads come to my website from the search engines.
- 5% of the leads come from The Knot
- 5% of the leads come from other thing such as My magazine ad, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, referals, etc…
Now 128 leads may not sound like a lot to you, but take into consideration many limitations on my website…
- I don’t have my prices online… Major turn off to some people as they feel I may be hiding something or I am too expensive.
- I proudly am a Bilingual DJ and Master of Ceremonies…. Major turn off to some people as they feel that I may not be able to represent them correctly or I may not know the music.
- I don’t have the most beautiful DJ website out there… some people may be turned off by how simple it looks.
- My website is too wordy… Some people are turned off by not enough pictures and having to read my stuff and find out there is no price anywhere to be found.
- I don’t have the details about my DJ equipment that I use… this is mainly something other dj’s have suggested.
- I have ads on my website.
- I am marketing online… Vendors automatically assume that online brides are cheap, they are if yo u consider paying a DJ 1,200+ for a wedding reception cheap.
- Worrying what people will say about telling their friends and relatives that they ‘found their DJ online.“
- They never have heard me play before and I don’t allow outsiders to my events… EVER!
- People worry about giving out their personal information online… This is a huge one, well they are all big
- Many other limitations, or mental blocks that people place on their heads about putting an online form on the FRONT PAGE OF YOUR WEB SITE.
Keep in mind, these are all leads that used my online form, mainly because when they arrived at my website, they did not want to call me.
Here is something that you may not realize…
When people are online, having to reach for the phone and call you is an extra action that they have to initiate! They really don’t want to call you unless they really have to and they are extremely motivated to do so. Think about it when you are online doing research, don’t you want to keep researching, whatever you may be researching? Don’t you want to continue without any interruptions? (unless of course they are friends or family members calling to distract you, lol.) Aren’t most of us procrastinators? Don’t we say, ahhh, I’ll get to this later (I’ll call them later)… and how often does later never come?
What I’m getting at, is make it sooo easy for your bride to contact you that the 11 (Eleven) objectives above are not even thought about, or are easily outweighed.
I even go as far as putting on my form, give me your phone number ONLY if you want us to contact you by phone, what that means to me is that they are interested but are too lazy to look for the phone to call me so they would really love you if you called them… So they don’t have to.
I hope you understand that I’m not trying to brag about how many leads I get; but I am just merely giving you a report on how you can INCREASE the number monthly leads. It’s so simple, place a contact form on your website. I have it on all of mine where they can easily fill it out. See for your self, I have it on my Houston DJ Website and My Photo Booth Rental Website.
Happy Bloggin!
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|o| Simply Frank |o|

Congratulations on your ROI. Averaging about a lead a day is quite good by any estimation.
The next question would seem to be: What are the conversion rates to appointments and sales?
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It has always mystified me as to why you have ads running on the site. I would guess the turn-off factor is bigger than the ad revenue. Hard to measure. Your thoughts on this…
Also, if you know your site is ‘too wordy,’ wouldn’t that be the easiest thing to fix? Even if you’re not comfortable editing the site yourself, you could outsource that task to a neutral party. Again, your thoughts…
Keep on doing it!
Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog
Hey Andy…
Thanks for the comment…
Great Idea about tracking the number of appointments and sales. I felt it was irrelevant to this post since it was a report with an objective to raise awareness about the use of contact forms on a website. There are a couple factors with me. #1 I am a single operator, which means a few leads are for dates that may be already booked by me. #2 My price structure is a bit higher than the ‘average’ DJ costs in Houston. My belief is that the average DJ Pricing in Houston is at about $450 for a 4 Hour wedding.
Ads: I guess as far as ads go… I only use them on my blog portion of the site, brides that read it are motivated to find out more about me and my style. In fact the brides that do read my blog tend to be easier to ‘close the deal’ since they have a deep understanding of who I am. As far as the ‘turn-off’ factor, that is a hard thing to measure. Maybe I can test for a few months w/ ads and a few months w/out ads…
Too Wordy: My site is too wordy on purpose, I don’t expect my brides to read all my site, I just want them to read what may interest them. If I don’t put it on my site, I am expecting them to assume they understand what I do.
I would not mind finding a great copywriter and paying him to reword my sales copy… But I think it does good, for an inexperienced copywriter…
Ooh shoot i just wrote a long comment and when i submitted it it come up blank! Please tell me it worked properly? I dont want to sumit it again if i dont have to! Either the blog glitced out or i am just stuipd, the latter doesnt surprise me lol.