I’ve been thinking about our SMPS world clients lately. It’s been a tough year for them. A number of the brightest stars I’ve seen in years are looking for work now and many of my best clients are spread thinner than ever. There’s a misconception in the A/E/C world about the correlation between the company website and new business.

Two years ago we heard a lot of “We only get business from referrals” and my other favorite – “Our clients’ only need our website to get the phone number.”

This was frustrating at the time but within our client base *(who are more innovative, smarter, taller and better looking than folks that are not Silverscape clients) we found the curiosity and drive to innovate. The best question we helped our clients to ask was “Teach me to mine the best information from Google Analytics, understand what a lead is and coach me on how to put this info out to my business development team and firm leadership.” These folks still have jobs.

I often remind our SMPS marketing leaders of the SMPS Mission Statement: “The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) is a community of marketing and business development professionals working to secure profitable business relationships for their A/E/C companies.” Emphasis on Secure profitable business relationships.

If you want to know more about how to understand who is actually on your website, and you are responsible for the forward momentum of your firm at any level, you must become a Google Analytics GEEK. This is not the IT guy’s job. This is not the Webmaster’s job. This is Marketing’s Magic 8 Ball and most of you are not using it on a daily basis. This free tool offers hundreds of analytics. You will get an ice cream headache at first if you try to understand them all. At a minimum, drill into your referring site reports DAILY! This report tells you by domain who is on your site.

Example: Let’s say you see www.silverscape.com and there were 6 visitors. You’ve never done business with Silverscape but gosh you’ve been trying to for 3 years. You’ve mailed them literature, networked with them at events and bought them drinks at the golf outing. FINALLY on this random Tuesday in August there are SIX human beings looking at your site!? What!? Why? What does that mean? They’re LOOKING at you. They’re LOOKING at YOU! *Happy dance.* Now what? Get that info out to all of your Business Development folks. Call the Principals on the Golf Course. Somebody needs to get on the phone and call them and find out why six people were on your site. I suspect some prequalification for a project. What if they didn’t call you? At least you called them. You get what I’m implying now.

This is where YOU as Marketer, offering ACTIONABLE LEADS to your team become invaluable.

Ok bulletproof superhero, ask for Friday off now.

 

Seriously, interested in an A/E/C website that will pay for itself with actionable leads from a very nice firm that you would LOVE working with?  We’d love to hear from you.