Scotty – like you said this issue has been around a long time. As I shared in http://bryaneisenberg.com/2011/05/we-convert-or-else-are-we-still-struggling-to-be-creative/

I have read it a dozen times, shaking my head each time. It is truly remarkable how he could have been writing about Adwords not direct mail.

I also believe that new business owners in the online world often times look beyond the mark. They want crafty design, they want traffic, they want placement at the top of Google – but it’s not very often that they talk about conversion. It’s like their afraid to even go there.

A nice looking site may help with sales, but it’s not the end all cure all answer. Rankings at the top of Google for what I call “Browser Phrases” won’t get you sales either.

Thanks for this great reminder about the importance of sales in a business person’s online “marketing” efforts.

While the Inbound Call Center was the darling intake method for leads back in 1980, rather than the Web form / Web Sales Funnel, the result was the same. We generated leads hand over fist using TV back then, and in fact greatly improved the client’s Cost Per Lead Metric by 300% (We cut their lead cost from $100 to $25) by simply paying attention to Good Marketing Basics (101 stuff). The Client was estactic and I was a hero. I told them… NOT SO FAST…. we haven’t closed the loop (sale) yet on the back end. The fast and hard influx of Leads was enough to make the founder of this Land Development company invest heavily in TV. That was the Good news. The bad news… Indeed I was right. This tremendous improvement in the Cost Per Lead had nothing to do with lowering their customer acquisition cost or Cost per Sale or Sales at all! In fact, the influx of leads into the pipeline from TV in greater numbers than their small sales team could begin to handle, meant only a slight improvement to Cost Per Sale. I’ll spare you the details but their conversion rates actually dropped slightly because leads were so plentiful and the sales team got fot, dumb and happy. Ownership of the company took NO responsibility or interest in the Actual Lead to Sales conversion process and the analysis I had prepared to show the true impact of their very first TV campaign under my direction. Fast Forward to today, that client is now a MUCH LARGER Client and our Media buys have expaned from Traditional Media to many marketing tools in the New Media Tool box. However, with the exception of automation and technology enabled marketing, not much has changed. My client is still enamored with our ability to generate leads lead leads. Ownership and Upper Management give the Sales Managers in the field way too much autonomy and flexibility in Converting Sales and not enough Accountability to the Sales Conversion process. Thank god the Leads are still flowing . That part is still easy as the client does leave us to do what we do best, generate leads. In the meantime, I have come to accept that as a Direct Response Marketer I am not only in the LEad Generation business, but out of necessity in the Land Sales business as we continue to help our client find ways to improve their conversion process (shout out to Salesforce.com).

This comment proves the point. So sad.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s essential and people don’t seem to understand the difference between having a 1% rate of conversions and a 2%. It’s freaking double the revenue! And this just by doing some fine tuning.

But the thing is that there isn’t really that much to be done to work full time on this aspect (at least in-house). Instead, having an SEO or PPC Manager that knows CRO is a win.

I am not sure it is as simple as that Jeanne. However, video is great at conveying complex ideas better than words alone can so it can be incredibly powerful.

To this day I recommend every one read Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins if they want to be in the testing field and that book is almost 100 years old.