Yea.  You read that right.  Don't.

     Call me crazy, but I see more sales lost by firms trying to drive people to their website than sales made.

     Strangely enough, I see more sales lost by firms who actually succeed in driving people to their website than sales made.  Here are about a dozen reasons why you shouldn't try to drive customers online and to your site.

     But before you accuse me of Internet bashing, let me first say how great the Internet is, what a wonderful resource it is, and how integral it is for lots of businesses.  It's great.  Moving on, there are tons of firms both making and saving thousands, millions and billions of dollars on the web.  But probably not you, at least not today, anyhow.  Here's why, and here's how to really make a sale and keep a customer.

     "64 Gig hard drive, 1024 megs of ram, 24 USB ports!"  Now that I have the attention of all you computer geeks, helloooo - not every body has a computer.  Maybe all your friends do, but maybe like yourself they all keep their pencils in their shirt pocket in a pocket protector that they got free from Computech, too.  But that doesn't mean everyone else does.  There are plenty of people who are Internet disabled.  Computer dysfunctional.  The technology challenged. There is life after the computer, you know.  I mean there's Fraiser, and Seinfeld re-runs, The Simpsons and Cat-Dog...

     OK, forget it.  I see you don't believe me.  So back to your own reality where, yes - everyone has a computer...  And you know, it seems like everybody has a website these days, too.  Funny thing, just a few years ago there were no websites.  And OhmyGod! There was no Internet!  (Wow, I remember that like it was just, oh, four or five years ago.  Am I getting old, or what?)  So? So point is, practically everyone who has a website created it in the last two or three years.

     Well, let me see - there are several million website designers, and say, a few hundred thousand good website designers... and, uh... ten thousand or so great website designers -- and over 800 million websites.  Hummm... do these figures work?

     In the grand scheme of website design, there are creative people who design websites, and then there are the others.  And there just ain't that many people that can create a great website.  Heck, there aren't that many people that can draw a stick figure, let alone design a website.  Even less folks who can write a coherent letter to their grandma, let alone write compelling, web-enabled, direct-selling copy to thousands.  So who made up most all of those web sites?  Answer: the others.  Which means... there's a lot of crap out there.  How long did you spend at that last site you were on?  How easy was it for you to navigate?  How easy was it for you to leave?

     Want me to be more specific?  How's your own website?  Ha ha, just kidding - I know your website is great.  It's only the other 800 million sites I've been talking about that stink. Really. No, trust me - I wasn't talking about your website...

     Look at most sites: poor construction, bad site architecture, lousy design, no apparent purpose, tough to navigate, not a hint of an offer or inducement to buy a product, and no, not even any useful information.

     Even if they have some good stuff, chances are it's buried in the clutter, 15 clicks deep.  So that's reason number 9: Chances are one out of 1,000 that your site is actually good enough to close an order from a cold prospect.  If you're one of the other 999, you've not only lost an order, you've lost your real chance to make a sale - and a friend - when you tried to drive your customer to your site instead of having him call you -- like he would have if you had asked him to. Maybe you've even lost a lifetime customer.

     When I create a direct marketing piece or a hard hitting direct selling ad, I ask people to call.  That's all I do - I construct the ad to generate a phone call.  I generally do not sell a product.  In all fairness, I do mention the product and show its features and benefits in an effort to qualify the caller, and if we get sales from that, it's certainly great.  But mainly I sell the call: "Just pick up the phone right now and...".  If a reader doesn't call I know one thing for sure - the ad failed.  Notice I didn't say if the reader didn't "buy", the ad failed.  There is a big difference.

     Here's an example.
 Suppose I own an ice cream store...! Hey, as long as I'm supposing: suppose I own a chain of ice cream stores......  OK, as a gentleman and a riverboat gambler I've just won the world's largest chain of ice cream stores from my arch enemy and evil Pokemon master, and all around nasty guy, Dan DuBois.  Now I'd like to create a little pick-me-up for our ice cream business. To increase our sales, branding, and consumer interest I've just created a fascinating new booklet, How we select our flavor of the month!, to excite our customers about our newest ice creams.  So I tell them in our ad, "Just pick up the phone and call us and get this fascinating FREE booklet, along with a FREE coupon." And place it in 14 magazines.

     Now look at you.  You own a small ice cream shop in Brooklyn.  You've created an ad to drive people to your site.  To attract new customers, you create a brochure,  How we select our flavor of the month!, but instead of telling customers to call you in your ad to get this free brochure, you tell them to look up your website at www.comeandgetyourice-cream_here.com./newmember/bklt, fill out a 2 page membership application so they can enter an exclusive member-only section of your site, then read it online, or if you must, you'll send to them.  Which do you think gets a better response?  I win here.  Which is easier to track?  OK, you've won here - you captured the customers names, both of them, while I had to write down hundreds of thousands of names by hand.

     So the rule here is - get a better response by making it easy to respond - and the easiest response (unless a customer is already sitting at his computer) is probably a phone call.

Reason #5

     Most people are trying to drive people to their site so hard, they forget one very important element: that's not actually the end of their campaign.  Your campaign ends when your customer makes a purchase, not just when they land at your site.  Your site has to actually close a sale.  You forgot too, didn't you?  Does your site close a sale on a cold prospect?

     You see, the end of my campaign - a good old fashioned direct marketing lead generation campaign - is when the customer calls.  That's right - they don't have to buy anything for my campaign to be successful.  When my phone rings, whatever ad I placed, or whatever vehicle I put in the mail to get people to call has met its requirement when it makes my phone ring! And to my complete satisfaction I might add. Now, it's up to ME to make the sale, or decide to send them our expensive "direct-selling" literature.  Quite a difference, n'est-ce pas?  In reality, if I can't sell them something live and in person, they sure as hell aren't going to buy it off a sheet of paper or a website.  I'm the closer.  And I'm really a pretty good closer.  Worst case scenario - I've qualified them tightly as a "viable prospect" or a "get back" (we'll get back to you on this.)

Reason Number 4

     The fact that everybody is trying to drive everybody else to their website, too, doesn't make it any easier for you.

     Listen-up here for a minute: you don't really think you're going to drive customers to your site, do you?  There are firms that spend millions of dollars trying to drive people to their sites, and they still have no luck.  What did you say your budget was?

     I mean, you've got TV ads with babies running across the world, dogs fetching, people yodeling, gophers being shot out of a cannon... And you want me to go to your site because you sent me a postcard?  Come on, pal - just TODAY I've already gotten 80 e­mails, 15 full color brochures, one pop-up, something in a red box I'm afraid to open, and a desk calendar that's good until 2009 filled with pictures of women wearing, well... not much.  And they're all from people who want me to visit their websites.

     If you own a small business and your budget is slim - it's even tougher.  I have people ask me all the time if I can drive traffic to their site (without much thought about what there is to do when they get there.)  And their budget?  Maybe $2,000, or $10,000, maybe $20,000.  Whatever. It's a lot of money to them.  But it's not a lot of money to drive the masses to their website.

Reason number 2

     The second reason not to drive people to your website is the conversion ratio of sales from "visitors" to "customers".  It's the banner theory all over again. Here's a typical web-enabled campaign:  We sent out 10,000 direct mail pieces, we had a 10% response - 1,000 people went to our site.  Nice number, eh?  Then we got a 1% order rate from that: let's see, 1% of 1,000 = 10 orders @ $59.00 each.  Hummmmm, bummer: cost of marketing, $5,000.  10 orders at...  Now, just how much better are your figures?

     Now, you've just got to ask yourself, "Once people are at my site, what is the percentage of people who buy, as opposed to people who just visit?"  With everyone else's site just a click away, how many people stopped to fill out your 2 page credit app? Or put their name in, only to have it crash when they entered the last two numbers of their credit card information.  I can order a shirt over the phone in about a minute and a half from the L.L. Bean catalog - but it takes me 15 minutes to type it all in at someone's website.  Think of how many times you've filled out the order form in a catalog as opposed to calling in your order and placing it on a charge card.  My guess would be 1 in 95. Eh?

     The real reason - the number one reason you shouldn't drive people to your website - is that you don't really know when you are successful in the rest of your marketing. It used to be you took out an ad or did a mailing, and the response made the phone ring, or you received orders in the mail.  You knew if your ad worked.  You knew if your direct mail piece drew a 1.487% response.  You tracked it.

     You tracked your results in any advertising, direct mail or direct marketing effort.  You knew just what worked, and what didn't. Then, you made adjustments. "These here magazines drew this much response.  This mailing package drew this.  This list made us money, this one lost it."  I used to say this aloud in my office to anyone who appeared even mildly interested, even if they were just feigning it.  Point is, at least I knew.

       Now, if you put your website address in your ad and tell readers to go there, you don't know if they do.  And that's why you shouldn't drive people to your site: because you don't know if your ad or direct mail is working.  There is no tracking.

     Suppose you took out four ads, and put your website address in them - then what?  Sure, you have a hit meter.  But you're not really sure what happened, are you?  People who used to call you for more information now go to your site.  Then what?  You don't know.  Did they really go to your site?  Did they get the information they needed and decide not to make a purchase?  Or did they get a lack of information, and decide not to purchase.  Was your price too high?  Was the color wrong?  Did they not buy because your shipping date was too far off, or your shipping expense was too high?

     Did they see something they didn't like? Did they find out too much?  Or did they get enough information to go somewhere else? Or... did they see just enough to just get lost in all the clutter you have on your site and decide, "I almost understand what these guys said, but whoa, almost time for lunch and I have 35 other sites to check out - I'm outta here."  And whoosh, in one click, one sight push of their index finger, and they're gone.  All you know is you never heard from them again. And you don't even know why. They're having a nice day... somewhere else.

     And I assure you they didn't take your brochure and leave it on their desktop, like they did mine.  Or put it in a reference file, or take it home and leave it in the bathroom so they could read it more thoroughly.  Because you didn't offer them a free brochure - you sent them to your website. And like a radio campaign, your website has no longevity: once they're gone, they're gone.

     Now that they're gone, who were they?  Do you know?  Did you capture their names and addresses?  Oh, I see - you got an e-mail address and you're going to send them an e-mail.  Hummm, did they really opt-in for you to send them an e-mail, or did they just leave you their name and address and you assumed they'd like to get your e-mail.  Never mind, they'll have forgotten by tomorrow either way, and your e-mail, along with the other 100 e-mails they got on that day, will be deleted in bulk.

     In the old days when your ad worked, people called.  You got to talk to people - imagine that!  Call me old fashioned, but I kinda liked that.  You could ask them if your price was to high, or what color they liked, or if they needed it right away.  You found out what your customers felt, what they wanted - their likes and dislikes.   That, my friend, was customer relationship management - not all the "CRM" junk you hear about today.

     Frankly, I don't want to be "customer-managed" by a computer program, no matter how good someone thinks it is. Hey, a personalized e-mail shouting my name in 8 spots is great, but is that really building in my loyalty to a firm.  No, I don't think so.  One-on-One Relationship Management?  Buzzword or not, I'd rather be able to talk to someone live and in the flesh when I have a question - and that's without being put on hold, thank you.  That's what my own firm offers for customer management.  The phone number for our firm rings on my desk, too.  I answer it.  When you call, I answer questions, then I say thanks for calling.

     Here's how to keep a customer for life.  You can keep your web based "Thank you!!!" and I don't care how many exclamation points you put after it.  If you want to thank someone, let them hear it from a person, not a program.  Write them a note, and sign it, put it in an envelope and stick a stamp on it - then they'll know you are sincere.  Think of the last time you received a thank you note.  Whoa, that long ago, huh?  But... you remembered.

     Want to thank someone?  Call.  A simple "Thanks" will do on the phone.  One word.  Is that so hard?  Is that so tough?  It is, though, how you keep a customer for life.  Try it - call up a customer and thank him.  See the response you get.  I don't think you can get that response off of your website or in an email.  That's the way to keep a customer for life.  Call him up and thank him, or send him a thank you letter.