Online leads – over the phone

As industrial marketers, it is important to understand that many leads generated from your website will not “show up” in your analytics. The nature of large industrial purchases mean that calling a company directly rather than submitting a form is more comfortable. Few B2B websites and industrial websites generate actual sales online, instead, purchases are made over the phone and even after face-to-face meetings with the company.

The challenge that the purchase behavior in the industrial marketplace presents is the tracking of those web to phone leads. Web to phone leads are ones in which a website visitor views an industrial company’s website, develops an interest, and makes a call. For companies that put money and effort into online marketing, determining which phone calls were precipitated online is key. A simple way to find out the origin of the lead, is to ask. The rep that receives the phone call should simply ask, how the customer found your website. I would suggest being as natural as possible when asking how the caller found your phone number though, to avoid sounding like a survey. Bring the question up within a relevant conversation. Maybe even ask if they found the website helpful or what their impressions were.

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