The Curse of Unfocused Thinking

19 August, 2014
The Curse of Unfocused Thinking

I don’t know about you, but I always feel disorganized if I don’t have an actual physical representation or a written note to focus my mind.

Something that reminds me of those things I’m working on, or what I have to do. I might need that non-digital prompting many times or it’s simply forgotten.

You know how it is… some other priority comes into view and the first project stays half-finished.

The trouble is it isn’t just one half-finished project that gets put to one side and the cumulative effect of these half-projects can be very disturbing.

Your brain starts to spin around in circles because you feel there is absolutely too much to do.

Your brain pops from one thing to the next thing, to the next thing, to the next thing…

Finally, in an effort to gain an immediate sense of accomplishing at least one thing, you start doing something that’s less important, but quick to achieve.

Narrow It Down

In the same way, it’s possible to make lead generation a bigger challenge than it really is.

I often meet clients who have visitors coming to their website who have found their company through a variety of highly targeted keywords, but the site is missing a critical ingredient. Simplicity.

For example, there is a “click here” button on every page of the site with a different message, such as, “Click here to contact a sales representative”, “Click here for any questions you may have” or “Click here to set up an appointment with one of our skilled technicians.”

I have found over the years that if there is something you want your audience to do when they arrive on your website, repeat that same message everywhere.

We can’t assume that a visitor is going to look through the entire website to find the appropriate link when they’ve made the decision to contact you.

Or that they are going to take a specific action when they reach the end of the page of some enlightening information.

Ubiquitous and Focused

So, prompting them is key and you can do that by developing a nice graphic that is carried site wide in the same place on the page.

Decide on an appropriate place for the same message throughout the site (on the footer of pages, at the end of articles, at the bottom of product pages, to the right or to the left).

Your visitors will then be familiar with one simple “contact us” link which funnels all those people back to a place where they can take your most desired action.

Of course, you have to decide what that action is and give them various options at this point.

If it’s an appointment they are looking for, you can send them to a form where they can fill out an appointment request or a sales person contact.

If they want to request additional materials or information, the form will ask them to enter their details so they can be followed up on.

Simply by delivering the same message on that link helps the customer to focus on one simple action that seems easy to do.

So, it can really be as simple as just asking for the lead and asking often. So many people forget to do that.

About Jason Lexell

Jason is the founder of Digital Harvest. He’s spent nearly 2 decades helping companies to develop a competitive advantage online. During that time he’s worked with software firms, industrial distributors, service companies, attorneys, physicians and other professionals to grow using the web. His passion is helping companies to better leverage the web as a tool to fuel new customer acquisition and profitability.

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