Working the “Lead Funnel”: 4 Key Factors

Everyone talks about online leads. In the case of the Internet Marketing Specialist Designation or IMSD, they shout about leads from the rooftop. Their website has a really cool calculator that even forecasts the lead funnel. After I explain how the funnel works, I will give you the link so you can put in your website numbers and estimate your online business opportunities.

There are four components to the lead funnel:

1. Visitors
2. Leads
3. Conversion Percentage
4. Transactions

Lets talk about each one.

Absolute Unique Visitors
When the lead funnel talks about Website Visitors, what they are really talking about is a technical term for web visitors, Absolute Unique Visitors. An Absolute Unique Visitor is someone that is only counted once. If they come to your website 5 times a day, or 100 times a month, they are only counted as 1. With this understanding, 4800 website visitors equates to generating unique interest from 13 people a day that have never been to your website before.

The top of your sales funnel is really important to understand. That is your daily goal, and the results of all of your prospecting efforts. To get 13 people a day to your website, you need to have a fully flexed marketing plan – telemarketing 25 homes a day, flyers on listings, hosting open houses, print advertising, etc. You need to work it.

To find your current Absolute Visitors Per Day, look it up using your website analytics, like Google Analytics or call your web developer to check it out. I did take a look at a couple of sites and it looks like Absolute Unique Visitors is about ½ of overall visitor traffic.

Conversion Percentage
Your conversion percentage is the measure of the number of contacts that you get from your website. Using the IMSD standard, they expect that 10% or 1 in 10 visitors to your website will register, save a listing to favorites, save their search, inquire about a listing, request a showing, or something.

If you understand our calculation of Absolute Unique Visitors, you can pivot around that number to understand your conversion percentage. For example: If you are getting 1 lead a day from your website, then you are attracting at least 10 Absolute Unique Visitors a day. I just did the math backwards. This is a good sign that your marketing is working to attract new opportunities.

Not all websites are created equally. Some websites generate more leads and some generate fewer. Some websites generate poor quality leads and others generate excellent leads. Moreover, two exact websites in different parts of the country can have very different results. I have always believed that you should choose a website based upon customer service and training rather than cutting edge technology.

If you are not generating at least 1 new customer lead per day, then you need to fill the top of the sales funnel by doing more marketing and promotion of your site.

Conversion to Sales
Using the IMSD data, you should be converting 2.5% of all leads to a sale. In other words, you need to generate a little more than 1 lead a day to generate 40 leads per month. If you generate 40 leads per month, you should convert 1 sale per month.

Are you selling 1 property per month from your website? Chances are that you answered that question as a "No." Very few agents accomplish this.

Converting 2.5% of all of your leads means that 97.5% of the time, when someone registers to your website or inquires about a listing or does something that allows you to get their name and email address or phone number – they are not going to buy or sell a home with you.

97.5% failure rate is typically more than the average agent can handle. This is the primary cause of poor response percentages to online leads (1/2 are never responded to). Why should an agent bust their butt to respond to a lead within 1 minute when there is a 97.5% chance that it is a waste of time?

Here is my aspirational advice – focus on the 2.5%. Focus on the 1 deal per month. Focus on being the best and responding the fastest. Here is why:

Most agents fail to focus on always being accountable. If you are the 1 agent that does, and you are consistent – you will build your word of mouth brand over time. You build your reputation in baby steps – keep walking, keep building.

Check out the sales funnel calculator by clicking this link: http://www.imsd.net/lead-conversion-calculator.