Ever since Pizza Hut's website let visitors order a pizza way back in 1994, companies have been trying to leverage the web to propel visitors through the sales cycle. It has never been more important than it is today for a company's website to facilitate sales to achieve revenue objective. Your website doesn't have to process a credit card to support the sales cycle; in fact, you can look upon your customer base as a potential audience for cross-sell and up-sell opportunities as Duncan Egan from Taleo achieved with the launch of the Customer Resource Center, this month's video testimonial.
If the goal is to increase revenue, your site should also drive prospects to well-defined and measurable outcomes that support some portion of these stages:
- Awareness
- Research
- Consideration
- Selection
- Purchase
- Fulfillment
It is important to understand which stages of the sales cycle your website does support and which phases it does not. With this knowledge you are on the path to developing web architecture, mapping content and designing transition strategies that optimize your website's ability to drive revenue growth.
This month's AtreNet TechNote, How to Optimize Your Website to Support the Sales Cycle , provides a step-by-step approach that can help you assess how well your website supports the sales cycle.
If you are interested in learning more about our web design and development services, please contact me at tushar@atre.net.
