Dr Edward Nugent says the internet is your friend not foe for finding customers

We are all well aware the internet is affecting all of us in the KBB Sector. Used the right way it is something to be embraced rather than scorned by those in the trade and the sooner the better. The starting point is always who is your customer and where do you find them? I deliberately state where do you find them as this is a key part of your business.

If you wait for customers to find you, you can be in real trouble for two reasons:

1. Waiting for good customers to call you or drop into your showroom is usually hit or miss

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2. You have little control on who walks into your business. We all know who are our best and nightmare customers.

If you start using the internet to your advantage you can take much more control of your retail business. Those who do will start to capitalise on the fact between 80-90% of kitchen buyers search online before visiting a showroom. The trick for the retailer is to decide who you want as your customers and then align to this. You do not want to be busy and not making the money you deserve or not enjoying it.

Your website plays an important role and looking pretty is not its primary role, no matter what the web designer tells you.

There are three important factors in generating the right leads from your website:

1. Your advertisement and the webpage your visitors go to must relate to the visitor. If you are selling to self-builders speak their language and offer them something they will value. Remember this is not about you or even your product at this stage that comes later.

2. Have an offer to entice a visitor to engage with you i.e. to call or request information from you. Ask yourself this, and bear in mind the person is just starting their search for a new kitchen; how does your brochure show you are interested in helping the customer?

3. Make it easy for the visitor to interact with you. This is often as simple as having an easy to use form. Even more importantly, make it easy for the visitor to find the form. If visitors have to look for the form you are certainly losing out. I find about 50-100% increase in leads by having a form on all web pages I want the visitor to interact with.

Providing quality information is almost always much more valuable at this stage than anything else to show a lead you are someone they should consider. It will also help to position you in a different light to your competitors which will lead to a high conversion of leads to customers as well as better customers and margins, more on this next time.

Nothing of the above is complicated, just takes a bit of effort. The good news for kitchen retailers is there are only a handful doing this well, today, so by starting now you can really take advantage.

This article is taken from the forthcoming book Online Marketing – A Kitchen Retailers Guide by Dr Edward Nugent.