Let's get you there...

1. Reduce customer and lead acquisition costs

Every Web site visitor represents an opportunity to sell your products, services, and brand. Attracting Web site visitors also has a cost. Thinking like a retail store manager, your objective is to maximize the amount of purchases per wave of walk-ins measured against promotional cost.

For example, if your Web site normally encourages 5 inquiries for every 1,000 visitors and the cost to attract those visitors is $500, your cost per lead equals $100 ($500/5). However, if your Web site can encourage 50 inquiries for every 1,000 visitors and the traffic building cost is constant, your cost per lead will reduce to $10 ($500/50). This is by far the most profitable way to improve traffic building ROI and reduce company costs.

2. Reduce Web site maintenance costs

On a basic level, managers publish new content and make Web site changes one of two ways: They publish themselves or rely on a third party. Each method has a cost. Those who outsource might pay up to $100 per change or commit to a monthly maintenance agreement. At any rate, a company could spend several thousands of dollars per year to receive minimal support. That's not very profitable.

On the flip side, companies will take maintenance in-house and use Front Page or other HTML editors to make changes. This is a daunting task for non-technical managers and often creates new problems and programming errors. Aside from the cost of error correction, visitor dissatisfaction and lost acquisition opportunities, simple changes may take a non-techie several hours to complete and cost thousands per year in learning curves, salary, and lost time.

Instead of mastering the art of "do nothing,"" your objective should be to reduce the costs involved with maintaining your Web site. Investigate content management solutions. They will help streamline the publishing process and empower non-technical managers to add, delete and modify pages more accurately and in less time. A little more difficult to precisely quantify, but these solutions have definitely helped non-technical managers save time, money and sanity.

3. Reduce prospecting costs

Direct mail, telemarketing, email list renting, tradeshows, networking, television, radio and display advertising all have salary and other hard dollar costs. Additionally, each channel is a crapshoot.

Marketers expect only a 1-3% return rate because they know not all recipients during release will be in the market to buy. They increase spending on new campaigns, broaden reach and increase frequency in hopes of pulling more into their buying cycle.

Is this a waste of money? No, but there's a much more economical way to achieve similar results.

Your Web site objective should be to reduce traditional prospecting costs through search engine optimization. Optimize individual Web pages around relevant and targeted search phrases commonly used by your potential customers.

For example, if someone uses the phrase, "dentists in Chicago," there's a near 100% chance that that someone is in the market to purchase dental services and most likely lives near Chicago. Can you ask for anything more timely and targeted? Remember, your Web site must then present a compelling case to convert that visitor into a qualified sales lead.

4. Reduce call center volume

"Does it include a warrantee?" "What's your return policy?" "Is your software compatible with my operating system?" "Do I get fries with that?"

Companies waste thousands of dollars each week addressing common questions over the phone that can be answered online. One of the easiest ways to reduce this cost with your Web site is to resolve these concerns as they originate. When done correctly, it also helps influence your prospect's decision to buy.

By no means do I recommend you abandon phone support or customer service. I merely suggest you take a proactive approach and address common concerns with your Web site to free up the phone lines for more critical questions.

5. Reduce sales cycle time

The uniqueness, complexity, and investment size (or cost) typically dictates the amount of education time needed to close a sale. Consequently, as these variables go up, so does your sales cycle time.

Most service industry cycles conclude with human interaction, but that doesn't mean a Web site can't make the sale easier or expedite the process. Your Web site should help educate prospects, overcome their objections, influence their buying decision, persuade them through purchase, and ultimately shorten the "lead to close" timeframe.

6. Reduce time (and success) to market

Time to market is loosely defined as the length of time required to move a product or service from concept to marketplace. During the concept stage, it's important to determine whether or not the offering is viable.

If you learn nobody will buy your new mousetrap, cut your losses, swallow your pride, and move on. Sure, pulling the plug on a "great idea" is easier said than done, but you can always try again next year. If you learn prospects want your McSuper mousetrap with cheese, find out why. Qualitative research is key.

Your Web site should help collect the answers you need, fine-tune your marketing message, start a dialog with customers, and prime the group for launch.

7. Reduce obsolete and excess inventory

Selling multiple products online can be quite costly, especially when your fulfillment center and warehousing costs eat away at profit margin. Use your Web site to bring down high inventory levels.

Look to traditional retail store management and merchandising strategies for guidance. For decades, storeowners have perfected clearance sales, end of season promotions, two-for-one bargains, and free add-ons to quickly lower unwanted inventory levels.

If you're not willing to reduce price or slim profit margin, use your Web site to exploit these items. Place advertisements on your own high traffic pages and manipulate your on-site search utility. Ever wonder why retail outlets place merchandise upfront or way in the back? You can implement these same strategies online. Be creative and study the past to better understand the present.

Best of all, your Web site is measurable. You will quickly learn the strategies and tactics that work best by measuring effectiveness at the micro-level.

About The Author
This article was written by Rick Costello, The Web Site Profit Doctor.