Just a quick story!  If you try to get new leads or orders online, I have a quick story to share with you.  I think I’ve lost over $140,000 this year to date by having a really crappy cart conversion rate on my website: www.letsgobanners.com

For as much energy as I’ve put into Lets Go Banners as a business, utilizing all the “normal” marketing stuff (newspaper ads, direct sales, mailers, and internet organic search marketing,) I just realized I’ve lost at least $140,000 from January this year to now in lost cart conversions.

We started Lets Go Banners last year, and spent the first 120 days marketing and starting our website.  We were so “gung-ho” on starting our business, getting our website built, and getting traffic, leads, and sales, that we totally forgot to pay attention to some of the “basics,” which, again, in my estimation, cost our company over $100,000 in the first 8 months of 2009.

We operate Lets Go Banners from the Big Island of Hawaii, offering vinyl banners, pvc signs, car magnets, and a plethora of other digital printing and marketing/design services.
We hired several direct sales people and hit the ground running.

Over a year and a half later, we’re now trying to make sense of everything.  We managed to add over 400 new clients and healthy revenues, but in taking time to evaluate our web site conversion rates, we’re currently scoring a .004 cart conversion, and less than a .002 overall conversion rate.

This sucks.  Simply put, I don’t know what I’m doing as a web marketer.  But I’m learning.  After studying from my peers (I was a member of Stompernet.com) and spending time analyzing the situation, I’ve already put several practices in action to help the situation, which has already started to show production!

For starts, I studied Brad Fallon’s site (not sure if he still owns it?) www.myweddingfavors.com and learned a lot.  I got a sale online today (after about 4 hours of making some basic changes.)

So, if you’re doing the hard work, take a minute and reflect, learn, and try to improve!  It may help you make over $100,000 if you do it right.

Wish me luck,
Chris