I have always worked under the assumption that any type of business can generate sales leads or online sales if they have a service or product that is in demand. I have often had people tell me their type of business that can’t get sales or leads from their website. If they are open to trying, we have always had success. I do always make sure there is a demand for what they are selling before I allow them to go ahead.
I remember one of my early business consulting clients back in 2003.  We were discussing strategies to grow their sales. I suggested marketing using their website. The owner, Jeff Knapp told me that they had a website for years and they had never received a new client, a lead or even a phone call from their website.  He reasoned that his type of business just wasn’t searched for on the web.
Industrial Craters and Packers provided crating services for industrial customers. At the time they were the oldest and largest crating company in the Portland, Oregon area. Â They produced thousands of creates each year for companies moving machinery and equipment as they moved or shut down manufacturing plants.
Jeff was confident that these businesses would not search online for crates. At the same time, he knew I was getting business consulting clients through my website. He agreed to let me analyze his website and come up with a plan of action.
What I found was puzzling at first. They had a pretty good size website and yet they had no presence on Google. On closer inspection, I discovered the problem. They had absolutely no text on their website. The web designer had created all the text in graphic images…  So they only had pictures of text which Google could not read. So there was no way for Google to know what they did.
Step one was to replace the images with the actual text. We applied keywords and search engine optimization without making any other changes. This took about 2 weeks to do. Within a month Jeff gave me a call excited that they received their first customer from the web.
The stream of leads grew to about 2 per week. We then did a complete website redesign with expanded descriptions of products and services. The leads for jobs grew to 3-4 per week and accounted for their primary source for new customers. Jeff became a believer in Internet marketing to generate sales leads.
See the video below from Jeff Knapp in 2010 after he sold his company to a larger national crating company.
When I hear from a prospect that their business doesn’t generate sales leads from the web, I look to see if something is preventing it. Almost always there is something that is causing the problem.
If you need to enhance your internet sales lead generation, get in touch to discuss how we can help you.