The online traffic cycle covers the five important stages of an online marketing program:
Traffic in
There are a range of advertising options to get traffic into your site from the traditional offline models (print/radio/tv advertising, public relations, word of mouth) to the online advertising models (search engine optimisation, sponsored links, pay per click, Web PR, affiliate links, banners).
Traffic Through
Site conversions, sales messages, content management, online shopping, ecommerce.
Once you have received the right number of visitors to your site, and at the right price, the point is then to try to get as many of them to convert into the desired action (sales, enquiry, sign-ups, telephone call, brochure requests).
There are many ways to address this issue of site conversion. The most obvious methods are looking at the sales messages on your site, the calls to action, speed and navigation. But other important considerations for improving the conversion of traffic into sales are content management systems, shopping carts and ecommerce options. We have seen our clients' sites increase their site conversion from just a few percentage points (the industry standard is 1-3%) to stunning conversions of 15-30%.
Website Results
Depending on how you define your online marketing strategy and objectives, the success of the campaign will initially be measured by the number of enquires or sales generated. But there are other objectives that you might wish to achieve such as the number of telephone calls, newsletter sign ups, brochure requests or questionnaires completed.
Internal Procedures
Once your site has achieved its objectives, enquiries will need to be followed up and converted into sales, orders will need to be processed and delivered, brochures will need to be mailed out and tagged to follow up calls, subscriptions will need to be fulfilled.
This often forgotten link in the online marketing planning process is critical as, by identifying our client’s strengths and weaknesses in sales and lead processing, we will be able to advise on the types of advertising and traffic that we believe should be generated in the first place. Traffic that the client can convert more easily should always be the priority.
Relationship Building
Once we have gone through the process of turning traffic into leads and leads into sales, the emphasis is then to build a long term relationship with each client. We find that holding the client’s hand, giving without asking, offering free advice, delivering on promises, providing useful tips and other measures are far more effective in developing a strong relationship.
One of the most common tool sets for relationship marketing is that of your internal database of clients together with an ongoing program of HTML campaigns.
Strong and long terms relationships with your clients will deliver returning visits, repeat sales and develop word of mouth……all for free.
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Online Traffic Cycle 
