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One of the commonly accepted website traffic theories is that visitors tend to come back 5 to 7 times before they buy.   I’ve also observed from my customers that the higher the price of your product or service the more times the website visitor may return before they buy. 

This 5 to 7 visit theory is reaffirmed in a recent SiteProNews.com blog post by Jimmie Leonguerrero in Advertising on How to Keep your Website Visitors Coming Back for More. 

Another blog post written by DJ in Website Conversion on the RiseToTheTop.Techwyse.com blog about a client case study his company recently did regarding Perfecting Your Sales Funnel  documents a 5 step visitor online sales process that they had observed.  

While working as a Business Coach and Internet Marketing Consultant I’ve observed that patience can be an issue with most Entrepreneurs.  So, to help my Small to Medium-sized Business (SMB) Internet Marketing customers understand this 7 step repeat website visitor behavior I’ve put together an illustrative, but theoretical model, as shown below, of this “Website Visitor Progression”.  Plus from my Internet Marketing consulting experience I’ve also made an attempt on this model to estimate the odds of closing website visitors at these 7 repeat visit stages. 

In the red zone or the first 3 “Looker” or “Be Back” stages, website visitors prefer to remain anonymous and are reluctant to provide any contact information.  It’s only when they have developed enough interest, trust and confidence in your products or services to enter the yellow zone that they will begin to respond to Calls to Action to become “Subscribers” but then I've found normally only to RSS Blog Feeds or email address only identifiers. 

So, it’s only at the Questioning stage 4 that website visitors become “Suspects” or “Leads” in the classical Sales Cycle sense and will provide limited contact information such as their first name or maybe still just an email address or phone number. Up until that point all you may have is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) address for these visitors.  So, stage 4 is the point at which offering contact forms, or letting visitors sign up to receive FREE white papers or opt-in newsletter subscription lists then using your Autoresponders and or Email Drip marketing campaigns kick in and keep the website visitors engaged and move them into the Pre-Qualification phase. 

In some cases, stage 5 could include the completion of a detailed “Contact Us” prospect form, Request for Proposal (RFP) or email inquiries that would lead to the hand-off from your online marketing to your “off-line” sales department. Using a fully integrated affordable eCommerce Content Management System (CMS) like the ones offered by  Full Partner with effortless conversion tools would allow you to let the website visitor continue to pre-qualify themselves 24/7 and conduct their own needs analysis to arrive at the buying decision and become a customer. This automated eCommerce CMS approach would allow your sales department to focus on only the prospects that need, want, and can afford your product or service.

So, if this 5 to 7 visit theory is realistic, as it appears to be, then it is even more critical that your website have the integrated ecommerce functionality and design to get the visitors attention on the first visit (normally in 8 seconds or less), create interest, build desire and the conviction that leads them to the point of taking action to contact or buy from you. 

Please post a comment here or feel free to ask any questions that you may have.

Dave Westfall is a Business Coach, Internet Marketing Consultant, Speaker and Trainer with DewPointe Ventures LLC.  You can reach him by email at: davewestfall@dewpointe.com.  Please check out Dave’s profile on www.linkedin.com/in/davewestfall or you can follow Dave on www.twitter.com/davewestfall.

All the best,

Dave Westfall, MBA

Categories: Business  |  Internet Marketing