[Neil Williams]

Well I've been trying an idea I saw on here about get a free carpet clean with a suite clean. Makes quite a bit of sense as we would already be in the house with everything already set up so to speak.
3 weeks in with an average of 50 web site hits per week we've had.........zero requests for it, and I'm not sure if it even puts people off contacting us at all, as the everyday general enquiries have nose dived suspiciously too.

Any thoughts or experiences?

[clinton]

Niel

I have had that on my leaflet and having spoken to another c cleaner we were just thinking trhe same thing.

I just dont fancy this offer for myself to use on the web sites and my new one

Maybe it will suit others

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Neil,

Firstly it assumes someone wants both but  more importantly I would think , nothing is for free so he must be loading the suite price.

I don't do any gimmicks , a competitor of mine Ian Harper, who is on here has more gimmicks than you can shake a stick at.

It's personal choice .

Cheers

Doug

[Mike Halliday]

I use that offer on my leaflets, perhaps we need to look at the difference between a customer from a leaflet and a customer from a website.

some one who goes to your website has already decided they want thier carpet or suite cleaning they don't need a special offer to convince them

but someone who picks up a leaflet of the doorstep might never have thought about it, so a special offer might entice them to have some cleaning done.

special offers on website need to convince the customer to have additional work done, not the work that has prompted them to look at your website in the first place,  

just my opinion.

[Neil Williams]

This is what I was thinking of. You don't get anything for nothing, and if i think that I believe possible customers will do as well.
So I'll change the web site later and go back to basics, but it had to be tried to see if it would work.

[Mike Osbourne]

Neil

Are you getting 50 web visitors or is that clicks on the offer?

Unfortunately you may well find the ratio from visitors to callers very high. I would home in on the problem and maybe lack of traffic is the problem rather than attractiveness of any one offer. which is a conversion issue.

Are you saying that your previous website yeilded a lot of call from 50 visitors?

[Mike Halliday]

Boots the chemist do 3 for 2.  Morrisons supermarket are advertising half price Heinz ketchup ( or did they just double the price before? )

on the news last week there was a car dealer offer buy saloon car get a city car for free are they adding the cost onto the other car?

look up at the top of this page, are  Express cleaning really giving 65% of gum remover or did they add 65% onto the price to start with.

people do believe in special offers other wise all the companies who know more about marketing than we do wouldn't use them.

[clinton]

Niel

Am sure you could always switch things around again.

Am having no offers like that on my new site

[Shaun_Ashmore]

You are right the offer doesn't work on websites but package selling does, but contact details and profile works even better.

Shaun

[Neil Williams]

Are you getting 50 web visitors or is that clicks on the offer?
Are you saying that your previous website yeilded a lot of call from 50 visitors?

It's been on average about 50 site visits per week since probably November. I have no idea about how many are repeat visits etc just that 50 hits are counted per week. Now prior to this offer we would get around 3 phone calls per day (I always checked where they got the number from and what they put into the search engine). How many were converted to jobs doesn't matter at this stage.
Since putting the OFFER on the front page the visit numbers have stayed the same whilst conversion to phone calls has died a death. Coincidence or is something else at play?

The web site is the same and has been for about 2 years. I can tamper with it at will because it's templates and no need to learn html and all that.

[Mike Halliday]

Neil I've just looked at your website and I think it is the placement of the special offer, its the main headline of your home page,

I'd let your website sell your company then let the special offer just clinch the deal. I think at the moment it does cheapen your company & website

[Mike Osbourne]

Neil

For now then, get it back to how it was quick. 3 calls a day is a lot to lose. Do you know whether it has slipped in the rankings fro the phrases they normally search on?

[Neil Williams]

Do you know whether it has slipped in the rankings fro the phrases they normally search on?

From my own tests I'd say no.
We're the first name on the google local business results.
Our (main) own web site always stays on page 1 or 2
My other lesser web sites are doted around pages 1 to 5

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Neil, I have found my interenet enquiries have held up well , so chances are your offer has backfired.

Mike has a point about the predominance of the offer, it sort of takes over.

Easy to revert back and see what happens, another beauty of the internet.

Cheers

Doug

[Neil Williams]

I've totally removed the offer now.
I've also just looked at the stats facility and over last week it shows an average of 40 unique visits per day 
When I take out the visits from people on various forums and only count those from search engines the average would be about 30 per day.
Which makes it even more imperative for them to take the next step.

[Neil Grainger]

Neil

Works well on my site, but the neighbour special is doing really well.

Cheers

Neil

[spencer davies]

A large quantity of your visits will be from bots or scammers from Africa etc. We don't use offers and two for one deals, because I think it looks cheap- imo.

S

[Neil Williams]

Like I said, an average of 40 hits per day and then looked through the other stats which tell which search engine it came from, how many are bots, which country it came from etc
What did remain constant until I put that offer on there were the 3 phone messages left, and no doubt I will have missed some who didn't leave a message.

[Neil Williams]

I think the answer speaks for itself.
I have already taken the offer off the web site, but as mentioned before, using them on fliers is a different storey.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Neil I think leaflets make people buy now where as websites are more of a brochure building confidence in your service.

Web specials are great when buying more affordable products in multiples and also if you are selling something cheap but when you are offering a more expensive service they offer the wrong ideas of you.

I have loads of ideas to change mine but getting round to it is difficult because I'm always on here!!

Shaun