By Ed Avis
The German reprographic association had a great idea last year – they created a program that uses Google AdWords to drive traffic to a website about scanning, and then generates bona fide customer leads for their members.
I learned about this program during their annual event in November 2023. Raoul Zardeninks, the group’s leader, told me the program was generating two or three leads each day. I decided we needed to try it here.
So we hired a consultant to create a website that emulated the Germany website, and we invested in Google AdWords to drive the traffic. I promoted the program to members and about a dozen signed up.
By last spring we launched the site and ad campaign and I started waiting for the leads to roll in….but they didn’t. The website got OK traffic, but nobody was filling out the inquiry form.
After a few months of nothingness, I spoke with Zardeninks again, and he explained that they employed a consultant to continuously tweak the ads and their website.
So we bit the bullet and did the same thing. The consultant we hired revised the website and created separate pages for each metropolitan area in which an IRgA member is registered. And he created separate Google AdWord campaigns for each area, so when someone from New York, for example, searches for scanning services and sees our ad, they click through to a site that says we offer scanning in New York specifically.
It worked. Suddenly, about two weeks ago, leads started flowing in. Now we’re getting one to three leads per day. I’ve been sending them out to the nearest member who registered for the program – one member in New York City has been getting the most, followed by a member in Southern California. But we’ve also delivered leads to members in Maryland, Chicago and Florida.
When I send a lead, I ask the member to tell me if it turns into a sale. The members have been a little slow in delivering this data, but with the limited data I have, it seems that there haven’t been many sales yet. Of the 23 leads we’ve delivered so far, one is a definite sale and four or five are in the proposal stage. For the rest, either I haven’t heard back from the member, or the member reported that the potential customer did not respond.
I spoke with Zardeninks earlier this week again, and he explained that one of his most successful members in their program reports that he tries to reply to leads within 5 minutes. He says that’s the key window – beyond 5 minutes and the customer is likely looking at other sites. So now I'm advising our members to respond ASAP when I send them a lead.
There is one major difference between the German program and ours – they require participating members to pay more dues. The extra dues are based on the size of the member. We are not requiring any extra payment yet, but the program does cost us a significant amount of money, so if the performance data looks good in the coming months, the IRgA Board may consider asking participants to contribute.
Stay tuned for more information about the success of this program. If you have not signed up for this program yet – and you have high quality scanning equipment – we invite you to do so. Click here for more information.