May is a funny month in the calendar for most of us. Littered with Bank Holidays at the start and the end of the month, plus the addition of school holidays for most of the UK’s kids, it certainly throws the normal business patterns out of the window. For most it’s an annoyance. Just as we’re getting into the meaty part of the year, along comes May with it’s days off and alternative school patterns to throw a spanner in the works. Still, we all try and make the most of what we’ve got and I think we all muddled through fairly well.
Leads Down A Touch
As you would expect with any Bank Holiday month, leads have been down a little compared to previous months. It’s not been dead in the office by any means, but the general rushing about because you’re slightly behind on quotes died down a little. Perhaps not a bad thing though. We’ve managed to get fairly up to date on our paperwork which we haven’t managed to do in a while which has then allowed to focus on other areas of our business such as the website and maintenance on our building which has needed some TLC.
As far as the national picture goes, I’ve seen conflicting reports. Some appear to have remained busy on the leads front whilst some have also seen a bit of a drop in activity as kids taken centre stage at home.
Either way, this is a pattern I think most expect during May. Back to normal in June I hope!
Sales Still Good
One pattern that remained very much the same was good sales levels. May for us, marked the fifth month in a row in which we beat our monthly target. Naturally, as we get later on into the year, our targets become higher as we expect business to become stronger through the middle months of the year. To have 5 months in a row in which monthly targets have been beaten demonstrates to me at least that the buying public is once again feeling confident and that our business and the products we sell stand us in good stead to make the most of the recovery we now find ourselves in.
The months of June, July, August and September see some of our highest monthly targets as we expect business to become even busier. Luckily, we are trading at around 8 week in front of schedule so this gives us a nice buffer should things go south a little. However all being well, signs are pointing a strong June, with hopefully a sixth month’s target beaten.
Again on a national level, sales levels appear to be very positive. As a result I am seeing a rising number of tweets advertising for positions within businesses. It’s great to see companies recognising the need to invest in people to sustain a positive and profitable recovery.
DGB 4.0
May was also the month in which I finally updated DGB 3.0 to the version you see now. After a few setbacks with themes and design dilemmas, I finally plumbed for this one. I am going to do a more detailed post about the changes that have occurred since the website change, but very briefly I can say that there has been some massive changes since the site change.
DGB is regularly hitting over 1000 page views per day. Probably down to the way the home page now shows much more content than previous versions. So far my record in 1243 page views in one day, with my current daily average set to take me past 250,000 pages views in one year for the first time ever.
Visitors have stayed steady, although they have dipped slightly which has always happened at this time of year so no change there. But one of the biggest changes has been the bounce rate of this site. A bounce rate measures the amount of people that leave a site as soon as they have landed on it. My bounce rate since the site change is now just 6.60%, which is a massive reduction given that DGB used to hit over 65% regularly. My lowest day so far is a bounce rate of just 0.75%. But what does this all mean? Well it means that the site is now attracting far more of the right traffic and visitors than ever before. Key if the site is to continue to grow and expand.
Overall
Overall, May was a good month. Really busy on one front, whilst activity was a bit dialed down on the other. Here’s to a stonking June with plenty of sun, sales and oh of course, the small matter of the FiT Show to attend to!
All comments and thoughts from you guys on how May was for you are very much welcome in the section below.
