Businesses from all industries are shifting much of their shopping experience attention from in-person to online. Marketing your business online in the virtual world is essential to stay on top of the game and compete against the onslaught of competition.
As a business owner or marketing manager, you can’t be left behind. If you want to expand your business share, you need to keep up and keep moving, because online commerce is an ever-changing environment.
Building an online presence is easier said than done, however. You have helpful products and tips to share, but your wares are useless if there’s no one buying anything.
There are many creative ways you can attract your potential client’s attention, but when it comes to business, it’s the follow-through that matters most. As such, how do you convert their interest into action?
The answer is simple: Leverage a proper marketing funnel.
The process of converting leads is about identifying and connecting with those who can use your products or services. Identify their interests, problems they want to solve, their behaviors, etc., and then create content that attracts them and makes it easy to buy from you.
A marketing funnel is a strategy that takes your potential customer through the journey from learning about your business to purchasing from you regularly.
Converting your target audience into customers may sound complicated and maybe even impossible, but don’t worry! Just make use of these three easy to remember strategies to improve your business’ capability of converting leads into customers.
There are three C's to this, and they are simple to remember:
Capture
Convert
Close
This is the critical first step where you identify and connect with people who have a problem that your product can solve or a goal that it will help them achieve.
Build a solid social media presence and think outside the box. Use graphics, videos, and images with engaging content that stay top of mind for people who matter most to your business. Include calls-to-action (CTAs) within those posts so you can increase conversions.
Create blog posts with detailed step-by-step solutions to everyday problems your customers might face, relate it with your business’ offers, and talk about how you can help. Make the content worth reading by adding eye-catching graphics.
SEO requires a lot of patience but will be well worth it in the end. Strive to create high-quality and engaging content that is proven worthy for both humans and search engine bots. This way, you will receive more traffic on your website, as well as increase sales.
Getting your target audience to know about you is the first step of many before they are willing to believe in your product or service. This means you must keep their attention by leveraging online tools that get them involved right from the start.
Create content that gets people excited about what you have to offer, but also keeps them engaged so they don’t forget about your products or services. The more leads you collect, the better your chances of closing sales later on. The process of converting leads is not an exact science, so adding a few things here and there may make all the difference.
Once they subscribe for more information about your product or service, email marketing is a must-have. Create a newsletter with content from the blog posts you wrote earlier on so their desire will grow further. Introduce new ideas and concepts, and send out offers from time to time to increase conversions, like discounts and coupons.
Do you remember those who looked at your website but didn’t buy anything? These leads are considered one of your greatest assets. Retarget them by placing ads on social media platforms that bring them back to your website so they can potentially purchase your products and/or subscribe.
When your leads are interested enough to read more about what you have to offer, leverage personal selling. Offer exclusive discounts on products or services if they subscribe to receive more information about them. You can even use pop-ups on your website to gain leads.
It takes time for new users to come in and become engaged, but if you keep showing them your promotional offers over and over again, and provide special discounts and promotions to incentivize buying, you’ll close more sales.
To increase conversions, you have to measure them. As soon as a potential customer ends up subscribing for more information about your company, this is called a "conversion" and should be measured, so future marketing strategies can be improved upon. From time to time, test different techniques as well as layouts so you know what works best.
A strong CTA will instantly boost sales conversion rates which means more visitors becoming buyers! The key here is to make your buttons look big, clear, attractive and most of all—clickable. Don’t make it invisible by making it blend with the background. Instead, use colors that are attention-grabbing to help your visitors find what they are looking for quickly.
Now, once you have snagged the close and made the sale, it's time for the magic. Here are two ideas for building relationships with customers:
Surprise and delight: Once a person has bought from you once or twice, you can start building on their relationship, so they come back for more. Offering personalized customer service, giving away free gifts, providing discount coupons on retargeting traffic, etc. can help retain customers after the sale.
Generate referrals: The last step of the process is to get your existing clients to refer others. It doesn't matter if you have just one client, they could refer up to three people or more, which would be your dream team.
Building relationships with customers can be achieved by sending them thank-you cards after the sale, offering customer loyalty programs, or even asking for their opinion on what you could do better next time. You’ll also want to reward them with discounts and coupons if they help promote you.
This process will take a little time, but it’ll be worth it when you see the great benefits happening in front of your eyes. So, don’t be afraid to start applying the 3 C’s into your business workflow. This magic combination is what has helped me grow my own business this far and I hope it helps you too!
John Lawson - Guest Contributor