Customer relationships need to be nurtured as they play a vital role in the success of a business. Companies should work towards the enhancement of customer relationships. Here are a few tips on how you can deepen the customer relationships:
Continue reading “Top 4 strategies to deepen customer relationships like never before”
Customer retention basically means customers of the product or business tend to return to, continue to buy or in some other way not defect to another product or business, or to non-use entirely. Selling organizations fear customer defections and hence try to minimize them by employing effective strategies to retain the customers.
Researchers have proved that acquiring new customers cost more than retaining the existing ones. Moreover, customer retention is directly proportional to profitability. So, companies need to implement certain customer retention strategies so as to grow their business. Here are the best strategies to curb customer defection and develop long-term relationships:
Continue reading “Customer retention: Top 5 tips to keep your customers interested in you”
In a typical situation, customer queries are addressed when they arise. Though an instant query resolution would make them happy this reactive approach may not provide you with the desired customer satisfaction level. So, a better option for an inflated customer contentment rate is the “proactive approach”.Now, what exactly is a proactive approach? Well, it means, you solve problems before customers have to call you. With a proactive customer support, you can solve customer queries even before they become aware of them. Let’s see how you can accomplish this highly efficacious strategy.
Continue reading “Proactive customer support: All you need to know about it today”
By now all of you are quite familiar with co- browse technology. Apart from being a great tool for the success of a website, it offers a number of benefits to the companies and sites inculcating this technology. Some of those benefits have been mentioned below:
1. It improves support accuracy:
Co- browse technology helps to improve support accuracy by seeing exactly what the customer is seeing. Through screen sharing you can actually see what steps he is taking, what errors he is getting, reasons responsible for that error and more. Co- browsing helps ensure complete resolution as you’ll be solving the issue together with your customer.
2. Higher conversion rate:
Co-browsing lets the agents have a look at the customer’s browser tab to guide them through your website and support them with the buying process. Resolving purchase related queries during this process helps clarify their purchasing decision which results in higher conversion rates and thus higher revenue per call.
3. Increased customer contentment:
The attention span of visitors is very short and so is their patience level when they are online. So, they appreciate being helped quickly and efficiently, and having their issues resolved instantly. Most communications channels available show that customers demand fast fixes for their problems. Co- browsing is one such technology that can be used to provide quick fixes to customers’ problems. Companies can successfully meet their customers’ expectations by using such services that provide fast customer service.
4. Reduction in call handling time:
Another advantage or benefit that co- browsing offers is the reduction in call-handling time. This further increases agent utilization and reduces costs. Co- browsing involves sharing screen space online and being able to have a look at the customer’s screen which results in more involved and motivated agents. In other words, this technology actually helps to shave off all the time spent articulating what is on the screen, what the customer did previously, and what the customer should do next as it makes chats and calls more efficacious.
1.Add comparison pages to your website:
This is a clever strategy for increasing your conversion rate. According to a research, people compare among providers before purchasing. So, you can benefit your site by adding product comparison pages to it. This will help increase peoples’ attention span and keep people from leaving your website. The most common way of doing this is using comparison tables. Spec based comparisons can be made using these tables or by employing other creative ideas. In case some of the specs related to your products are lower than that of your competitors’, do not hesitate to admit it. It may be possible that your support is way better or you provide personal consulting or something else. Admitting your shortcomings makes it easy for the people to trust you.
2. Slow down the persuasion process:
The biggest mistake one can make to hinder the conversion rate is asking for the sale too fast. There is a possibility that people might be just browsing and won’t be in a hurry to buy right now. So, what you need to do is, slow down. You can offer value and results in advance, way before asking for the sale. Become their trusted advisor and give them a compelling reason to sign up to your email list.
3. Strive for risk reduction:
There’s always a risk related to a transaction and if the risk seems to be big, the purchase won’t take place. In order to eliminate the risk involved in a purchase, offer guarantees to your consumers. There are a number of ways risk reduction can be achieved. 30-day money-back guarantee is one of the industry standards that you should offer. You can even offer something better than that.
1.Exemption of customer hesitation:
It is very important to exempt ay kind of consumer hesitation related to the offers you provide in order to increase your conversion rate. People will have conscious and subconscious objections to what you’re saying about your products and offers. You need to address all their concerns and convince them as to why they should avail your services or buy your products. The most suitable technique is to prevent all those hesitations by addressing all the possible issues in your sales copy right away. For this, you have to create a list of all the possible hesitations and objections your potential customers might have and then add information to your sales copy to eliminate those concerns. You can convince people to buy from you by explaining the problems solved by your products, showing off your credentials and proving the value your product offers.
2. Provide clarity in your content:
Your content should have clarity in the sense that it should be understandable not only to the people related to the marketplace you deal in but also to other people. The basic idea is that you shouldn’t aim to write for companies but for people. While creating content or explaining about the products and services that you provide, imagine that you are explaining it to your close friend. This is the best method to inculcate clarity in your content.
3. Craft proper value proposition:
A value proposition is the primary reason for a prospect buying from you. It actually requires you to showcase what is unique about your company, your products, and services. Moreover, it must be communicated effectively to achieve optimal results. All you need to do is to refine your value proposition until you can articulate it in a single, instantly credible sentence. Conversion rate optimization can be enhanced further by optimizing value proposition that involves identifying, expressing, and testing/measuring. This can be achieved using A/B testing.
1. Provide proper product description:
A proper product description includes a bunch of bullet points with features along with the price. It means adding as much information about them as possible. The best kind of product descriptions includes adding pictures, videos, reviews to all of your products.
2. Ease down your process of buying from you:
An easy buying process is very crucial to increase conversion rate. The basic idea is to make sure that people should not try to figure out how to buy from you or where to click. It should include as few clicks as possible. Always guide the user towards the action you want them to take. In case you have a lot of products, build better filters, so your prospects could identify the right one for them without spending too much time. In order to ease down the process further, ask to fill as few fields as possible and avoid asking irrelevant questions. Most importantly, do not force users to sign up in order to buy. According to the story of the “300 million dollar button” the main point for increasing conversion rate is to avoid forcing people to sign up as a user in order to buy from you. Let them check out as a guest and you will notice that it will make a world of difference.
3. Make the most of videos:
As a matter of fact, videos can improve conversions when used properly. But you also need to know that not all site visitors will have access to your videos as certain video players are not licensed on Apple devices, so, Flash video content won’t normally load for users with an iPhone or iPad. Moreover, depending on your industry and target demographic, the exact number of visitors could be more or less, with increased mobile use among younger consumers.
1. Create urgency through scarcity:
You can employ a number of techniques in order to achieve a high conversion rate. Creating urgency through scarcity is an efficacious tactic of doing so. You can create scarcity in the following two ways:
i) quantity-related scarcity:
This type of scarcity is created by telling visitors that a particular number of seats are left at a mentioned price.
ii) time-related scarcity:
In this type of scarcity, there is a time constraint for buying a particular item, such as the ones titled as ” One day left” and more.
In case of endless product supply, you can give out time-sensitive bonuses, a free gift to first a particular number of buyers or a discount if they complete the purchase within a specified time frame. So, these are the ways of creating urgency through scarcity. All you need to keep in mind is that the reason for scarcity has to be authentic. People will know if it’s a fake scarcity. This can prove to be harmful your reputation.
2. Make your call to action prominently visible:
Call to action refers to something that asks users to convert. It may vary from a landing page for your product to a form for users to use to sign up for an email list. Your call to action can be present in any form but the only condition for its success is that it should be prominently visible. You need to make it stand out with an enticing design or use it as a relevant and engaging pop up after a user sits idle on your site. You may actually include it near the top of every page, or link to a call to action on nearly every page of your site.
3. Minimize everything that is irrelevant:
Once you have made your call to action prominent, you would want people to focus on a single action and not be distracted from it. As a matter of fact, the more visual inputs and action options your visitors has to process, the less likely they tend to convert. Therefore, you should consider minimizing distractions like unnecessary product options, links and extraneous information will increase the conversion rate.
1. Provide transparency:
Today’s consumers know when you’re being transparent and when you’re covering up for a defect with colorful or manipulative language. So, if you wish to increase your conversion rate, instead of trying to sugar coat things to sell your product, be straightforward about it. Mention precise, honest bullet points about the uniqueness and advantages of your product. The more honest and upfront you are, the better the transparency that you provide to your customers and higher the level of their trust in you.
2. Develop trust:
Once you provide transparency to your customers you have already developed some amount trust in your customers. Another means of increasing website credibility is by providing third-party support which includes citations, testimonials, articles in well-known publications, source material etc for the information you present, especially if you link to this evidence. This is a way of showing confidence in your material. Further listing a physical address, posting a photo of your offices or listing a membership with the chamber of commerce, making your contact information clear are some other techniques of increasing website credibility. Moreover, you can make your site easy to use by avoiding ads on your site. If you must have ads, clearly distinguish the sponsored content from your own. Also, try to keep your site fast, up and running.
3. Keep it simple and enticing at the same time:
Researchers have proved that sight is the strongest sense, so, instead of writing about your product, include a video or image-based demonstration of what it is and how it works. Visuals always make it easier to sell, so, leverage the power of visuals to increase your sales. But you need to avoid aggressive popup ads, flashing lights, or tons of exclamation points to make a good case for conversion. These things may drive the users away. You need to know that the simpler your design and offers are, the more likely your customers will be willing to convert.
In our previous post, we shared the importance of conversion rate optimization and how it affects your value for your partners and affiliates. So, now you know how beneficial CRO is for any business or site. So, here we are with some tips and tricks that can prove to be helpful in increasing your conversion rate:
1. Competitor analysis:
You need to literally monitor your competitors and every time you go to your competitors and you notice something different, memorize it. Simply explore what your competitors are doing that you are not, what strategies they are using that you are missing out. Consistent monitoring will give you some ideas that you can test on your site. In the most favorable condition, it might help you spot a weakness in their product or approach that you can capitalize on.
2. Target the right keywords:
It becomes quite annoying if people are searching for something and they land on a page that has got nothing to do with their search term. In order to avoid this, you need to make sure you are using support keywords within your content as well that help the search engines to be sure of what your content is about. You can utilize Google keyword tool for this. By setting up the right keywords at the top of your funnel, you ensure the success of your conversion rate optimization technique.
3. Employ A/B testing:
A/B testing refers to the process of comparing two versions of a web page to see which one performs better. In order to determine the tests, you should be doing, consider the potential revenue each test may bring, and rank tests accordingly. It’s important to test one hypothesis at a time in order to know which change made the difference. Main things to test include headlines, page layout, navigation, radical change and more. You can use tools such as Google Content Experiments, Optimizely etc for this purpose.
1. Demonstration:
In case of marketing, a product demonstration refers to a promotion where a product is demonstrated to potential customers. The sole purpose of such a demonstration is to introduce customers to the product to make them familiar with it in hopes of getting them to purchase that item. The products offered as samples during these demonstrations may be new products, new versions of existing products or products that have been recently introduced to a new commercial marketplace. Basically, the idea is to introduce your offerings, utilize them as lead magnets and demonstrate their capabilities.
2. Creative contact forms:
Creative contact forms are a better version of contact forms that you offer to customers. They are used to enhance the effectiveness of simple contact forms by using them to showcase your company’s personality. You need to be conversational and inviting to your audience.
3. Out of the box deals:
You may offer free two-day shipping or deals such as buy-one, get-one-free and much more in order to lessen the purchase anxiety that every customer experiences while purchasing. Since, it adds value to the transaction so it is an effective lead magnet.
4. Forms gating charges:
Consider gating price and other information if your goal is to target hot leads. Hiding your pricing behind a form can be an effective tactic as this particular form will help filter out unqualified leads, and capturing their information will help you follow up with targeted prospects.
5. Tests:
Tests or quizzes encourage prospects to measure themselves against your expertise or industry standards. This will give you an opportunity to give feedback and ideas. Also, the prospects will determine their need for your product or service.
6. Limited-time free trial:
Give prospects the opportunity to experience the benefits of your product or service, including a deadline to the offer at the same time. This will make them realize they can’t go another day without it.
7. Cheat sheets:
They are generally very short and cut straight to an ultra-specific point and can be delivered as checklists, mind maps, or blueprints. Mostly, they are just a page long in length.
8. Resource list:
A toolkit or a resource list is an easy to consume lead magnet. Depending on your niche, toolkits can be a good introduction for your target audience making them familiar with your products and in most favorable cases increasing sales and building long-term relationships.
1. Coupons and offers:
Discounts on the existing prices can prove to be the most effective lead magnets because consumers can easily price-shop for products. You can offer coupons and enticing discounts on your products and services so as to generate leads.
2. Loyalty programs:
Loyalty programs are structured marketing strategies designed by merchants to encourage customers to become long term customers and to continue using the services of businesses associated with each program. These programs cover most types of business, each one having varying features and rewards schemes. In marketing a loyalty card, rewards card, points card, advantage card, or club card is a plastic or paper card, visually similar to a credit card, debit card, or digital card that identifies the card holder as a member in a loyalty program.
3. Free reports:
Free reports include whitepapers, e-books, articles, and guides in the form of lead magnets. Your aim should be to provide compelling information to make a valid value exchange between your prospect and your business.
4. Webinars:
Webinars are educational, informative or instructional presentations that are made available online, usually as either videos or audios with slides. Since webinar attendees connect online, they can use Internet-based technologies to like communicating through instant messaging, file sharing, using a whiteboard collaboratively and interacting through social media sites in order to enhance the experience.
5. Podcast:
Podcast refers to an episodic series of digital media files which a user can set up so that new episodes are automatically downloaded via web partnership to the user’s local computer or portable media player. The distributor of a podcast maintains a central list of the files on a server in the form of a web feed that can be accessed through the Internet. Files are stored locally on the user’s device such that it can be used even if he/she is offline.
As mentioned in our earlier posts, a lead magnet is an incentive in the form of free e-books, webinars, whitepapers or something of that sort given away to someone in exchange for their email address. It can even be considered as a bribe that marketers offer to potential buyers in exchange for their email address, or other contact information.
There are a number of lead magnets that you can employ to capture traffic and convert efficiently. Some of them have been mentioned below:
1. Drip marketing:
Drip marketing refers to a communication strategy that sends, or “drips,” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time. Drip marketing is carried out in various forms such as:
i) email: This the most commonly used form of drip marketing is email marketing due to its low cost and high efficiency.
ii) direct mail: This technology relies on digital printing, where low-volume print runs are cost efficient and the variable data can be merged to personalize each drip message.
iii) social media: Various social media marketing tools employ the principle of drip marketing to schedule a series of updates.
2. RSS feed:
RSS refers to rich site summary and uses a family of standard web feed formats to publish frequently updated information like blog entries, news headlines, audio, video and much more. An RSS document includes full or summarized text, and metadata, like publishing date and author’s name. Once a user subscribes to a website, RSS removes the need for the him/her to manually check the website for fresh, updated content. This is because the browser constantly monitors the site, informs the user of any updates and can also download the new data for the user.
3. Membership:
People loved to be treated specially. So, all you need to do is invite them into your VIP group, and give them free information so they feel a part of your club. You need to know that loyal fans and followers have the power to convert others as well.
1. Resolve all your consumers’ queries:
Most of the questions of consumers are born from their uncertainty of availing of your product. Their inquiries include everything including your prices, difficulty in setting your products up and other sorts of queries. Make it a point to answer all these questions right away even before the questions or objections have been cast out. Side by side an F.A.Q. (Frequently Asked Questions) list will exempt any doubt or objection they may have that is hindering them to sign up as a business lead or a customer. When you offer a particular brand, product or service, you should expect consumers to throw all sorts of questions or even objections regarding your offerings.
2. Track your lead generation efforts:
Make use of conversion tools offered by different providers to track the conversion rates of your lead generation efforts via PPC. As a matter of fact, if you don’t track your conversions you won’t get the clear picture of your lead generation campaign and that can be harmful to your business. You can employ conversion tools offered by various providers including major PPC networks like Google Adwords and Facebook Advertising which offer conversion tools of their own to help you track your lead generation efforts.
3. Provide 24/7 assistance to the consumers:
By putting in a contact number or providing a live chat facility you can help dispel any doubts or apprehension your visitors may have about your product or service after clicking on your PPC Ad. Also, it helps people are find ways to distinguish the real service providers from those who are not and contacting them directly through phone or live chat. Convincing your visitors that you will be there for them whenever they need your assistance deepens their trust in you, thus, making it beneficial for you.
4. Show gratitude through a Thank You page:
Once all your required transactions have been completed, you may lead your visitors to the thank you page. This page can be utilized to:
i) increase brand awareness. to upsell other products or lead them to your social network group or community
ii) upsell other products
iii) lead them to your social network group or community
1. Transfer chat sessions when required:
Since individual agents may have different areas of expertise, so, provide them with a list of other agents and their levels of expertise. This helps in cases where a chat agent is involved in a conversation that has got to do nothing with his current level of expertise. Such that, without much ado, he quickly transfers the chat to another agent ensuring that the customer is aware of the transfer.
2. Make use of typing indicators:
Your live chat software should include typing indicators. It should enable the agents to see a customer’s words as they type, and issue an alert when the customer has hit the “send” button. This feature gives the agents insight to what the customers are thinking as they type and also allows the respective chat agent to respond quickly without making the customer wait for long time periods. The alert should be audible, visible, or both such that it lets the agent know that a customer is awaiting a response.
3. Program targetted pages to raise chat offer:
As a matter of fact, just raising the offer to chat is enough to convey a sense of goodwill. Allow customers to browse on your site for a time before raising the offer to chat. Identify a list of target pages where you want to increase the conversion rate, and program them to automatically raise the chat offer after a period of 30 – 60 seconds such that the customers get enough time to be oriented for the chat.
4. Create a set of professionally designed canned messages:
Customers should be greeted professionally when they arrive within a live chat conversation. Professionally designed canned messages can be employed for this purpose. Carefully worded standardized canned messages can be used to automate parts of the conversation and augment your professional profile in order to greet the customers with courtesy.
5. Employ CRM tool along with online chat:
All your chat agents should have access to customer sales records. Integrating online chat with CRM tool allows them to update the CRM records at the end of a chat session.
Events are a very powerful way of boosting your lead generation efforts and offering prospects a chance to be educated about the benefits and results of your products. Make doing business with you a memorable experience for the people. The more enjoyable, fascinating, informative, and knowledgeable you can make the experience, the more business you will do. Also, the stronger and more meaningful bond you will form with your customers.
Making use of the relationships that your competitors do not properly or fully develop or appreciate, is quite a clever thing to do! You can simply make arrangements to obtain details from them of all their unconverted leads, unsold prospects and unconverted inquiries are like them handing you the keys to their own customer list.
It is an arrangement for the lead generation where the franchiser (one firm) allows the franchisee ( another firm) to use its business model along with its trademark. This helps produce and market a good or service according to certain specifications. The franchisee has to pay one-time franchise fee plus a percentage of its sales revenue and gains in return:
i) immediate name recognition
ii) detailed and guaranteed techniques of running a full-fledged business.
iii) training of employees
iv) ongoing help in promoting and upgrading of products that are tied and tested.
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or web conference appointment. It can also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone through automatic dialing. Telemarketing is flexible in scope, message, and the things it can achieve.
It works especially well in collaboration with direct mail because it allows you to identify prospects and reach them directly through two media.
TelemarketingBlogs are yet another effective means for lead generation. Blog posts that educate your customers on your products or services help your customers in a much better manner.
As a matter of fact, the more exciting and fascinating pages you publish, the more favorably search engines like Google look at your website. As a result, you’ll attract more visitors via search which in turn leads to increased sales.
Well, in the simplest language, lead generation is the most important aspect of marketing which means initiation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. It is basically a process of collecting names and contact information about qualified prospects which will be contacted by the salespeople for generating orders. It involves direct response advertising and telemarketing.
Leads may come from various sources or activities, for example, digitally via the internet, through personal referrals, through telephone calls either by the company or telemarketers, through advertisements, and events. A study from 2014 stated that direct traffic, search engines, and web referrals were the three most popular online channels for lead generation, accounting for 93% of leads.
We know that a steady stream of leads is an essential component of keeping a business afloat – but coming up with original and efficient ideas to attract and convert qualified leads is easier said than done. Here are some of the proven and actionable ideas to energize your lead generation efforts:
Stepping into the shoes of a searcher you will realize that most ads just suck. They’re boring, they’re indifferent, and one isn’t any more enticing than another. Betwixt such a chaos where everything looks the same, there’s a huge opportunity to come in with something exceptional and blow the competition away! Writing better ads can raise your CTR above the expected average, giving your quality score a hike.
Researchers have proved that 65% of us are visual learners. As a matter of fact, product explainer videos can generate leads at a rate of up to 33%. When done correctly, videos can keep us engaged and can inspire us to take an action. So, videos do not need to be long and complex.
The top 10% of landing pages have conversion rate 3x to 5x average the average. As an answer to “How do they make it possible?” – by giving better offers and fewer choices. Moreover, as per Hick’s Law – fewer choices mean less confusion, resulting in more leads. As an inspiration – “MySiteAuditor” decreased the options on a free trial sign up a page from six to one and saw 25% jump in their conversion rate.
You can present numerous opt-ins by turning every blog post into an opt-in page. You can give away PDFs of your blog posts, worksheets, webinars, free reports, live demos, resource guides and what not! Instead of placing the opt-in in a sidebar, make a pop-up. You can’t make the visitors say yes, but there is no point making it easy for them to say no. According to a research, this tactic increased leads by 32 %!
Privacy is a major concern for all the visitors landing on your page. It is absolutely fine to reassure privacy but you should prefer doing it in a fun manner. In other words, assure privacy without using the word “SPAM”. In case of any doubts, you may run A/B tests to be sure your sign up forms are optimized for conversions.
Remarketing is an efficient way to connect those visitors to your website who may not have made an immediate purchase or inquiry. It allows you to present targeted ads in front of a defined audience that had previously visited your website – as they browse elsewhere around the internet using YouTube, Google or even Facebook. Remarketing using the Google Display Network gives you 92% reach in the U.S., across millions of websites, videos, and devices.
Imagine you are in a store and have a concern or a question. But instead of approaching the sales associate they make you write an email or call the concerned business. Continue reading “Live chat : another means of communication”
Want happier customers? If you get live chat at your website then you are to see happy and satisfied customers, and at the same time your business also grows online. Continue reading “Chat solutions for small businesses”
Live chat basically connects your customers at the crucial point when they are deciding to make a purchase or not, hence it plays an important role in increasing sales. Continue reading “Live chat impacts sales!”