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How to increase customer lifetime value : Part III

1. Let your customers know how much you appreciate them:

Fans who show their loyalty every now and then by sharing your content on social media deserve to be rewarded, right? So, you can actually embed social media posts from fans who have shared your content or said something great about your brand to their followers. Put them in the spotlight and let them know how much you appreciate them and their efforts. They’ll make your brand a priority, once they see the reciprocity, The most common example is that of Soda Stream.

Soda Stream
Soda Stream

2. Send surprizes to your fans:

Who doesn’t like surprises? So, make it a point to send surprises to your fans so as to show your gratitude. Take a look at their social accounts to see what kinds of things they are fond of, and then send them something you know they’ll love. They’ll definitely share this experience with their friends, family, colleagues, and anyone else who will listen. Make sure that you do a little research and find something unique or, at the very least, different from what most people are talking about rather than sending something obvious.

Surprizes
Surprizes

3. Provide full experience to active customers:

This means keep your fans updated with your products and services. For example, if you have a product line, send them something they aren’t familiar with. If you have a premium service, give them the upgrade free of cost. This is truly the most effective way of increasing the customer lifetime value.

Service upgrade
Service upgrade

4. Acknowledge your customers’ suggestions:

Convince your customers that their suggestions are always welcomed. For this, always leave room for your customers to make suggestions that you didn’t list, and always offer some kind of incentive for participating in the poll. Even if it’s just a chance to win something small like a gift card or early access to an upcoming feature, it will make a huge difference in the number of people who actually participate.

Customer suggestions
Customer suggestions

5. Help your customers with their interests:

You can help customers do something they love. If possible, you may start “sponsoring” customers’ things that they are compassionate about.

 

 

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How to increase customer lifetime value : Part II

1. Manage all communication channels available:

Having multiple points of contact, allows customers to choose the most convenient medium for communication. According to a research, sixty percent of consumers don’t want to be contacted over the phone about special offers, information, and upgrades, while 75 percent prefer contact via email or text message. Social network tools give you the opportunity to connect and engage with your customers at any time of day, as per their convenience.

Managing communication channels
Managing communication channels

2. Offer convenient and affordable services:

Convenient and affordable services make it easier for users to enjoy what they’re paying for. Make sure that your users/customers should spend the least amount of time possible trying to use your product or service, so they can spend the majority of their time making the most out of it.

Affordable services
Affordable services

3. Create brand loyalty:

As per a research, 64% of participants said shared values were the primary reason for maintaining a relationship with their brand. Clearly communicating your brand’s philosophy or higher purpose has become very important to today’s consumers. So, you must choose a technique, which reflects your consumers’ beliefs and demonstrates them through sponsorship, events or anything relevant. Be sure to brand all marketing efforts consistently and keep your product quality high, so consumers keep returning to what’s comfortable.

Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty

4. Be there in your customers’ hour of need:

Being there in customers’ hour of need means holding their hand while the problem is solved, helping them cut through the confusion to find the solution, or getting them directly connected to the person who can help them as soon as possible.

Helping customers
Helping customers

5. Try building long term relationships:

Building and maintaining long-term relationships is a simple, effective method for increasing your CLV. While it may take a little extra time, care and consideration, it’s a great way to leverage your existing customer relationships to boost revenues without simultaneously increasing your expenses.

Long term relationship
Long term relationship

 

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How to increase customer lifetime value : Part I

Increasing your company’s customer lifetime value means:

i) increasing customer loyalty

ii) general profitability

iii) marketing allowance

In order to increase customer lifetime value:

1. Always strive for making your product better:

When you want to build your business on loyal customers and brand evangelists, you have to do something that is beyond mass consumer expectations. As a matter of fact, people love to feel like they have the best thing, no matter what that thing is. Once they feel like it’s the best, they’ll do way more than talk about it.

2. Try upselling and cross-selling:

Upselling means persuading a customer to buy something more expensive or an advanced version of a product. You sell a more expensive model, additional features or upgraded version of something. This adds value to the product.

Cross-selling, on the other hand, means selling a new or a different product/service to an existing customer. In other words, you’re selling additional products to the customer.

Both these strategies are highly effective and profitable when trying to boost the customer lifetime value (CLV) for your business, no matter, what scale or size.

3. Differentiate yourself from your competitors:

You need to differentiate yourself from your competitors in terms of features, services, resources, or whatever else your customers will place some value on.

4. Be careful when choosing incentive schemes:

As a matter of fact, choosing the right incentive structure means your customers won’t be the only ones leveraging the rewards. Utilize your rewards system to increase customer retention, and boost your customer lifetime value without compromising your bottom line. Instead of discounts, offer exclusive products or value-added services. This will further increase your CLV by promoting customer loyalty and increasing profitability in the long-term.

5. Resolve customers’ queries:

Make it quicker and easier for your customers to get their questions answered. Go above and beyond your actual product and give them something that makes their life easier on a regular basis. In other words, you need to understand your customers, figure out what would make their life easier, and build it.

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Types of sales promotions: II

1. Provide free shipping:

Providing shipping that’s free of cost is one of the greatest and most profitable sales promotions! Free shipping and return instill in the customers a sense of security that they won’t lose out if the delivered product did not meet their expectations and they wanted to return it back.

You can always incorporate the shipping cost into your product if you are worried about your margins. You may even think about offering free shipping when a customer spends over a certain amount.

Free shipping/free returns create customer security and make it hassle-free.

Free shipping and returns
Free shipping and returns

2. Implement flash sale campaigns:

Flash sale campaigns are a great way to create a sense of urgency for the customers to buy. Many retailers are now adopting this strategy as a way to sell more products and get rid of surplus stock.

The more successful flash sales are ones that don’t last very long and 50% of purchases occur during the first hour of a flash sale, hence, helping the businesses clear the surplus stock.

3. Entice customers with holiday promotions:

Holiday promotions are the most enticing types of sales promotions as customers always like to spend more on the holidays, making it the perfect opportunity for you to get your brand out there and sell more products. You don’t have to overdo your offers, but enticing customers with slight discounts will always work in your favor. It basically requires your creativity to sell out the stock through holiday promotions.

Holiday promotions
Holiday promotions

4. Offer discounts for spending more:

This kind of deal attracts the customer to buy more of your stock. Giving them a discount if they spend more is one of the greatest types of sales promotions. It may further drive them in the right direction. You don’t have to offer a huge discount, but make sure it’s attractive enough to convert visitors into buyers.

Buy more save more
Buy more save more

5. Run a competition:

Running a competition will not only help raise your profile but every person that enters will then become an email contact that you can try and convert into a sale.

Clever way of triggering sales promotions, isn’t it?

Well, if people are entering your competition, chances are they are interested in your products, so running a competition is a great idea for deepening that interest, particularly for start-ups.

 

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Types of sales promotions – I

1. Reward your customers:

Customers love discounts and stuff like that. Thus, rewarding your customers will help you build a solid base of loyal, long-term customers and it will entice people to shop more at your online store. Providing great customer service is crucial to the success of your business. These days offering a loyalty point system is a popular form of sales promotions.

In this case, the customer can gain points every time they buy and then use their points to get money off future purchases, or if they buy more, they save more.

Loyalty points
Loyalty points

2. Give away freebies:

Giving away freebies not only gives potential customers the chance to test out your product but also entices people to buy your stuff!

Now, the question arises, what to give away as freebies? Well! Branded keychains, bumper stickers, magnets, pens etc. are some options. Customers will appreciate the gesture, feel valued and will think of you whenever they see their branded gift.

3. Add discount to your products:

Offering your products at a price lesser than the regular one is the most popular sales promotion strategy. Adding a discount to your products is possibly the best type of promotion. Customers love to grab a bargain, so it makes sense to offer discounts every now and then to boost your sales. Always consider your bottom line and be sure to not constantly have a sale, as people will just come to expect this as a norm of your business.

Discounts
Discounts

4. Offer virtual coupons:

Offering digital or virtual coupons is an effective sales promotion technique that will make the promotion seem more exclusive and will give the customers more of a push to visit your online store. You should send coupons to loyal customers who have spent a certain amount. You could also consider sending coupons to visitors who have experienced bad customer service. This may help convert them back to happy customers!

 

Digital coupons
Digital coupons

5. Lowest price guarantees:

Price match promise has become one of the most popular ways to promote your brand these days, particularly if you have a lot of competitors trying to leverage the lucrative market. It allows your customers to shop with you and will be safe in the knowledge that if they can get it cheaper somewhere else, you’ll refund the difference and keep your words. There’s nothing to lose for them and it means that you still get to keep a solid, long-term customer base.

Price match promise
Price match promise
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All you need to know about sales promotion

“Sales promotion” refers to those marketing activities that stimulate consumer shows and expositions. It may be further defined as a vital bridge or a connecting link between personal selling and advertising.

Sales promotion

In most cases, sales promotions come in the form of discounts.  As a matter of fact, discounts affect the way consumers think and behave while shopping. Also, the type of savings and its location can affect the way consumers view a product and affect their purchase decision.

The two most common discounts are:

i) price discounts that are provided on sale items and

ii) bonus packs that are provided on bulk items.

Price discounts mean the reduction of an original sale by a certain percentage. On the other hand, bonus packs are deals in which the consumer receives more for the original price. Companies introduce different forms of discounts in advertisements to convince consumers to buy their products.

Sales promotion activities are undertaken to achieve the following objectives:

1. To boost sales by leveraging the media which are complementary to press and poster advertising.

2. To distribute information through salesmen, dealers etc., in order to ensure the product getting into satisfactory use by the targeted consumers.

3. To entice customers to make purchases at the point of purchase.

4. To incite existing customers to buy more.

5. To introduce new products and services.

6. To attract new customers.

7. To efficiently meet competition from others.

8. To check the seasonal decline in the volume of sales.

Sales promotion includes several communications activities that provide added value or incentives to consumers, wholesalers, retailers, or other organizational customers to stimulate sales.

Due to all these advantages, the importance of sales promotion has increased tremendously in the modern times. Eventually, massive amounts of money are spent on sales promotional activities to attract the consumers in our country and also in other countries of the world!

 

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Best customer retention strategies: Part VI

1.Make sure no engagement is left behind:

One of the best things that you can do to improve your customer retention is to adopt a policy in your company that no customer engagement is ignored and a response is sent as soon as possible. There are a variety of tools out there like Mention, Hootsuite, and Sproutsocial which are all great for monitoring social media. You can leverage these tools to increase your customer engagement rates and gain higher exposure.

Customer engagement
Customer engagement

2. CRM:

Customer relationship management (CRM)  refers to practices, techniques, and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. CRM helps improve business relationships with customers resulting in customer retention and driving sales growth.

CRM systems are further designed to compile information on customers across different channels.

 

3. Set up an exclusive club for your loyal and highly active customers:

As a matter of fact, people like to feel special and considered important. So, that’s exactly what you should strive to do in order to achieve customer retention.

Setting up an exclusive VIP club takes time and money but will help you stand out from the crowd. Also, if done well, and optimized, will bring you positive returns.

Benefits for high performance customers
Benefits for high-performance customers

4. Make the most of social media:

Social media, today, is undoubtedly the most efficacious way of engaging with customers and retaining them. It can play a vital role in building more meaningful connections with customers, so they stay with you longer.

You can keep your customers updated and let them know about your latest offers. Moreover, you can also provide benefits like digital discount cards for following you on these platforms.

Social media
Social media

5. Upgrade your customer experience:

You should keep upgrading your website. You further need to consider these aspects while enhancing your website features:

i) redesigning your website

ii) considering solutions for device compatibility

iii) optimizing the load time

iv) providing easy navigation to customers

v) offering transparency and much more!

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Best customer retention strategies: Part V

1.Measure lifetime value:

There is a huge difference between the one-off profit you might make on an average sale and the total combined profit your average customer represents over the lifetime of their business relationship with you. Once you recognize how much-combined profit a customer represents to your business when they purchase from you again and again,  you’ll realize that customer contentment is the most important aspect of the customer retention process.

The moment you understand how much time, effort and expense you can afford to invest in retaining that customer, you will be in control of your marketing expenditure.

Related image

2. Gifts and premiums:

Premiums are promotional items like toys, collectibles and household products linked to a product, and often require box tops, tokens or proofs of purchase to acquire. Premiums fall into three categories:

i) Free premiums – sales promotions that involve the consumer purchasing a product in order to receive a free gift or reward

ii) Self-liquidating premiums – the consumer is expected to pay a designated monetary value for a gift or item

iii) In-or on-package premiums – small gifts are included with the package.

You can include these goodies into your customer retention plan to make it successful.

Premiums
Premiums

3. Tell your stories through case studies and testimonials:

Testimonials and case studies will facilitate your customer retention strategy further. It will make it easy for you to convince your existing and potential customers. They’ll help you tell your story in an easier way.

Case studies can also act as great content pieces for your blog. Once you have your reviews you can leverage them to do a number of things from increasing traffic and sales to turning them into fully fledged case studies.

Customer reviews

4. Meetups, webinars, and offline events:

You can organize meetups at local boutiques where fans of the service will meet up and have conversations about the different creative projects they are working on. You can also invite experts in your niche to participate and give knowledgeable presentations to the participants.

Make the event an iterating experience so that people can know when the next one will happen and so it will turn into a routine for your fans. Assure that all the sound and other logistics are organized appropriately and beforehand.

Offline events
Offline events

5. Sell over and over again:

Precisely, your selling has just begun when someone makes that initial purchase decision because virtually everyone is susceptible to buyer’s remorse. To lock in that sale, and all of the referrals and repeat business that will flow from it, you need to employ techniques that allay your customers’ fears and demonstrate by your actions that you genuinely care.

You should thank them and remind them again why they’ve made the right decision to deal with you. In other words,  you need to prove constantly that they have made the right decision.

Sell and then sell again
Sell and then sell again

 

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Best customer retention strategies: Part IV

1. Ameliorate your content management:

For making choices between different services or products, people usually go with the products and services which we have heard about from their knowns or came across while browsing the web. Thus, to entice the visitors and ultimately achieve customer retention, you need to produce content which you, yourself would read and share with others.

Moreover, you need to find marketing channels and spend the time to learn how to leverage the numerous free and paid marketing channels out there. Twitter, Google+ and other communities can help you find commonly discussed topics that you can write about.

2. Overcome buyer’s repentance;

Buyer’s remorse is defined as a sense of regret after having made a typically large purchase.

Buyers are usually afraid of 2 different things:

i)Their money was worth more than the product

ii)Their colleagues won’t approve of the product or service purchase.

Therefore salespeople should effectively address buyer’s remorse before its occurrence. The salesperson should be able to convince the customer as to why this is the best option for them. If your customer is not convinced and still wants a refund, try supporting your words with case studies or testimonials that show how your product was able to efficiently solve problems in similar cases earlier.

3. Indulge in live chats or Skype calls to know your customer’s requirements:

One of the most efficacious techniques of creating an impact with your customers is to get on a call with them. This will help you get really useful feedback that you can use to improve your business. Moreover, you will stand out in that customer’s mind and make the impression that you genuinely care about their needs.

4. Make use of the system of unearthing complaints:

As a matter of fact, 96 percent of discontented customers don’t complain. They just walk away! That’s because they often don’t know how to complain, or can’t be bothered, or are too frightened, or believe it won’t make any difference. Whilst they may not tell you what’s wrong, they will tell their friends or knowns.

A system for unearthing complaints can, therefore, be a savior for your business, because customers who complain are giving you a gift, they’re still talking to you. In other words, they’re giving you another opportunity to return them to a state of satisfaction.

5. Send targetted campaigns to your customers:

You can target your customers with personal and optimized marketing campaigns with the help of some amazing email and marketing services. Services like Vero and MailChimp are great for data-driven email marketing and event-triggered email marketing.

 

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Best customer retention strategies : Part III

1. Employ a proactive approach towards customer service:

Instead of waiting for problems to occur, a company that implements anticipatory service can curb problems before their occurrence. And the best way to do that is to employ a proactive approach. Knowing the problems beforehand and being ready with the best solutions helps a lot in customer retention.

Anticipatory service
Anticipatory service

2. Inculcate courtesy system:

A courtesy system refers to a powerful system that enhances the interpersonal skills of your team and changes the spirit of your organization. It involves speaking to colleagues politely and pleasantly and treating them just like you would want them to treat your customers. This will help your team to feel worthwhile and important, which will further result in pleasant social contacts at work. It also motivates them to provide extraordinary service consistently. This results in long termed loyal customers.

3. Be an expert in your particular field:

As a matter of fact, if you know every bit of your business you will likely retain more customers. Your customers will trust you, rely on you for the best pieces of advice, and recognize you as an inevitable part of their business success. All you need to do is inform them of upcoming changes. Also, you need to provide some insightful recommendations regarding their business. This proactive, approach will render customer retention strategies more effective.

4. Do whatever it takes to woo your customers:

Going that extra mile for your customers to provide customer satisfaction is an easy way to build strong relationships. By doing this, you can build some serious long-term loyalty. Moreover, if your clients know you are more than ready to go above and beyond, they will stick with you when competitors enter the lucrative market.

 

Wooing customers
Wooing customers

5. Loyalty Programs:

Loyalty programs are defined as structured marketing strategies designed by merchants to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of businesses associated with each program. In marketing generally and in retailing more specifically, a loyalty card or rewards card identifies the card holder as a member enrolled in a loyalty program. With these cards, customers typically earn the right:
i) either to a discount on the current purchase

ii) or to an allotment of points that they can use for future purchases.

Loyalty programs
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Best customer retention strategies : Part II

1. Reactivate the lost customers:

Customer retention can be easily achieved by dedicating resources to entice your lost customers. You can further regenerate business by approaching them in the correct way, with the correct offer. In other words, reactivating customers who are familiar with you and your product helps increase your sales.

As a matter of fact, re-contacting and overcoming their remorses and convincing them that you still value and respect them will surely result in exceptionally increased sales and boosted customer retention.

2. Utilize computerization:

Automation is yet another customer retention strategy that helps to minimize downtime. It further helps keep clients’ networks performing at their best. Moreover, leveraging automation tools and streamlining repeatable processes, companies can meet their commitments more efficiently. This further leads to customer loyalty.

Automation
Automation

3. Provide an impeccable customer service:

What is an impeccable customer service? – It means moving the product or service you deliver into the realm of the extraordinary. And how’s that done? – By delivering higher than anticipated levels of service to your customers. It includes:

i) dedication to customer contentment

ii) providing instant response

iii) no buck passing

iv) on-time delivery

v) error-free-delivery process

vi) recruiting outstanding people to deliver your customer service.

Exceptional service leads to fortunes in repeat customers, whereas poor service will drive your customers away.

Excellent customer service
Excellent customer service

4. Inculcate customer feedback survey:

As a matter of fact, customer feedback surveys are invaluable for learning whether you are meeting your clients’ expectations or not. So, Instead of comparing feedback across a broad range of customers:

i) narrow the data down to a specific client

ii) see what that client thought

iii) and take action from there.

You need to trend feedback across a period of time. You should track feedback survey in order to compare which areas have benefited and which have not. It will provide you with data regarding:

i) what customers are at risk

ii) which areas of your business need improvement

iii) and where you excel.

5. Avoid ethical shortcuts:

The design, build quality, reliability, and serviceability of your product or service should meet customers’ expectations. The way you handle the small things, as well as the large, demonstrates service integrity. Moreover, customers will be attracted to you if you are transparent with them, care for them, take a genuine interest in them.

Product integrity
Product integrity
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Best customer retention strategies : Part I

Customer retention is termed as a process of inculcating those techniques by the companies that help in the exemption of customer defections. The sole purpose of customer retention programs is to help companies retain as many customers as possible through customer loyalty and brand loyalty initiatives.

As a matter of fact, customer retention begins with the first contact a customer has with a company and continues throughout the entire lifetime of the relationship.

According to a research an average business loses around 20 percent of its customers annually due to customer dissatisfaction. In some industries, this leakage is astoundingly 80 percent. However, following some preventive measures can help curb this loss.

Here we have mentioned some of the best customer retention techniques that will enhance your customer retention significantly once implemented and will have a gigantic impact on your business.

1. Build relationships online and develop trust:

In today’s era majority of people are glued to their computer screens for hours due to those enticing social media platforms. so, connecting with your clients through these mediums can benefit you to a large extent. Majority of your clients will have active profiles on websites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc. So, it makes sense to connect with your potential customers through such sites. Moreover, trust is crucial in business, and building relationships with clients will cumulate that trust for you.

A study by the African Journal of Business Management found that commitment tends to grow along with trust. So you should take an interest in your clients and their business. Simply providing a service is not long enough. You further need to start building shared values with clients and showing you take an interest in them and their success.

2. Let your interest in the leads be consistent:

Though every business loses some customers virtually, not all of them measure or recognize how many of their customers become inactive. Ironically, many businesses spend lavishly on building that initial customer relationship. Then they leave that relationship unattended, in some cases even losing interest as soon as the sale is made. The easiest way to grow your business is to avoid losing your customers. Once you stop the emanation, it’s often possible to increase your growth rate quite efficaciously.

3. Identify customer expectations:

Set expectations early and lower than you can provide, so that you can eradicate uncertainty as to the level of service you need to offer to ensure your clients’ satisfaction. This technique enables your company to ensure you are always over delivering.

Since clients tend to remember negative experiences, so, your client will no doubt cite a negative experience as a reason to cancel his or her contract with you.

4. Use a rolling calendar of communication:

Building relationships with your customers are not enough! You need to be in touch using a rolling calendar of communications. This is a programmed series of emails, events, phone calls, “thank you’s”, special offers, follow-ups, magic moments, and cards or notes with a personal touch etc. that ensure constantly and automatically at pre-decided points in the pre-sales, sales, and post-sales process.

People not only respond to this in a positive manner, they really appreciate it because they feel valued. It acknowledges them, keeps them updated, offsets customer remorse, augments the reason they’re doing business with you and makes them feel part of your business and that too an important one!

5. Implement a monthly email marketing campaign and start a blog:

Email your existing customers once every month. Touch base with them, keep them updated with your services and share a couple of great articles you believe will help them profit from their business. You should also link to your articles as a way to drive your customers to your blog.

Write a weekly article on something interesting, say, an accomplishment you feel your customers would value. However, you need to be consistent with your blog. You need to start using it as a medium to build relationships with your customers.

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Lead generation strategies: Part V

1. Corporate literature:

You should know how to create efficacious professional brochures and fliers that effortlessly sell for you by educating your prospects about the benefits you offer. These brochures and fliers should be capable of addressing their questions and their needs for your product or service. Basically, your brochures and fliers should help boost lead generation and bring in as much profit as possible.

2. Podcasting:

Podcasting is a concoction of ‘broadcasting’ and ‘i-pod’. It is a form of audio broadcasting on the Internet. The reason it became linked with the iPod in the name was that people download the broadcasts (audio shows) to listen to mostly on their iPods.

It is a medium for businesses to globally distribute their ideas and create a following of like-minded fans. It is beneficial for industries such as journalism, education, and entertainment allowing anyone to freely create and distribute news and media as it helps in an enormous lead generation in the long run.

3. Premiums, gifts and offers:

The Lead generation offers, gifts and premiums are irresistible bribes that give a piece of valuable information to the sales prospects in exchange for their contact information. These are positioned on the landing pages of websites.

4. Profits on the back end:

If most of your sales and profits occur when customers repeat purchase from you again and again, you should make it a point that you are doing everything possible to motivate as many customers as you can to make their initial buying decision as quickly and easily as possible. Making it easy and enticing for the customer to start doing business with you by adding extra incentives or by making your initial sale at break-even or a small loss, means that you will benefit sooner rather than later from all the repeat business.

5. Experiential marketing:

This is a marketing strategy that directly engages consumers and encourages them to participate in brand development. Experiential marketers believe that consumers should be actively involved in the production and co-creation of marketing programs.

These are the major lead generation strategies that will boost up your sales in the long run.

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Lead generation strategies : Part IV

1. Display and sell your wares at trade shows:

Trade shows, exhibitions, and fairs are such events where many serious prospects will be present. Such events are great opportunitues to strengthen you lead generation efforts. But there is an art to successful exhibiting which, if learned, generates immense rewards. There are few other sales forums where prospects and clients come to you. Also, you can use this opportunity to get valuable opinions on your products and services.

Besides attracting new business, exhibitions can be used to introduce existing customers to additional products.

Trade shows

2. Database marketing:

Database marketing is a systematic approach to the gathering, fortification, and processing of consumer data (both for customers and potential customers) that is maintained in a company’s databases. With the aid of database marketing, much more consumer data is maintained, and that the data is processed and used in more sophisticated ways.

Among other things, marketers utilize the data to:

i) learn more about customers

ii) identify and focus on target markets for specific campaigns (through customer segmentation process)

iii) compare customers’ value to the company and

iv) provide more dedicated offerings for customers to live up to their expectations.

Since database marketing provides an extended access to potential customers so lead generation becomes much efficient.

3. Target marketing:

Sweepstakes and contests with large grand prizes tend to attract more entries regardless of the odds of winning. Therefore, the value of smaller prizes usually totals much less than that of the top prize. Firms that incorporate target marketing such as Publishers Clearing House and Reader’s Digest, have also found that the more involved the entry process, the more entrants. Businesses often obtain marketing information about a customer from sweepstakes entries which leads to an active participation further leading to a boost in sales.

4. Card deck offers and inserts:

A card deck offer is a product description on an individual card. The card is about the size of a postcard generally placed within a pack along with 50 or more other cards. It’s a quick and enticing way for many busy people to “shop” through a variety of product offers. You can normally target and send your offer to a large number of carefully selected prospective customers.

This method is less costly as compared to other marketing techniques. On the other hand, inserts give you a direct approach to both homes and businesses in the desired geographical area, giving you the flexibility to drop any number at any time.

5. Social media visibility / Viral marketing:

Social media makes the process even easier because of all of the information that people readily share, and also because of the large number of users on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more! 40% of people spend more time socializing on social media than face to face in today’s era. So needless to say, social media makes for the perfect place to identify your target audience and turn them into new sales leads benefiting your business.

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Lead generation strategies: Part III

1. Effective advertising through advertorials and news stories: 

Advertising is a great help when working with lead generation.  If you approach advertising in a scientific manner, following proven principles and facts, it no longer has to be a hit and trial sort of a mechanism. There are many proven ways of using advertising in a highly targeted manner that can help you grow your business. This includes:

i) advertising only in media that reaches a sufficiently large number of your target audience

ii) focusing the entire thrust of your communication on your prospect’s interests rather than your own

iii) giving your prospects enough information and education regarding your products and services

iv) offering them something appealing that’ll compel them to end up purchasing your goods.

2. Bookalogs and Catalogues:

A bookalog is a unique marketing tool that is quite beneficial when trying to make the most out of your lead generation efforts. The bookalog is a positioning instrument for a firm and contains valuable information, generally knowledgeable in nature. Creating a definite product differentiation, there is a connotation that the product is unique enough to be written about in a book. Bookalogs abide by all the proper direct response rules.

On the other hand, catalogs are lists of goods and services on sale with their descriptions and prices published in the form of a printed or electronic document. Inculcating these two marketing tools also act as a boon for lead generation.

3. Networking and publicity:

Effective networking is vital to your success. Virtually anyone you might want to contact or meet is only four to five people away from you, such that anyone you contact can further provide you some more contacts. Basically, the idea is to make new contacts, develop quality business relationships based on trust and contentment, educate the people you meet about what you do and the benefits offered by your products or services. Gradually build your network, use your contacts database effectively, and grow your business further.

You can also leverage the power of media for public recognition as media are insatiably hungry for factual, interesting, and newsworthy information they can share with their customers, members, employees, listeners, viewers or readers. PR approached correctly, will give you free coverage on radio, television, in magazines, newspapers, trade journals, newsletters and through websites who serve the marketplace you wish to be a part of.

4. Consignment selling:

Selling goods on consignment is explained as a situation whereby goods are shipped to a dealer who pays you, the consignor, only for the merchandise which sells. The dealer, referred to as the consignee, has the right to return to you the merchandise which does not sell and without obligation. Consignment selling allows a seller (manufacturer) to place merchandise in wholesale and retail outlets. This is done so as to provide an additional exposure to the buying market. It can help the retailers stock goods in inventory because no capital of theirs is stocked up in inventory.

5. E-Commerce:

These days when people want information, they surf the web to find what they need. Moreover, they prefer shopping with an ease of sitting back and purchasing online. Therefore, you need a good website that maximizes your exposure. It’s obvious you don’t want to look old-fashioned, isn’t it?

Your website needs to be appealing, informative, and easy to navigate. So that you obtain a constant stream of new prospects. You also need to establish a system that deftly converts them into customers that peaks up your sales.

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Lead generation strategies: Part II

1. Special events and promotion:

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.

2. Leverage your competitors’ resources:

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.

3. Franchising:

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.

4. Telemarketing and direct mailing:

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.

Telemarketing

5. Blogs:

Blogs 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.

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Lead generation strategies: Part I

Wondering what “Lead generation” actually means?

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:

1. Write exceptional ads:

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.

2. Create a product video:

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.

3. Give better offers and fewer choices:

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.

4. Offer a lot of compelling opt-in opportunities:

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 %!

5. Avoid mentioning SPAM :

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.

6. Remarketing:

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.