I recently met with a client who wanted to hire me to get them more traffic (visitors) to their website. I've done this in the past for a variety of different companies in different industries. For one client back in 2010 I managed to get them 550 new online sales in three months which was great for them since prior to that they only had 600 customers for the entire year in 2009. They were thrilled at the growth and so was I. I have continued to consult with them and they have continued to grow pretty dramatically every year since.
When the new client said they need more traffic, I knew I could handle that job and we met, set out a plan and got them started. I'm happy to say that by combining better SEO, some display and PPC ads and even a few local newspaper ads, we increased sales by 22% the first six months of 2015 as compared to the entire year of 2014. So that's great, right? Well, no, not to me. I was not completely satisfied with those results and honestly expected more. So I started digging, analyzing every source, every website click and every sale and what I found shocked me a bit. They had told me that they were sure they closed 30 - 50% of their sales opportunities, that they had great sales people and one division actually closed 85% of their appointments. However, it turns out they weren't tracking any data so their belief on their numbers was just a 'hunch'. I set up programs to monitor everything and found out that their closing on actual quotes was 30 - 40%. Not bad, but only 1.4% of all their website traffic ever asked for a quote! Now I knew the real problem. Don't Waste Contacts! Do you have any idea how many people visit your website every day or every week or every month or every year? How many of them give you their contact information? If you're not getting any information when they visit then you cannot keep in touch with them (obviously). Every person who visits your website is a potential customer. You want to keep in touch with them. In the long run it will be easier and cheaper to sell to people who already know you and like you than to keep finding new people to attract to your website. How Do I Get Their Information? Most people are not simply going to fill out a form for no reason to give you their personal information. However, people will trade their information for something of value, especially if you make it really easy for them. Don't ask for all of their information on the "first date", especially when they don't know much about you. Ask for a name and email address in exchange for something valuable to them. Offer them something; coupons, a white paper, a free download or recipe, something that makes sense for your business. If your clientele are men, contests work really well. They know that once they give you their information that you will email them but if the offer is fair, they'll take it. Have questions about how this might work for your business? Use the form to the right to submit your question and let us know if you want a private (free) consultation or you want us to answer your question in the blog.
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Groupon is a great way to introduce your business to new customers. Many business owners believe there is an advantage to using Groupon vs traditional advertising because with Groupon (for most deals) you only pay when someone makes a purchase. Many business owners don't even feel like they're PAYING Groupon since the customer pays Groupon and then Groupon pays you. But, don't be misled, Groupon is expensive. (While I acknowledge every deal is different, I'm going to use a basic deal that one of my clients recently did through Groupon).
A restaurant looking to bring in new customers might make a special offer on Groupon. Maybe you offer "Buy Two Pizzas for $11". Normally you would sell two pizzas for $22. So you're essentially offering "buy one, get one free". However, Groupon collects the $11 and pays you $5.50. So now you're selling two pizzas for $5.50. The downside to this deal is, you may have done better if you offered "Buy two pizzas for $8" through your own social media. The customer would be happier since the pizza is cheaper and you would have gotten $8 instead of $5.50. However, if you don't have a huge following on social media, you don't have the option of "Do-it-Yourself". Another problem is, over 80% of customers who take advantage of a Groupon offer, don't ever come back to your restaurant to make a purchase at full price. It can take quite a few visits to get a person to become a regular at your retail shop or restaurant. So How Can I Make Groupon Work for Me? To get the most out of Groupon (and similar services), you should use it as to gather leads. Using our pizza example, if you lose $5 on every pizza deal, you have basically spent $5 to get a lead. Now you need to turn that lead into a lifelong customer. If you want Groupon to work for you, you need a plan BEFORE you make your Groupon offer. The best, easiest and least expensive way to make Groupon work is to collect the cellphone numbers of your Groupon purchasers for a Text Marketing (SMS) Campaign. (Contact us to get special discount offers on text marketing and mobile web apps with texting capabilities). Once people purchase your Groupon offer, give them the opportunity to save even more, or to get a free gift by subscribing to your text campaign. You know they are interested in your product or service because they've already purchased on Groupon. You know they are looking for value. You can offer them "Exclusive Savings". If you manage the campaign properly, most of the Groupon purchasers will sign up to receive your text messages. This allows you to increase the value of every campaign that you run on Groupon. Suppose you get 25 responses to your Groupon campaign every time you run an offer. You can quickly build a subscriber list and turn those one time bargain hunters into lifelong customers. If you have questions about how this strategy can help your business, please fill out the form to the right and submit your questions or call 973-220-6859. There is no charge and no obligation. |
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January 2018
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