3 Proven Ways to Get Top-Quality Leads
Now, more than ever, it’s tough to cut through the noise and get noticed in the digital space. Generating leads is hard enough, but oftentimes, the people you get in touch with aren’t quality… And they don’t want to buy from you. We totally understand the struggle. Marketers’ main goal is typically to generate as many quality business leads as possible… Which leads to getting lots of sales. If this is your goal, too, but you’re struggling to sift through all the cold, dead leads in front of you, we’re here to help. We’ve compiled a list of our best strategies to help your business generate more quality leads, right now. Know Your Target Audience and Create Customer Personas The key to building a fool-proof lead generation strategy is understanding your ideal customer. If you don’t put in the effort, then it will be difficult for you to determine their pain points and problems – which means that any content you create won’t really resonate with them at all! Keep in mind that not all your customers are the same—they may be at different stages of their journey and have varying interests. To help you better serve them, we recommend categorizing people into buyer personas based on factors like age or location so as to provide a tailored experience for each individual customer! Imagine yourself in each of your personas’ shoes. Take note of their pain points, problems or needs- this will help generate better quality marketing leads that cater more specifically to your target audience’s desires! It will also allow you to lead your business from a place of empathy and create deeper relationships with your customers… Which will keep them coming back. Fill Lead Capture Forms with Relevant Questions Lead capture forms are the most popular lead generation tool among marketers with 74% using them for this purpose. Additionally, 49% of marketers have reported that these landing pages result in their highest converting leads! When it comes to lead capture forms, many businesses face a hard time filtering low-quality leads from high-quality ones because they’re not asking the right questions. This is where your company can use different filters and criteria so that only top prospects fill out their information on your form! This brings us back to our big question—how do you distinguish between low-quality leads and high-quality ones? Lead capture forms can help you understand the intent of each lead—as long as you ask the right questions. Get creative with your forms! Add in relevant fields that serve as important information for the niche that you’re working in. Some examples could be Job Title, Income Range, or even a dropdown menu that allows users to select which topic or product they’re most interested in. Of course, only include fields that are relevant/appropriate to your offer. These responses can help you decide if the person filling out your form is someone you’re interested in nurturing and dedicating more time and energy to. Simplify Communication 64% of consumers say they like to receive text messages with incentives (coupons, discounts, promos) from local businesses. Furthermore, 95% are opened within 3 minutes—texting is one the quickest forms of communication there’s ever been! Nowadays, people want instant answers. When consumers are looking for a purchase or service, they would much rather text you than call. They’re tired of being put on hold and having their emails ignored. By using tools like BizBuilder.io, you can generate leads and stay connected with them long after they have left your website. Your website visitors will be transformed into qualified leads as soon as they submit their information. You can answer any questions quickly and open up a two-way communication line with them, increasing the likelihood that these potential customers return for future purchases or referrals. Go Out and Get Some High-Quality Leads! The lead generation process can be a complicated one, but with the right tools at your disposal, it doesn’t need to be. BizBuilder.io offers an extensive range of marketing and communication services that will not only simplify how leads are generated for your business; they’ll also deliver great customer experience from start-to-finish!
Overcome the 3 Biggest Marketing Problems for Local Businesses
Did you know that recent studies reported 90% of customers would go out of their way to promote local businesses in their community? This is great news for businesses that depend on a local customer base, especially after the uncertainty of the past two years. The question is, how can local businesses take advantage of this unique opportunity? The trend towards supporting local businesses does, however, come with challenges. It means that local businesses are in high competition with one another, and if you aren’t fully on top of your marketing, you will get left behind. BizBuilder.io partners with local businesses to create game plans that leverage current trends, as well as overcome marketing problems we see business owners run into across all industries. Read on to learn about the top problems we’ve seen, along with actionable solutions to solve them + find success in marketing. Problem #1: Generating Leads and Finding New Customers It’s no secret that customer acquisition has become a major problem for small businesses. Today, 60% of customers start their shopping journey online and this number continues to grow each year! This means that the first crucial step in generating more leads is to craft an outstanding online presence. So, what are the actual steps you need to take to build a strong online presence that converts leads into customers? Here are some of the most important pieces: An accurate online footprint. Your Google Business Profile is often a prospect’s first impression of your business—before they even visit your website—and when used effectively, it can be an excellent lead generation tool. It’s important to clean this up and ensure that Google has an up-to-date and clear idea of what you do. This will make it easy for online visitors to call, message, visit your website, or get directions to your business. A killer website. Your website is your online storefront. It should be clean, professional and most importantly lead generating! If you’re struggling to generate leads from your site, look to create a website that makes it easy for customers to learn about your services and start conversations with you. Interactive tools like webchat can be game-changers when it comes to turning your website into a lead-generating machine. A great online reputation. Generating more positive reviews for your business is one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal right now. Businesses with great ratings get ranked at the top of local searches. If you can get in touch with happy customers to consistently leave reviews about their experience and give you some stars, you’ll be golden. These are the foundations for putting your business in a place to dominate local search and get discovered. Once you’ve optimized these features, you can focus on digital marketing to capture even more leads. Problem #2: Retaining Customers Businesses often reach for new customers before they reach for the HUGE opportunity that is sitting right in front of them (and is much easier to obtain)… Existing customers! Customer retention is a huge way to increase revenue, not to mention much cheaper than acquiring new customers. Returning customers are 60-70% more likely to purchase from you than new customers, 7 times more likely to buy a new product, and 4 times more likely to bring in referrals. Nurturing existing customers should be a top priority! The best way to keep customers coming back is to give them a value-packed experience and to continually nurture them through marketing campaigns tailor-made for them. Here’s what we’ve seen works best: Craft a high-value experience. Providing over-the-top value and an outstanding experience creates loyal customers. When you delight your customers, it becomes a no-brainer for them to return and spend more on your services. Businesses should go beyond the product or service at hand to craft an amazing customer experience. Every touchpoint with your business can be designed to craft an all-around delightful experience: Advertisements, online presence, discovery, interactions, and follow-ups after the sale are all pieces of the overall experience. This can seem daunting, but you don’t need to overhaul your whole process at once. Focus on simplifying your customer experience to make it as convenient as possible. Then, you can dive in deeper and add the cherry-on-top value boosters that will make working with you an absolute no-brainer. Keep in touch with existing customers. Keep your business top-of-mind for past customers by reminding them that you are there to provide for them whenever the need arises. You can even create special deals or events especially for past customers. Try and use a more personal form of communication, like texting, with these folks, since they already know and trust your business. Data shows that customers prefer texting, and we have plenty more resources to build this out if you’re interested. Problem #3: No Time or Resources to do Marketing Running a small business isn’t easy. You already have to juggle a million roles and tasks, so it’s no surprise that people can’t always find the time or resources to put into marketing. Here are some tips to ease the burden and make marketing easier for you and your team: Automate. You need the right tools to automate and schedule tasks. Every business uses software tools, sometimes even dozens. Your platform should give you time back to focus on running your business, while sending out emails, SMS, changing contact status, and scheduling appointments on autopilot. If your software tools do not allow for integration or automation, seek out a system that does. At BizBuilder.io, we marry awesome strategy with amazing tools to create a seamless marketing experience that saves you tons of time. Communicate. Phone calls may be the most common way for leads to get in touch with your business, but other forms of communication can be even more effective and convenient for your customers. Leveraging texting can connect you with more customers and save you time. Pay attention to trending forms of communication, and choose a business texting provider and
3 Ways to Turn Your Website Into A Lead-Generating Machine
Generating leads through your website is vital for any online marketing strategy, especially if you’re a small or local business. You are competing with all the other brands and big companies that show up on search. Read on for 3 simple ways to turn your website into a lead-generating machine that runs on autopilot. Make It Super Simple To Start a Conversation With You Chatting with your customers is a key piece of building lasting relationships. They allow you to build trust, boost engagement, and overcome objections on the path to purchase. Automation has made many customer-business conversations feel more robotic than personal. Though it’s easier than ever to find ways to respond to your leads, without needing a single person in the process. As efficient as managing these conversations has become, the absence of real people damages the potential for you to create a trusting relationship with the customer. Even if you do leverage AI and automation to manage the conversation (which we encourage!), be sure to add in elements that make your messages feel genuine and personal. Here are some easy tips to help you stand out from the crowd and optimize your conversations to convert more leads: Include a “Contact Us” type of page. A contact form can be helpful for leads who want space to explain their situation or have questions. Add any links to social media pages for more organic traffic. Have team members monitoring messages there, as well. Feature an OBVIOUS button to schedule time with you. Add a button in your main menu or in the first fold of your website, and be sure to label it with a crystal clear call-to-action. Once someone is ready to schedule a time with you, they’re probably pretty convinced that your business has value that they can benefit from. You can continue to make that scheduling process seamless by sending confirmation and reminder messages. Try out a Live Chat feature for even more ease. A Live Chat feature allows for leads to get their questions answered as soon as they come up when browsing your website, minimizing the chance of them leaving without taking action. The sooner you can be ready to talk to an interested lead, the more likely you are to convert them. Provide incentives to continue the conversation. It can be difficult to keep a conversation going once it has started to fizzle out. It’s tricky to reignite a conversation once it’s lost momentum. The easiest way to re-engage past or pending customers is to add value to the offer you’ve already presented to them on your site. Give them a reason to come back! This is when incentives come into play. They’re all over the place: Website pop-ups offering you 10% off if you join their email list or sign up with your phone number for a discount. Why are they so popular, you may ask? They get results. Period. You need to make the most of the (likely brief) time someone spends browsing your site. Give them a reason to stay engaged. Opting them in for promotional content will allow you to follow up and remind them why they visited your site to begin with. You can send promos via email or SMS (the trend leans heavily towards texting right now) in order to nurture them and convince them that you really are the best. Some effective incentives could include a discount on their first purchase, free shipping, a reduced or free consultation of some kind, or even a freebie (like a PDF or eBook) they can download after signing up. When you tie in a special offer as a thank you for visiting your site or signing up, you start building customer relationships that last. Create trust through reviews and testimonials. In order to create a lasting relationship with your customers, you need them to know, like, and trust you as a business. Creating trust is both the most difficult and the most powerful piece of this puzzle. In order to become the no-brainer choice for customers to support, you need a foundation of trust. There are, unfortunately, a lot of sketchy and scammy businesses in the online world. It’s easy to front as an honest, small business, but under the surface, many of the businesses you see online don’t have the customer’s best interests in mind. There are plenty of money-hungry businesses who will provide the bare minimum (or less) and overcharge for it. As a result, many customers are skeptical when it comes to searching for businesses online. By providing reviews from people who had a great experience working with you, you’re providing people with confidence and reassurance that they can work with you and walk away with a similar success story. Your happy customers are your greatest advocates, and making them visible is a powerful way to grow your business. To start this process and begin gathering reviews and testimonials, you can reach out to happy customers and ask them to review your business. Tools like BizBuilder.io make this super easy. You can use these assets on your website‘s homepage to build credibility and prove that you’re the real deal. It’s worth it to invest in building up reviews. So many customers are excited to support small and local businesses; all you need to do is let them know you need their help! The trust you can create through this process can do wonders for your business and keep customers loyal for years and years to come. Wrapping up You can use your website to make an awesome first impression and win favor and support from your customers early on. No matter how a lead hears about your business, it’s likely that the first step they’ll take is to search you online. Make sure that they’re gonna love what they’ll find! Hopefully, you use these tips to boost your website and wow your customers. BizBuilder.io makes this process easy. If you’re interested in seeing how we
What to Do When Your Business Gets a Bad Review
You’re probably not going to be happy about this, but some of your customers will probably leave unsatisfied—despite all your best efforts to wow them and create an amazing experience. No one likes getting negative reviews, and it can be tough not to take them personally. If you’re not careful, a negative review can turn into a nightmare for your public image and even ruin your reputation. Thankfully, we’re here to help you make things right so that doesn’t happen! In this article, we’re going to cover how to respond to bad reviews and use their feedback to make your business even better. Somebody left your business a bad review, and it doesn’t fit in with all the other shining 5-star reviews you’ve worked so hard to get. It’s even brought your overall rating down. How can you fix this? Before you rush to the keyboard to defend your business’ honor and let your emotions take over, take some time to calm down. It might even be a good idea to let someone respond who wasn’t directly involved in the interaction. Getting defensive will only escalate the situation and make things worse. Make a plan to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Try to reframe the bad review as a chance to do things over and put your best foot forward. We’re going to lay out 4 simple steps you can take to transform negative reviews into positive experiences and boost your online reputation. You can even use these tips to show new and potential customers how amazing your services are… And that above all, that you care about them. How to Respond Use the customer’s first name when responding to them. So many businesses miss this detail. It’s the best way to start off your response in an intentional, personable manner. Rather than addressing them as “customer”, “valued customer”, “sir”, or “ma’am” (SO many businesses do this!), address them by name. When dealing with an unhappy customer, you want to keep the interaction genuine and human. Using their name in a nice, respectful way shows that you care about them and creates more of a relationship between you and the customer. Thank them for the feedback. Even negative customer feedback is valuable to you as a business owner. Therefore, you should always thank customers for their feedback. This shows that you appreciate their opinion and value their experience. It can be difficult to thank someone for a review that seems especially harsh or unfair. But it will let your customer, along with everyone else who sees the review, know that you care about what they have to say. Apologize. The first step towards making them right is apologizing for their experience. It can be tough to recognize and admit that your business has messed up in some way. But saying “We’re sorry” shows your customers that you care and you want to improve. There are times when a bad review has more to do with the customer themselves than you or anything your business did. Even so, we recommend taking the high road and accepting responsibility. You never want any customer to have a negative experience with you! Make it right. Presenting the offended party with an actionable solution is even more important than apologizing. You should provide a thoughtful solution that goes beyond a canned response like, “we hope we can make it up to you.” A vague response such as this does not show authenticity. Instead, make things personal and think critically about how you can avoid a repeat of this problem in the future.