Tag Archives: lead capture

How to Convert your Email List to Sales

How to Convert your Email List to Sales Nearly every small business marketing article will mention building an email list. However, few of these posts tell you what to do with subscribers after they sign up. When you’re ready to convert your email list into paying customers, here are some tips to put into action.

Research Competitor Email Tactics

Do you know what your audience expectations are? Your idea of an email marketing campaign and what’s standard for your industry may be completely different. Look at the phrases used in industry emails, the type of marketing materials included in the emails and other items your ideal customers may have already seen.

Develop a Valuable Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a resource that will benefit your audience enough that they will give you their email address for it. You may already have one of these for list building purposes, but it’s always a good idea to continually create new magnets to expand what’s available and to bring in more people.

Your free opt-in offer also gives a  new subscriber a chance to see your expertise. If they learn from you in your free material they’ll know they can learn from you if they pay you.

Use Personalization in Your Emails

The typical person subscribing to your emails receives hundreds or thousands of generic emails from countless businesses. They’re used to simply skimming past these one-size-fits-all messages because they don’t apply to their needs.

Segment subscribers into several interest groups and deliver messages that speak about the areas that make the most sense for that interest group. Use their name to stand out over the generic emails in their inbox.

If you have a lot of buyer data for your email list, make sure you’re leveraging it for a quality customer experience.

Automate Repetitive Processes

By automating email campaigns, you can free up a lot of time. These automated campaigns take over repetitive tasks like sending out the free opt-in offer. Schedule your free opt-in drip campaign to send a series of emails over the course of a month or year. Since your email service provider handles that side of things, you can turn your attention to developing more content or talking to potential buyers.

Build Relationships Through Consistent Newsletters

Few people are going to buy your products with your first email. Slowly develop the relationship by showing up and being consistent. Schedule your emails to arrive on the same day of the week and time of day. This practice lets customers know that you’re a reliable company.

An email list is an excellent tool for generating sales, but you need a solid strategy for turning subscribers into buyers. Start implementing these tips and you’ll see improvement from your current strategy.

Why People Open Emails

Why People Open Emails Though email is a product of the modern digital age, it’s almost old-fashioned compared to social media. And yet, email looks like it will stick around for a long time. According to the Q4 2016 Email Benchmark Report by global information services group Experian, 56% of total email opens happened on smartphones or tablets in Q4 2016. This illustrates the fact that email has made the transition from desktop to mobile use.

The same report also states that quarter-to-quarter revenue per email increased from 6 cents in Q3 2016 to 8 cents in Q4 2016. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but considering emails can be sent out to a whole subscriber list with only one click, a jump in revenue is a per subscriber stat.

For entrepreneurs, this is an opportunity you can’t miss. When you have a subscriber list, you have the ability to reach out to people quickly and easily via email. And if you do it right, your messages will be read.

But what makes people open emails? Several factors are influential here:

Timing

Emails are likely to be read within the first hour of being delivered. In the following hours, the chances are lower. After 24 hours, the odds are no longer in your favor

The day you choose to send an email has a direct impact. If you want to have a higher success rate, pick Tuesdays or Saturdays. Tuesday has an average open rate of 18%, the highest among all weekdays. But among all days of the week, Saturday has the highest open rate at 18.3%. Evenings after 8 pm fare the best, followed by afternoons from 4 pm to 8 pm.

Reputation

Who you are and what your business does plays a key role in your emails getting opened and read. So building an image as a trusted authority in your niche is critical. If your previous emails didn’t offer much, or if your website and social media pages lack substance, people will think your emails follow suit. It takes a while to establish a good reputation, but it’s well worth the effort.

After sender name, the subject line, offer, intro paragraph, and expected length (in that order) influence the chances of getting your email read.

Personalization

Let’s say your name is Alex and your email handle is alex101. You receive 2 emails, one with “Alex, here are great deals for you!” or “alex101, here are some great deals for you!” The chances are that you will regard the second email as spam and send it to trash without even a glance. An email handle used as a greeting is a dead giveaway that the email is auto-generated. Most people suspect that emails are auto-generated, but it helps if it doesn’t look like one.

Most online marketers currently want to focus on social media and other forms of digital marketing, but email isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so step up your email game.

Use MailChimp to Get More Leads from Your Website

 

Use MailChimp to Get More Leads from Your Website Ask any digital marketer about the key to online success, and they’ll tell you “the secret is in the list”.  Getting traffic to your website is the first step in the process, but turning them into customers is the tricky, important part.

The key is to capture an email address from visitors and use it to keep in touch until your prospect is ready to buy. A great way to keep in touch and in front of potential customers is a weekly email campaign.

MailChimp is a 3rd party email marketing software that lets you do just that.

What Is MailChimp?

MailChimp is a cloud-based email newsletter system that helps you to collect and store emails from your website, and design, send and measure email marketing campaigns. They are free for your first 2,000 email address and 12,000 sends, which means you can get started and try it out without spending a dime. They also have a paid version which has automation processes for drip campaigns.

Gathering Email Addresses

Use MailChimp to gather email addresses by adding  a newsletter subscription form to your site.  Create a free opt-in offer like a downloadable ebook. People “pay” for the free item by entering their email address.

MailChimp is tough on spam. MailChimp has your subscribers double opt-in to your list.This means they’ll sign up on your subscription form and they’ll receive an email with a link to click that confirms their subscription.

Adding an existing email list to MailChimp? The double opt-in doesn’t apply to email address added directly to MailChimp. But, if you haven’t sent an email in a while you may want your first one to confirm their desire to continue receiving your emails.

Create a Campaign

Once you have a list in MailChimp, create an email campaign, include news, deals or interesting articles and send to your customers and prospects. Make sure you include a clear call to action in your email, so your readers know what to do with the information you send.

For convenience, you can schedule more than 1 newsletter at a time. Or to automatically send your blog post to your readers via RSS feed without any effort on your part.

If you pay for your MailChimp account you can send an automatic drip campaign. This is a set number of emails you send for a specific purpose … to move readers through the sales process and convert them to buyers.

Measure Results

One of the best features of MailChimp is their reports and statistics. The detailed reporting features built into the system lets you measure your email open rate, and link clicks to name a few. It tells you if anyone reported you for spam (not good!) and how you are doing based on industry averages.

When you’re starting out with email marketing, MailChimp is an invaluable tool that helps you refine your message and delivery. I’d recommend you spend some time reviewing and analyzing each report you get and adjusting your email marketing plan accordingly!

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Targeting Your Ideal Client with Facebook Ads to Grow Website Leads

Targeting Your Ideal Client with Facebook Ads to Grow Website Leads

Successful inbound marketing is knowing who your customers are, and targeting them carefully so that you get maximum ROI for your digital marketing spending. Sounds great, but once you know who you want to reach, there’s still the small matter of figuring out how.

Fortunately for everyone, there are online tools designed for just this purpose, and Facebook’s laser targeted ad services are one of the very best.

What Are Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads range from those that show up in your news feed, and look like posts from friends, to those in the sidebar and elsewhere. Some look like ads, while others (usually called boosted posts) are actual posts that have been “sponsored” to show up in news feeds.

How Do Facebook Ads Work?

Facebook ads work (basically at least) like most PPC ad types. You set up the ad, set a budget, and pay per click or action. There’s a dashboard, where you can see what’s happening with your ad set, and you can have more than one at a time.

How Much Do They Cost?

Like most PPC advertising systems, there’s a cost per click or action for your Facebook ads, but since you can also set a total or per day budget, you can control your spending at a granular level.

So far, so good. Now, here’s how you really get more from Facebook ads.

Facebook Ad Targeting Tools

The thing that sets Facebook apart from most other advertising systems is the targeting options available. Because Facebook knows so much about their users, there are almost endless options you could choose, to reach only the people you want.

Choose geographical areas, languages, gender, and age. Then select from thousands of interests. Make your choices broad or very specific. Then choose when your ads will run, and where. Exclude people who already like your page, or add a tracking pixel, to track actions on your site.

In most cases, it’s best to start your Facebook ads a little broader, and then narrow it down over time, so that you spend less for clicks, views, and actions.

Creating Great Ads

The final step in Facebook ad success is the ad itself, and while targeting is very important, it’s the ad itself that will be driving traffic to your page or website.

Make sure that the image is relevant and interesting, and that you have rights to use it! Choose a clear, simple image, and remember that Facebook doesn’t like loads of overlaid text, so keep it simple. Write a great hook, and add an action button.

If you’ve chosen the right target audience, and crafted a great ad, you should soon see traffic to your site, blog or page spike.

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6 Ways to Use Instagram Stories for Business

6 Ways to Use Instagram Stories for Business

When you think about the ways to use social media for your business, Instagram may not be the first channel that comes to mind. However, with the new feature offered by this platform called “Stories,” more and more businesses are hopping on the Instagram bandwagon.

“Stories” provides you the ability to create a string of videos and images that join together and then disappear after 24 hours. This offers you an effective and wide-reaching way to spread a message. Here are some specific ways “Stories” can be used for your brand:

Build Buzz and Create New Content Teasers

Instagram Stories offer a smart way to take your followers or customers behind the scenes and provide them a sneak peek of what’s coming in the future. Let them take a look at what is going on that is new or different in your company or take them on a journey to meet the staff in your office.

These small peeks into your business will not only help to strengthen your relationship, but also help to build buzz for new campaigns.

Create Short Term Contests and Games

If you want to provide a reward for your followers who remain engaged and active, consider creating a quick contest with Instagram Stories. These represent the ideal way to keep your followers interested and coming back for more. Since the Stories feature only lasts for 24 hours, they have to participate now or risk missing out altogether.

Increase Awareness and Traffic to Other Campaigns

Are you planning to host a Facebook Live Video spot? Do you need a few more people to register for your webinar? Instagram Stories can be used as a tool to remind your followers there is something exciting going on today, and they have one more chance to join in.

Creating an engaging image or short video can drive last minute sign-ups and help you get some additional traffic on other social media platforms.

Offer a Special Promo Code

If you are looking for even more ways to reward your active Instagram followers, consider offering them a coupon or discount code that they will only receive if they open your Instagram Story. The fact that the promotion will end in just 24 hours may be the thing that will encourage them to buy now, rather than waiting.

Flood Your Instagram with New Followers

You may wonder how you can gain new followers with Instagram Stories. With this unique feature, you’ll have Instagram exclusive content, which is an added bonus for anyone who is following you.

Announce rules for contests and let followers know this is the only way they’ll get this information. To get the information on an ongoing basis, they’ll have to follow you.

Set Engaging Content Apart from all the Rest

Instagram allows you to see what parts of your Stories generate the highest number of views. If you notice that specific content from the story is more engaging than other parts, you can post it on your Instagram feed for all of your followers to see.

This latest Instagram update has a number of fun ways and new opportunities for brands to engage customers and followers while sharing industry related information. With a bit of creativity and innovation, chances are you can think of a few new ways to promote what your business has to offer.

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How to Use Video for Lead Generation

How to Use Video for Lead Generation

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, you can imagine what a video is worth when relating an idea. And because of this, more and more businesses are using videos for marketing. Conversations are often overheard beginning with, “I saw the best video on YouTube…”

Businesses are taking full advantage of the medium. Either they’re creating videos themselves, or using them for opening a dialogue with potential clientele.

Video Lead Generation

The whole point is to lead your viewers from passively watching to actively engaging and ultimately purchasing. Some viewers become leads at the initial contact and some after they’ve viewed the video.

Free Videos

When your potential customers are able to watch a video that solves their problem or challenge, they’re more receptive to giving an email address to receive more info. You’ve given an enjoyable experience and something of value which helps them.

Video Gates

Requiring an email in exchange for the ability to view a resource video is very effective. If you use analytics, you’ll capture a viewing history which allows for more precise marketing. Carefully choose how many fields on your email form. The more fields, the less chance a viewer will fill out the form.

Call To Action

During your video use a pop-up or slider to capture the viewer’s information. In this instance, you’ll want only one field – the email address – as your viewer will want to finish the video.

Where To Place Your Lead Generation Video

Your videos should be placed on several sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and Twitter. Once you have attracted a viewer, draw them in and send them to your landing page.

Embedding a video in the middle of a text page is very effective. This method entices a potential consumer using 2 forms of media, bringing in a larger audience. Younger crowds migrate toward videos, and older people prefer a more traditional way to consume information.

How To Share Your Videos

Be creative, and keep your brand and message in mind. For example, a site selling plants would offer tips on when to fertilize and how to fix a sick plant. The key is to capture the audience that will most likely purchase from your website.

Optimization

Text has keywords, use them for video as well. To the search engines, images can be a big hole. Use text descriptions and tags to help the search engines find your content.

Why Use Video for Lead Generation?

Studies have shown the benefit of using video. Businesses using video marketing grow quicker than their counterparts that don’t use video.

End Results

When video marketing is used to capture an audience your potential customers are engaged, and they’ll want more. They’ll move through the sales funnel and onto your landing page. They’ll become the lead you need and move on to purchase from you.  Waftio can be used as the “gate” to capture name and email before giving them access to the video landing page.  Give it a try today!

5 Ways to Improve Your Email Nurture Campaign

5 Ways to Improve Your Email Nurture Campaign

Leads are the life source for any business and nurturing them is vital to convert them to sales. These 5, easy to follow steps, will show you how to improve your email nurture campaigns.

1. Audience

Know your audience.

Your email marketing lists should be segmented in a strategic way that keeps in mind what your company needs to achieve and the messages you need to send. There is no point talking to a customer who’s just purchased your product, about the features the item. You wouldn’t want to bother a customer on the west coast about a service only available on the east coast.

These might be extreme examples, but they make the point. If you don’t plan your messages according to what readers want to see you risk losing that lead altogether.  This is called segmentation.  When someone purchases, move them off a prospect list to a upsell or nurture list with content relevant to them.

2. Plan

Timing is everything when it comes to talking to prospective customers. You need to know where the lead came from, why, and where they are in the buying cycle. Don’t try to close a sale if someone is still looking for answers and advice. Plan the message carefully depending on who you’re talking to, what they need, and how close they are to a buying decision.

It takes on average 7 points of contact for someone to trust your business enough to be ready to purchase.  So your email campaigns should not sell in round 1, but nurture and build trust a number of emails before a “buy offer” is made.

3. Automate

If you are a very small business, it might, and I emphasize the word “might” be possible to manually nurture your leads. If you have a large database of leads, however, it’s almost impossible to manually stay on top of which email went to which list, what various members of that list did (or did not do) after reading the email, and what you should do next. MailChimp is one of the many companies that offer the ability to create an email automation series to help nurture your lead.  Setup the sequence of emails once, then let it run on auto-pilot.

4. Help, Don’t Sell

The quickest way to lose a potential customer is to try and sell them something they don’t want. Instead, offer education and advice. They’re on your email list because they’re looking for a solution to a problem. When someone is looking for a plumber, what they need is to stop a leaky faucet from dripping all the time. The plumber is just the solution provider. Show them how you have helped other customers, point out how your product or service can help solve their problem, and become a valuable resource. Ask what they need and point them in the right direction.  Pushing someone to buy nowadays turns them off pretty quickly.

5. Analyze and improve

Look at email open rates, click thru rates, opt-outs, etc. to determine what is happening and how emails compare to each other.  As well, experiment with layout design, colors, images vs. text, calls to action, etc. Whatever you do always take some time to scrutinize the results and adjust any future campaigns accordingly.  Not reviewing performance is a key misstep to avoid!

The worst thing you can do is…nothing. A list of potential clients, if nurtured correctly via email, is a tremendous way to grow sales.

Want to create an email nurture series campaign but don’t know where to start? Feel free to contact our team. We’ll go over the strategy and your topic. We’ll even write your nurture series if you’d like.

Why You Shouldn’t Purchase Leads

Why You Shouldn’t Purchase Leads

The bottom line to a successful business is customers. You need buyers, lots and lots of buyers to make the business you put so much time, energy and money into, successful.  But how do you get these potential buyers who are so important to your business?

The mindset of many business owners is to immediately, get as many leads as they can, even if that means purchasing them to increase their business edge. Warning! They’re not quality leads!

Naturally, as a business owner you want a lead system that gives you qualified buyers. A system that gives you leads that show interest in your service or product and are actually teetering on the edge of making a purchase.  Realistically, you know leads like that don’t just fall from the sky and into your lap.  Those selling lists of leads are not doing you a favor!

Danger They’re Not Quality Leads!

Here is one of the biggest problems you’ll encounter when buying lead lists.

You haven’t the foggiest idea where those names came from.

  • You have no idea if they’ve been used multiple times before they reach your hands
  • They aren’t educated to what you have to offer
  • They have questions about your product or services

At the end of the day, you may realize that you were better off grabbing a phone book and picking out random names.

Here’s another problem you face when you buy leads. It looks like a lead, and it may have a name and telephone number like a lead, but it’s just a meaningless name. The kicker is that you may even buy leads from what you might call a reputable company who convinces you that they are targeted leads. However, once a few phone calls are made you realize the people you’re calling are complaining that you keep calling, even though this was the first call you made.

Buying a list of leads or an email list (other than a list that is a double opt-in list) is cold calling. Your competitor may have called last week. And even if these leads are warm, the people you call have no idea of who you are and what you offer.  What a waste of money.

Can You Buy Quality Leads?

According to Steve Hoffacker, the first question to ask is, “What’s the source of the contact information?”.  Anyone can compile a list and sell names and assume zero liability for the quality of the leads they sell, but does anyone determine their quality? In other words, have they recycled leads from some other company or are the names pulled out of a phone book? And obviously, if the names were vetted, the cost of those leads would be significantly higher.

Qualified Leads Take Time to Generate

Every business owner knows that generating prospects can be challenging. There’s no doubt that it’s best never to buy leads. The best solution is the only solution. Build relationships with those who are really interested in your service or product. To do this, you’ll be traveling on a totally different road than what you’re used to.

  • Use targeted content: Examples are blog posts and newsletters.
  • Social Media: Use your website and update it continually. Attract your customers with things of value.

The basic fact is this: When you begin to attract customers by providing useful, informative info and valuable offers, you’ll forget all about buying lists. It’s so much better than pulling names out of a hat.

Capturing Leads and Potential Customers with Webinars

Capturing Leads and Potential Customers with Webinars

A marketer’s primary goal is to find and attract leads. But not just any lead. The best kind of lead is a potential customer who’s in your target audience, heavily interested in your product, and could potentially be not just a customer, but a repeat user of your product/service.

So how do you capture these? One essential weapon in the digital marketer’s toolbox is the webinar. A webinar can be an extremely successful tool in capturing great leads that turn into valuable customers. Here are some of the secrets to the different ways you can go about capturing those valuable leads with a live webinar.

1. Pick an Inviting, Relevant Topic

There are probably a number of subjects you could present during a webinar. But the secret to attracting the leads you want is to consider your target audience carefully and choose the topic that would be most interesting to them. If you haven’t already, develop an audience persona for the type of customer you’re hoping to attract. What are their fears and worries? What problems do they have that you can help solve? Use your frequently asked questions from current customers as webinar topics.

2. Promote Your Webinar to Your Target Audience

Of course, the best content in the world isn’t going to do much without promotion. Make sure to notify your email list about the webinar, share it on social media, use Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn advertising to spread your message. Make your registration form easy to fill and shareable. Use images and intriguing headlines in your advertising. Consider doing radio or podcast interviews to reach new audiences who may be interested in your product.
Consider other fun ways to attract more leads, including giveaways or contests.

3. Pick the Right Platform

No one is going to be impressed with a webinar that is glitchy, or a lead form that doesn’t work. Chose your webinar software carefully and do a trial run before the live presentation. GotoWebinar is one of the major players in the webinar industry. Consider additional apps or software can customize your lead forms like Waftio.

4. Give Away Your Secrets

The secret to a great webinar is to give your audience something really valuable that they can use immediately, or continue to think about for the next few weeks. If you genuinely help your audience solve a problem, or improve their lives, you have them hooked. Why wouldn’t they want to consider becoming your customer?

5. Follow-Up Promptly

You’ve captured your lead, and you’ve wowed them with your secrets. Now make sure you follow-up with everyone who attended your webinar. Make sure what you’re offering is clear and it’s easy for them to take the next step, whether that’s to download a paper, purchase an e-book, or sign up for a class. Make your email content as valuable as your webinar, and you’ll have more sign-ups.

Waftio has custom forms that have proven to be effective. Waftio even integrates with GoToWebinar for an eye-catching form with the convenience of GoToWebinar automation. Sign up for a FREE 7-day trial!

How to Create an Effective Free Opt-in Offer

How to Create an Effective Free Opt-in Offer

Getting traffic to your site is great, but what do you do when half of the traffic leaves without purchasing or leaving any trace they were there? Here’s where an opt-in offer comes into play. An opt-in offer will grow your email list and continuously generate profits. The tricky part is convincing someone to give you their email.

The most important things to keep in mind when designing your opt-in offer are:

  • What’s in it for them?
  • What message will resonate with my audience?
  • What plan do I have to ultimately convert them into a customer?

When you ask for someone’s email, offer them something valuable for their information. It’s a must! Offer a resource that has significant enough value to be a good “trade” for their email address.  As well, be upfront about what your subscriber can expect once they give you their email address. How many time will they get an email each week?  Tell them what they will receive and it’ll greatly improve your chances of getting their information.

There is a multitude of different offers to use for the opt-in offer incentive including:

  • Coupon Code
  • Webinar Content
  • Educational information i.e.- video tutorial
  • E-Book Download
  • Contest Entry
  • Exclusive offers

Another method to consider is to get an email address and other information with a loyalty points program.

Starbucks is a perfect example of great customer retention through a loyalty program that allows people to earn stars every time they make a purchase. Customers redeem their stars for free drinks, food, and products.If you offer people incentives to create an account and recurring incentives for goal completions, they’ll be 10 times more likely to return.

Once you’ve established your offer, the next step is deciding what to do once you get the email address.

This is the time to make your company’s message stand out from the emails that fill people’s inbox daily. Choose your message and how you want to deliver it, then design your email to display your message engagingly.

We hate to break it to you, but not all emails get read!  If you can get a 35% open rate on your emails you are doing well.  That’s why you need an offer that helps you gain a volume of new subscribers.

Your main message must pop off your email right away.  The subject line often makes or breaks whether the email is read.

So now that you have your email list and message, you need to think about how to get them back to your site.

Your emails should have easy to read call to actions that will bring people back to your website. Offer a promo, show a new product offering, or include an excerpt from a blog that requires people to go back to your site to continue reading. Offer your subscribers solutions to their problems or something entertaining. Make your contact list look forward to your emails and you will see your conversions rise.

There is proven growth in email marketing you just need to be creative to stand out among the millions of opt-in offers.

Your best bet in creating a successful opt-in offer is to get into the minds of your ideal customers. What do they want to know? What would make them give you their information? Answer that and your opt-in offer will do the lead generation for you.