Tag Archives: taking an action on a website

Increase Your Email Subscribers with Your Blog Articles

Increase Your Email Subscribers with Your Blog Articles
It’s the digital marketer’s mantra: the real power is in the list. You’ve got one shot to impress a website visitor, but endless opportunities to reach out to your email list subscribers.

Blogs are a great way to capture interest and email addresses, but if yours isn’t exactly a gold mine of signups, then it’s time to make a few tweaks. Our recommendations are:

1. Get Responsive!

Responsive design is so critical that Google and other search engines are penalizing sites that aren’t mobile-friendly, and accessible across platforms. More important than that: if your readers can’t access your blog on their phone, they will go elsewhere.

2. Put Opt-In Forms on Every Page

No one is going to look for your opt-in form. Make it easy. Use simple text. Ask for as little information as possible. Add a big, easy to click button. Finally, put it above the fold.

Did you know that the old “sidebar” forms don’t really work optimally anymore?  It’s good to have one but you need something more to “get in front of” the visitor more clearly.

3. Use the “Skyscraper Method”

The Skyscraper Method technique was developed by Brian Dean of Backlinko, and it’s very simple and very effective.

  • Find the very best content in your niche
  • Figure out how to rework it, rewrite it, and make it BETTER
  • Post your new, improved, viral-ready and completely shareable link bait on your blog
  • Repeat

4. Help People Find What They Need

Even if you have a blog that is Shakespeare worthy in style and has the depth of Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining quasars, you’re not going to get the traction you should be out of it if people struggle to find their way around.

Make sure your navigation is simple and intuitive, and place a search box in a prominent and easy to find place on every page.

5. Add A CTA to Every Post

If you don’t get them to sign up before they read your post, make sure you catch them at the end, by including a call to action (CTA) inviting subscription at the end of your posts.

6. Add a Bounce Popup

Good salespeople never give up, and neither should your site. If your opt-in forms haven’t captured their information, and your CTA fails, add a popup to your site that only appears when people are about to leave without signing up.

Chances are, most visitors who leave won’t come back soon, so you have nothing to lose by disrupting them, and asking them to subscribe.

7. Ask Often and Clearly

Most internet users aren’t sure what they are supposed to do next when they land on most sites. Ask them to take action is often all that’s required. Once they’re on your list, you’ve succeeded in the first step in email marketing and relationship building.

Don’t let your hard work blogging go to waste. Turn your business blog into a marketing machine!  Ready to try a Waftio pop-up or widget?

How to Use Waftio for a Survey

How to Use Waftio for a Survey

Surveys have always been a useful tool for the modern marketer. With the explosion of apps, they are now easy and efficient to use online for any business. When you use Waftio for a survey, you’ll get a two-fold benefit. Presenting surveys to your audience show that you value their opinion, and the answers can serve as invaluable, direct analytics. You’ll learn what they’re truly interested in and willing to pay for!

How do you leverage your customers to your mutual benefit? Use Waftio for a survey. A survey-oriented app like Waftio comes with the processes built in so you can take advantage of these attributes. Some options to consider include:

Find Out What Your Customers Want

Market analysis to improve a business is challenging. By offering surveys, you tap directly into what the consumer wants. All your questions should be about the product or service so you can identify key points and use them to tailor future offerings to your audience.  Use multiple choice or check boxes to get consistent data back.

Customer Service Performance

Another attribute of surveys is their ability to keep you and your staff on their toes, in a sense. Surveys should be short and to the point, and aim to discover the notable aspects of customer service. You’ve probably experienced call-backs with other companies, asking you how they did. It produces results, so use it to your advantage.

Detailed Customer Follow-Up

Send your customers a longer survey for feedback. Or shortly after an initial purchase, a shorter survey. The pricier the item, the more useful this survey can be. Be sure to include how valuable their business is to you.

Discover the Demographics

Time to get a bit more personal.

Using the tools that Waftio provides, you can get your demographics by inquiring into their lives. Don’t be hesitant to go beyond the direct business. Discover their challenges and desires will help you forge better services for them in the future. This kind of information is invaluable in forming future products and services that keep customers coming back and tied to your business.

Make Customers a Part of the Company

This crowdsourcing aspect is especially important in the age of social media. There’s never been an easier time for a company to engage with their customers. Include your customer base in business decisions, such as creating or choosing the name of a new product, or running contests to determine the best logo from a selection of images. You can use this to find out services they’d like you to offer in the future.

The specific survey you use can skyrocket customer engagement. When you use Waftio for a survey, the option to take a survey is available on every page, so you don’t lose potential respondents. Take Waftio and the Survey App for a test spin with a 14-day free trial!

Save

Make Sure Your Content Attracts Your Target Market

Make Sure Your Content Attracts Your Target Market

The first step to attracting your target market with content is knowing what they want. If you can’t give them what they’re looking for, they have no reason to go to your site.

But how? Here’s how you can know what your target market is craving:

  • Create buyer personas.

    Before knowing what your target market wants, you’ve got to know what you want first and foremost. To identify your ideal buyer, create profiles and make them as detailed as you can. Let’s say you have a travel agency. Are you targeting millennials who want to spend on budget travel? Or do you want to attract retirees who are ready to splurge on cruises? You decide.

  • Go where they go.

    Visit the forums and online groups where your target market hang out. You’ll find what hot topics they’re talking about and what problems they’re experiencing. If you can offer a solution, then voila! Instant subject for your next content!

  • Check out the competition.

    Unless you’re in a unique niche, chances are there are more successful players in your chosen industry. So take a look at the content they post and figure out what’s popular and what isn’t. This isn’t about copying — it’s about determining trends.

  • Ask for input.

    The comments section of your blog or social media page is a place for engagement, so make use of it. Invite users to share their opinions, feedback, suggestions, and even criticism. When you listen to your target market, you’ll be better equipped to address their needs.

  • Make content interactive.

    Questionnaires, quizzes, and surveys are content in themselves if you present them well. At the same time, they serve as tools to collect information from your target market.

  • Explore more than text content.

    Many people are on their tablets or smartphones, so you’ve got to consider optimization for mobile devices when creating content. Make content suitable for mobile by using subheadings, photos, and other visual dividers. Better yet, present content in a visual format like infographics, posters, or even short video clips.  Video is getting great attention for good reason.  People DO watch short videos!

  • Share in strategic cycles.

    No matter how awesome your content is, it won’t get the attention it deserves without promoting it. Fortunately, there are many channels you can go through. You can share links to your content on your social media pages, ask family and friends to share it, tap influencers within your niche (and hope they like your content enough to share it with their many followers), or pay for sponsored posts. The great thing about advertising on social media is that you can work with a small budget, unlike with traditional media such as radio, print, or TV.

These steps won’t guarantee virality, but they can guarantee you a solid following — as long as you are consistent. People, regardless of their interests, want a regular source of reliable information. This is how loyalty forms. Once you create a relationship with your target, focus on sustaining the ties by always delivering content they enjoy.

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!

The Value of a CTA in Your Blog Post

The Value of a CTA in Your Blog Post

Blogging is one of the best strategies you can use to communicate and interact with your online audience. Content management systems like WordPress make it easy to create a blog. As you use the blog to market your products and services, it’s crucial to include a CTA (call to action) within each post.

Without a CTA to motivate your readers into taking the action you want them to take, your readers won’t take any action at all. It’s simply information on the web.  You need to guide your readers to take the action you desire!

Here’s what a CTA can do for your blog:

Increase Web Traffic

Websites that get lots of traffic rank higher in the major search engines. This, in turn, makes the site more readily available (higher in search results) to those doing searches. The key is to include a link to the website product/service page in your CTA. It will help channel traffic from your blog to the site, increasing the success of your online marketing campaigns and your popularity.

Example of a form embedded in a blog post:

The Value of a CTA in Your Blog Post

Get the Reader to Read More Content

One of the best ways to convert traffic is with quality content that makes the reader stay on your website. Adding a call to action of related articles to your blog posts will invite readers to read your other posts. All you have to do is link to the related topics using keywords. For instance, the keyword “online marketing” can be linked to other articles on social media marketing, website marketing or email marketing within the blog post.

A simple and clear way to do this is with a titled area “Related Content” and then have a bulleted list with keyword titles linking to other articles on your blog or website.

Increase Chances of the Post Being Shared on Social Media

There are over 2 billion active social media users in the world today. Use social media to market your products and services. Because posting links to your blog posts on social media isn’t enough, you’ll need go a step further. Include social sharing buttons on your posts as your CTA at the end of all blog posts. Readers will be able to share the posts easily by just clicking on these buttons.

Add More Readers to your Email List

Email marketing is a powerful strategy to generate sales. Use a CTA to get your website readers to subscribe to your email newsletter. One of the best ways to tempt people to subscribe is by giving discounts or access to premium content in exchange for them signing up. For example, if your blog post focuses on photography, you could offer a free eBook with tips about photography to readers who provide their email address.

Finally, the CTA should be action-oriented, brief, clear, and easy to locate. Readers should be able to see it from a distance, but it shouldn’t be so large that it diverts attention from the main content. More importantly, it should be in an easy-to-find spot on the blog.   Try different ones including sidebar CTA’s, in-page CTA’s, and pop-up CTA’s.

 

Save

Save

5 Tricks to Get the Best Opt-in Forms

5 Tricks to Get the Best Opt-in Forms

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a marketer is assuming that if a lead has clicked on your call-to-action, they are as good as converted. The lead still has to fill out your form, which means they can still change their mind and leave your page.

If you find the number of views of your landing page is substantially larger than your lead captures, there could be a problem with your form.

Here are some of the common reasons why your opt-in form is failing to capture leads:

1. You’re asking for too much information

The shorter your form, the more willing people will be to complete it. If the form looks like a test, most will skip it. You should limit the form to 2  to 3 fields. People don’t have patience, and the last thing they’re going to do is take the time to answer lots of questions.

2. You’re asking for information that’s too personal

Most people are uncomfortable giving personal information via the internet. Obviously, you have to ask for a name and email address. Most people realize they have to provide this information.

However, you shouldn’t ask for other information, like phone numbers and company names. This makes people uncomfortable – especially since there are a lot of websites that the sell information they collect.

3. Your leads don’t feel secure

Almost everybody will have second thoughts before they fill out a form on a website. Do they really want to provide you with information that you can use to spam them?

Demonstrate the safety and security of your site to help alleviate these fears by including the following:

  • Social Proof – Add social proof to your landing page. Add the number of shares or likes the landing page has gotten, the number of downloads you’ve gotten (if you’re offering free downloadable content in exchange for filling out the form) or even customer testimonials.
  • Privacy Policy – Provide a link to your privacy policy to reassure leads you won’t sell their personal information. A good place to put the link is under the field asking for their email address.
  • Authority Endorsement – Any endorsements from an authoritative source, guarantees or third-party security certifications should be displayed on the form.

4. You’re not positioning the form above the fold

When a lead arrives on your landing page, make sure your form is in full view. A lead should not have to scroll down the page in search of the form; there’s a chance that they may get distracted and simply forget why they’re there. Always position your form above the fold (meaning the visible area on a web page) so your leads don’t have to search to find it.

5. You’re not testing your forms

Use variations of your forms and do A/B testing to determine which variation is more effective at capturing leads.

Don’t underestimate the importance of your opt-in forms when it comes to capturing leads. Be sure to avoid some of these more common mistakes to make sure your forms are efficient.

Capturing Leads with Ebooks

Capturing Leads with Ebooks

Perhaps the most often repeated phrase in online marketing is “content is king”. But it’s true; if your content isn’t worthwhile, your visitors won’t stick around.
The quality and originality of the content you present are vital to visitor retention, SEO, social media, branding, and marketing. Let’s look at the benefits of putting your quality content into an eBook to generate leads.

eBooks are your chance to present in-depth information you can’t squeeze into a blog post. eBooks should have a more formal tone than blog or web copywriting, it’s like a mini-book. They’re a good way to show your expertise and authority, and they work well as a soft lead capture tool.
For some people, the idea of writing a book might seem overwhelming, and an ebook is shorter! It can be done at minimal cost and in a variety of formats, like .pdf, or Kindle, and often with free tools. What are uses for eBooks?  Let’s dive into a few…

1. Capture prospects from social media

Add a subscription form to your landing page and use social media posts to direct traffic to it.  On the page, use your eBook as a free opt-in offer. One advantage of social media is that it draws visitors who are curious about your topic, love to interact online, and will post comments or share good content with their friends.
Offering something informative like an eBook relevant to your business helps target those with real interest. Are you in social media?  Giving them the right Twitter hashtags or inviting the right Facebook groups to read your eBook is dangling bait for your target audience. With a quality eBook, you’ll get positive responses that’ll increase interest to a widening circle of visitors. There’s no better advertising.

2. Use them to advertise

eBooks can be updated and reposted whenever you like – giving you the chance to promote the updates. eBooks can include links to your sales web pages or resources your audience might find interesting on your website. In your updates, include coupons or discounts available only to eBook readers, links to freebies readers will appreciate – or links to your next eBook. You could do follow-up eBooks essentially a user manual or promote your accessories. In short, you can do about any selling in an eBook that you can on a web page, and more in-depth. Just provide a link to your order page.

3. Use eBooks to gather information

The value of eBooks comes from the leads and sales they generate. You could charge money for your eBooks, that won’t make them more valuable, but it will limit the number of people who read them. Gather useful information by inviting interested customers to a website where they must enter personal info, such as names, email addresses, and interests relating to your product or services, before getting the link to your eBook.

If you convey the impression that this is info they won’t get anywhere else, they’re more likely to give you their info. You’ll build a targeted mailing list to use for future campaigns. Ask for professional or demographic information to help build a better picture of people most interested in what you have to offer.

An eBook doesn’t have to be a hundred or even fifty pages of material. It just has to give prospects something they didn’t know, and the opportunity to get/learn more. By creating quality eBooks geared toward marketing, you’re creating a sales tool that exists forever in cyberspace and will continually generate leads for you.

Are you using eBook’s effectively on your website for lead capture?  A simple Waftio form can be the lead capture solution you need to kick-off that next ebook marketing plan!

The Art of Using Coupons and Discounts to Boost Your Email List

The Art of Using Coupons and Discounts to Boost Your Email List

Like a love letter sent to a special someone, you really want your subscribers to open your email. If it gets trashed or just floats to the bottom of their inbox, you haven’t reached them with your message and the value of your brand fades. An increasingly popular way to drive engagement with your email marketing is to include a coupon or discount.

Consider the following two headlines:

  • “It’s Springtime, so order our services and enjoy this great weather in style.”
  • “This Spring, take advantage of our 25% off deal and be prepared for Summer.”

The second one has more appeal doesn’t it? The first one is telling your customer what to do and asking for a sale. The second option is more suggestive and demonstrates a willingness on the part of your brand to offer value.

If you can put yourself in your customer’s shoes, you have to admit that you’re far more likely to open an email that is offering you something for nothing, rather than one that is asking you for something. If you’re ready to try coupons as part of your email marketing, get creative on different ways to incorporate the offer.

Clever ways to use coupons as part of your regular email marketing

  • Take advantage of seasons and holidays. Add seasonally relevant coupons to your regular email marketing schedule. Think of how your customers can use your services in the context of Springtime, Valentine’s Day and other relevant cultural events.
  • Get repeat business. Once you’ve sold a customer, offer a special “thank you” coupon 30, 60 or 90 days after the conclusion of their first purchase encouraging them to return by sweetening the pot with a special discount.
  • Tie-in coupons with social media. You can offer a progressive discount for using a coupon while also taking some action regarding your brand’s social media platforms. For example, 10% off for simply using the coupon alone but 15% off if the customer is a Facebook fan and 20% off if they are a fan and share one or more of your Facebook posts in the week prior to redeeming the coupon.

Email marketing has a long-standing track record of driving value for brands by creating a captured audience of individuals who have expressed loyalty or affiliation with your brand. If you fail to deliver value to your list, you’ll see a decline in subscribers. You want to make sure that your subscribers stick around, and you attract more subscribers.

You can use coupons or email list exclusive discounts as a means of driving signups.

In the call-to-action on your site or social channels, encourage your audience to sign-up for your list in exchange for an immediate discount. Make sure to continuously seed your list with new coupons and discounts, so they don’t lose track of the value in their original choice to sign up.

Coupons are an excellent way to provide value to email subscribers, but they shouldn’t be the only method you employ. Ultimately, selling is about conveying value, not discounting price. While everyone loves to save a buck, you should also always be looking for new and creative ways to provide value to your audience by the way of engaging and informative content creation relevant to your brand’s value proposition.

It’s easy to offer coupons with Waftio!

Simply create a simple form web visitors must complete to get the discount and be added to your list, and then either offer the coupon as a discount code or link to a printable coupon. Integrate your Waftio form with Mailchimp, Aweber, and more to have them added to your lists automatically!

Are you using coupons in your email marketing?

How to Effectively Use Free Opt-in Offers

How to Effectively Use Free Opt-in Offers

Your small business may have an excellent website. Yet it might not be enough!

A site with great design and well-written descriptions may not get you the clients or followers you need to have a successful business.  Why?  Lead Capture is missing.

You need to market your website to get the maximum number of visitors and make sure you keep in contact, so they end up as customers, not just one time visitors on your site.

They don’t often buy the first time!

Most site visitors don’t commit to buy your product or use your services on their first visit.

Thus, it’s critical you make sure you have a way to capture their contact information when they DO visit!  With consistent interaction after the capture you may convert your visitor to a customer over time.  A well-designed opt-in offer to capture the email address and open two-way communication is an excellent way to engage your visitor. Their first visit is the best chance you’ll have to make that connection, so you need to choose your offer wisely and deploy it well.

The Offer Must have Value!

Research shows that free offers in exchange for an email address are effective.
Your visitors have a chance to try something without cost or obligation. They get to know you better and learn that you have something beneficial to offer. You’ll need to provide something of real value related to your products/services in exchange for their email address. It might be an eBook, a webinar, a product sample, a coupon or a highly informative video or newsletter. If you have a service, you can offer a free trial to “try before you buy.” It must be of enough value and compelling to motivate a sign-up.

Even if your business is not selling products or services, you need to grow your email list. Why?  It’s the simplest path forward to stay in touch with your clients and potential clients. Successful opt-in offers follow these guidelines:

  • Have an opt-in offer form which matches your site branding. Make sure the form is easy to complete (Not too many fields; best is name and email). Make it easy for a visitor to quickly opt-in.
  • Make sure the opt-in form is a prominent item on your site. Be sure it’s easy to locate. Use color, motion, or eye-catching graphics to call attention to it.
  • The offer should be really helpful. Make it nearly impossible for visitors to consider leaving without taking your offer. Your audience must see the value in the offer.
  • A well-received form might include a picture of you to make the offer more personal and humanize the business.
  • Make a strong case for the benefits your prospect will gain by accepting your offer.
  • Include success stories and testimonials to help encourage acceptance.

Conversion rates vary for opt-in offers. The more time you cultivate the contact, making sure they get the full value of the offer and keep in touch, the better the conversion rate. According to Totango research, trial offer conversions could run from under 8% up to 20% with follow-up. The key to better conversion is communication with the lead on a regular basis, and using their first name. This is part of your email nurture follow-up strategy.  Deployment of emails should be on a scheduled basis or based on the lead’s use or lack of use of the trial product. You can offer coaching or help by phone or email.

If you make a good impression, you’ll be rewarded!

These are essential keys to success on your site.  Any questions?

The Value of Website Engagement

The Value of Website Engagement

In this day and age, every business knows the value of a good website. A website with professional graphics, high-quality content, and easy navigation makes a positive impression on potential buyers and will help you score sales.

A lesser-known opportunity for a website is engagement, grabbing a person’s attention when they get to your site and encouraging them to interact with your site.  This takes intentionality and often tools to help prompt the engagement.  When done well it helps people to remember your business and builds a positive first connection.

Here are four more benefits of WebSite Engagement

1. Get’s Rid of Searching

Tools that “capture attention” on websites make it easier for a customer to interact with the site. Instead of having to scroll through the site to find a contact page or subscription form, they’ll see the Waftio form spring out at them and can immediately make inquiries or feedback. People are often in a hurry and have limited time to spend on your site. The quicker you get their attention and get them what they need the more engagement you’ll have.

2. Attention-Grabbing

With all the things vying for people attention, from funny YouTube videos to viral Instagram photos, it can be hard to capture a person’s attention online. Tools such as Waftio play into that instant gratification and quick access to tools that jump out on the page and are fun and interactive.

Instead of a plain, boring form which could be easily overlooked, the website visitor will be immediately drawn in by something that jumps out at them. You’ll get more subscriptions, registrations, and inquiries which can lead to potential sales.

3. Learn New Information

Because people have a limited amount of time and attention, if you want feedback on how a product is doing, you aren’t going to get by sending out an email begging customers to take a survey. With Waftio, the shake of the survey form will capture attention, be enticing, and you’ll get more responses.

4.  Share on Social Media

Waftio is different than it’s closest competitors because it has a social component. The tool offers the opportunity to share survey forms on social media upon completing them. Your business will get more exposure, more traffic, and more potential leads will come to your website.

That’s four more ways you can use Waftio to your benefit on your website.  Try the free trial today!