How to get more customers — Here’s a number for you: 2%. That’s the average number of newbies who visit your website or see your shiny happy new social media post and actually do something about it:
So What's The One Thing That Your Clients Were Hunting For — That You Failed To Offer?
PPerhaps the better question to ask is this — What is it that the 98% (who blinked, jumped, bolted) were looking for — that you didn’t offer?
Sure, 100% of the people who see your stuff aren’t all actively looking to buy your stuff right then and there.
They might have an issue,
But right now it’s not pressing enough to pull the trigger.
Reasons often cited include:
- They don’t need it right now.
- They don’t have the budget for it right now.
- They don’t trust you at the moment.
- They have more pressing matters.
- They’re still researching your services.
I know.
All that hard work.
All that care and attention.
Those long nights fiddling and refining the content.
Pairing that perfect sales patter with razor edged graphics.
And after all that effort ..
Just 2 in every 100 newbies sailing by actually drop anchor long enough to hand over their cash.
Of course, deep down you know it was never gonna be as easy as all that.
So you’ve got 2 options:
- You can wait and hope they remember your brand when the time is right.
- Or you can keep engaging with them with a few small but helpful and informative pieces of issue-relevant content to build the trust needed to induce a sale.
Which is why there’s an olde marketing saying: “Fortune favours the follow up.”
To furnish the 98% with something to think about: Research!
After all, content is king, right?
Companies that want to reach their full potential now need to understand the importance of maintaining a permanent presence in the lives of clients.
Every interaction with customers and prospects, however small, provides further opportunities for you to provide more value, get to know them, and vice versa.
According to Adestra:
Marketers say that the biggest benefits of automation are saving time (74%), increased customer engagement (68%), more timely communications (58%) and increased opportunities including up-selling (58%).
And to quote SocialMediaToday:
It is a basic marketing principle that it takes several "touches" before someone will internalise and/or act upon your call to action.
SO if you can establish trust over time, you will win.
- Stage One: Awareness — Your client is becoming aware of a problem and begins research to understand the problem.
- Stage Two: Consideration — Your client is fully aware of the problem and begins exploring all options available.
- Stage Three: Decision — Your client has explored all problem solving options and then selects a provider to help.
So it's reasonable to say, if they only see your marketing message once in Stage One, it’s not likely they’ll remember you in the future as your message may not completely resonate with them at that time.
And this is the 1 critical strategy most companies in your industry completely miss out on.
Which is great news for you!
Now if you’ve been in the marketing world for awhile, you’ve may have heard of the Marketing Rule of 7.
It states that a prospect needs to “hear” the advertiser’s message at least 7 times before they’ll take action to buy that product or service.
And Google suggests it could be as high as 11!
According to Marketo:
Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost and 96% of visitors who come to your website aren’t ready to buy.
Every interaction with your clients, however small, provides further opportunities for you to get to know them, and vice versa.
And every time they visit your website, encounter you on social media, or chat with a bot or a person, a memorable moment is created.
These touches can take many forms:
- Seeing a series of “aspirational” social media ads
- Or wisiting a few landing page(s) tailored to their needs
- Or visiting a sales page beneficial to their lifestyle.
The point is: getting in front of potential clients is relatively straightforward, but if you want to bring the sales ...
Repetition matters!
Napoleon’s wisdom also said it best:
Between a battle lost and a battle won, the distance is immense and there stand empires.
The more a potential customer is exposed to your brand, the more likely they are to buy from you when they decide to make a purchase.
A personal relationship is more than a series of encounters or incidents, and the brand experience should be no different.
And you can with a method called Re-engagement.
A Re-Engagement campaign is a technique that brings back potential clients who haven’t converted after their very first interaction with your company.
And in a nutshell, here’s how it works …
Let's say someone either visits landing page completed in Step 2, or interacts (Like, Share or Comments) with your posts on social media that you completed in Step 1, they’re then both segmented into an different engaged audiences.
Think if it like cultivating and building potential client audiences that you can target with your value and offers.
Creating small, intimate and curated relationships until they’re ready to buy.
The purpose of each ad is to keep ‘top of mind’ within a predefined audience with relevant content.
So the next time they’re scrolling through their Facebook or Instagram feed you can re-engage with them with a mini series of content pieces up to 25 weeks.
The point here is to get in front of your audience as much as possible, so they begin to notice you, your brand and your presence.
In fact, on average, you’ll be able to get back in front of 84% of your potential clients, for a total of 7-14 additional exposures per month.
It’s ridiculously awesome and if you ‘get’ the Rule of 7, you’d be crazy to ignore it.
#1 - Because you’ll go from one opportunity to make a new sale.
To dozens of opportunities to make a sale.
And if you want to outpace your rivals, this is the sort of approach you need to thrive in today’s online world.
But to drive the point home, let’s put this another way, the established way. Let’s say you’re going to redo your old website.
How do you evaluate which designer to hire?
Sure, everyone should hire a designer who can design, especially for mobile.
And I’m not going to argue with that as a starting point.
But these days, in my humble opinion:
Most website designers and creative agencies don’t get sales funnels.
Sure, they might — might — read your content and they might — might — have a good idea on how to tart up your About Us/Me page.
Which is nice, but largely pointless as your brand story needs to bleed into EVERYTHING you say or do and shape every way you say or do anything.
They might know how to design for readers first, art lovers second, especially when it comes to mobile readability.
And I’m not going to argue with that as the barest minimum starting point.
But you also need to hire a digital sales strategist who buys into your story as a seamless sales pitch.
Someone who can provide the tools and techniques to tell your magical sales story in a coherent way.
Becuase here’s the deal:
How many actually went on to buy what you were actually selling?
Of course if that part fails, a seasoned web designer will point to:
“I know, but the site I designed has loads of amazing graphics, animation, color photos. Give it time.”
Time for what, exactly?
To finally admit it takes forever to load?
Time to ponder over the UX to improve those goal conversion stats?
Or are they also saying your sales story sucks?
Of course, you could hire a heavyweight web design agency.
An agency that uses great design and a firm grasp of the value of publishing great 10x content and who also understands the art of web typography.
So this agency ensures your content has the best shot at the title.
Sound like heaven wrapped up in the shape of an award winning solution?
Kind of.
Because as invaluable as all these skills are — and believe me you get what you pay for — the site they create might look nice, read well — we’ll take it as given that your content rocks — but all of this will still fail if everything isn’t designed to funnel the audience into making a sale.
You see, telling a great story isn’t the same as selling a great story.
If the story — and the funnel — coalesce to solve a problem and ensure there is a strategic, personal, compelling flow to multiple engagements, your story and your sales funnel are one.
And the difference is huge.
If you want that as a formula, here it is:
Great design + great storyselling content + an ‘invisible’ sales funnel = kerching!
So here we go.
Think about what I’ve said.
Think about past design experiences.
Think about your brand story.
With the lack of a sales funnel.
And the lack of re-engagement plan to win back those 98% of lost visitors.
(Think about the fact that yes, this is a storyselling sales funnel that you’re in right now — my storyselling sales funnel.)
In summary:
Doing what everyone is doing is fine if you want to accept a 2% hit rate.
But to break out of this tough and expensive rat race, start doing your homework and start disseminating that homework to the 98% in a way that educates them on the benefits of solving their problem — simultaneously trusting your ‘educational’ brand to be the one to do it.
Become a permanent fixture in the lives of that 98%.
Not in a cloying, superficial and superfluous way,
But in a valuable, informative, helpful way.
Calling out your reader’s problem captures attention and draws them into your message.
In short: catch their eye with value.
Do that, you’ll still bag and tag the 2%, but you’ll also begin to wean the 98% into action much, much faster than ever before.
Who knows, you can then maybe start helping the kids with their homework this weekend.
Want a sales funnel?
Ping me like a submarine if you like.
But let’s start funneling people along that yellow brick road.
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