This is the second part in our series on “How To increase Your Sales… Without Increasing Your Marketing Budget”. If you missed the first article in the series then you can view Part 1 here.
A quick reminder, this series of articles is about what you can do as a small business owner or self employed individual, to make the most of any existing marketing budget you have to generate additional sales, without having to spend any additional money, which we though was especially important in these uncertain times create by COVID19.
And now, on to the second tip/tactic for you to employ in your business…
#2 – Lead Capture & Follow Up Offers
This is another great tactic for making the most of the existing traffic you are getting to your website or into your retail store. This could also work well if you are in the service industry and find yourself in front of a prospect who doesn’t elect to buy right then and there.
There’s a common understanding within marketing circles that it can take up to 7 points of contact for a prospect to turn into a customer, meaning the likelihood that a first, or second-time visitor is going to buy is pretty low (especially when it comes to selling online).
So, here you are spending money on advertising, driving prospects to your website and the reality is that you are not that likely to convert these visitors into buyers, well at least not on the first visit anyway.
But wait, does that mean that this marketing spend is wasted?
Well, that depends.
If you’re not making any efforts to capture some information about these visitors and then follow up with them in the future, then yes, this money could be better used elsewhere.
But what exactly am I talking about when I say “capture prospect information”?
If you’ve ever browsed the internet looking for a product, then it’s highly likely that you’ve come across this tactic on a range of websites. Essentially it involves prompting the customer to provide some information, usually an email address, in return for some free information or a special offer.
Here’s a couple of examples to show you what I mean…
On each of these occasions, when I visited these websites, I was presented with the option to input my email address and in return I was offered discounts, useful information or the chance to win a competition with the retailer.
All of these were an enticement to capture my details so that the owner of the website could email me in the future, providing me with useful information and (hopefully) building my trust in their brand so that I’d buy something.
The great thing about this tactic is that the follow up emails are automated, you don’t have to sit down and write an email every few days, you do this up front and each new person who signs up receive your email campaign automatically.
This is achieved using an email marketing service; examples include Mailchimp, MailerLite, EmailOctopus or Aweber (there are a ton of options, you just have to find the one that works for you).
You simply create a subscription form to capture a prospects information, connect it to your email provider and they handle the rest. Once a prospect provides their information the email marketing service sends them your marketing campaign on autopilot.
If you want to send a non-automated message e.g. an upcoming promotion, then you can do this by logging in, preparing the message and broadcasting it to your subscribers, allowing you to keep in touch for a variety of reasons. The great part about this tactic is you can then segment your list based on their actions, if they buy something from you then stop sending them “prospect” emails and put them on a buyers list where they will see different offers and information.
And it’s this process that we’ll cover in our next article: “Nurturing Your Existing Customer Relationships”
Do you agree, disagree or have anything further to offer on this particular approach, just let us know in the comments below!
Until next time, all the best.