Yes, you read that right.
As a business owner, generating leads is one of the most challenging parts of growing a business. Not just lukewarm, wishy-washy leads either – I’m talking about hot, quality leads with a passion for their vision and the motivation to make magic happen.
One of my personal objectives for 2018 was to experiment with different avenues for lead generation. We might only be halfway through the year, but Creative Click Media’s leads have already quadrupled.
After many trials, tribulations, and setbacks along the way, here are the strategies that have allowed us to capture these highly coveted, eager leads over the past six months.
Embrace New Technology
I’ll admit it – I’m a bit of a technoholic. While some people build grand collections of shoes or cars, I prefer to collect new apps, plugins, and software that will help me streamline my business.
One of the most crucial components to running a successful business is having a willingness to adapt – especially in an industry as fast-paced as the digital sphere. It’s no longer enough to stay on top of emerging trends. You need to also be able to predict trends and integrate them into your business model before they become the industry standard in your market. Embracing new technology and experimenting with various programs has allowed us to diversify our product offerings from those of our competitors (such as chatbots) while enhancing our current services and processes.
Experimenting with new apps, plugins, and software is always a gamble: some of them worked for us from the start, while others added little to no value to our business. It’s important to dedicate the time (and likely some money) to find the programs that best fit your business, your customers’ needs and your overall goals for growth in the coming year.
Quadruple the leads. Quadruple the caffeine.
Install Click-to-Call
Integrating a big, bold click-to-call button in the corner of our mobile website has made a massive impact in terms of generating high-quality leads. In fact, it increased calls to our office by a whopping 30% in only a few months!
The secret to the click-to-call button’s success is accessibility. You don’t want a potential customer to have to search for the best way to get in contact with you, especially with a plethora of competitors vying for that same phone call. A hot lead can go cold very fast if a dialogue is not opened quickly, and relying on emails for your initial conversation can slow down the process.
Our click-to-call button makes it easy for potential customers to connect directly with a member of our team with the touch of a button. It is always present from anywhere on the website, which makes it easy for visitors to reach out at the exact moment they want more information. This allows us to learn more about their business, answer any questions and establish the next steps in a matter of minutes. Simply put: fewer steps equals more conversions.
Integrate Chatbots & Live Chat
Think about every time you’ve visited a retail store and were greeted by a friendly “hello” from an eager sales associate. What if you could provide that same instantaneous customer service to your website visitors? That’s where chatbots come in – and they’ve proven to be one of our biggest game changers yet in terms of converting visitors to leads.
It would require far too much time and human power for our employees to carry out potentially hundreds of conversations with website visitors per day. Integrating a chatbot on our website, however, has allowed us to initiate a dialogue, answer frequently asked questions and collect valuable data in order to filter out the meaningful leads from the casual visitors.
My fondness for experimenting with new technology introduced me to ConvertFox, which combines automated chatbot prompts with authentic human responses. When a visitor lands on our homepage, they are greeted with a friendly “Hi! How can I help?” from our automated chatbot Corinna. If the visitor responds, the message is then passed along to our Executive Assistant (and human) Corinna who will continue the conversation.
Step aside Backstreet Boys – Corinna knows consumers today are saying “I Want It Chat Way”!
Through ConvertFox, we are also able to customize greetings and assign specific employees to handle the live chat portion of the conversation depending on which page the user is browsing. For example, if a website visitor is looking at the SEO page, they will be greeted by the chatbot version of me along with a message tailored to SEO. Since I am able to field SEO-related questions, the chatbot interaction will be sent to me and I will continue the conversation in real time. This is just one of the many parameters that can be implemented to personalize your user experience.
ConvertFox also provides enhanced information about the user we are chatting with, such as their physical location and the page they are viewing. This allows Corinna (or any of our team members) to tailor the conversation based on the services they are interested in learning more about. Having this valuable information available to us streamlines the interaction and increases the likelihood of scheduling a sales call or meeting.
One of our greatest takeaways since integrating chatbot functionality on our website is how many leads come through late at night. While the average person is fast asleep, consumers (in our case, business owners) are up late at night browsing the web. Many of our leads come through between 10pm and 2am, and our chatbot allows us to be “awake” to start the conversation and gather visitor contact information while other businesses might not be available until the next day.
How a ConvertFox Live Chat Works
Here is a look at a standard ConvertFox conversation, broken down section by section:
Site Visitor: This is the default title given to any user who does not provide personal information, though many will provide at least a name and an email address which leads to a more personalized conversation. The chat window also provides the user’s location based on their IP, which can be a crucial piece of information especially for businesses with a defined service area.
Profile: Each user has the ability to create their own user profile prior to beginning the chat. The more complete their profile, the better our interaction will be as it allows us to tailor our conversation around their provided information.
Qualifications: ConvertFox allows our team to establish lead qualifications, which filters out the genuine potential leads from one-off questions and spam. The only parameter we require is that the user provides their email address, but businesses can set precise qualifications such as location if their customer base is more specific.
User Properties: Through the user properties section of the chat window, we are able to segment users and add tags based on the services they are most interested in learning more about. We can also see exactly which page the user is looking at while chatting, which allows us to refocus the conversation in real time based on their interest at that exact moment.
Calendar: ConvertFox provides a calendar to schedule calls and meetings with the leads generated during a chat. This calendar also integrates with our company Google Calendar, which keeps everyone on the same page even if they do not use ConvertFox themselves.
Since utilizing ConvertFox, our company has generated approximately 1.14 high-quality leads per day through chat alone – more than we receive from phone calls and contact form inquiries combined. This equates to around 416 potential new customers per year.
Increasing Your Business’ Lead Generation
While employing these strategies quadrupled our business’ leads, it’s important to note that what worked for us might not work for everyone. Additionally, what works for a business today might not work tomorrow. Business owners must constantly reevaluate what’s working, what isn’t and strive for constant improvement in order to attract those highly coveted, motivated leads. Contact our team, email me at adam@creativeclickmedia.com, or start a conversation with Corinna to determine the most effective lead generation solution for your business.
