Most small business websites lose 95% or more of the visitors that come their way. Sadly, most owners never even bother to look at their site’s statistics, so they never even know that this is happening.
Note:
For many local business owners, having a website is a distraction from running their business. They just want to get it up, get it out there, and forget about it. After that, they just pay the hosting bill.
As a result, they never know whether their websites are working as they should, or what can be improved. In fact, without looking at the detailed statistics it is impossible to know what is working well, or not.
But then again, ignorance is bliss. You do not know what you do not know, so by not knowing what is happening (or not) on your website it saves you from knowing how much money you have been throwing down the drain.
Allow me to explain…
Many years ago, Google came up with the phrase “bounce rate”. This is the number of people who land on a page on your small business website, and leaves without visiting any other page.
On many websites, this can be 90% or higher, which immediately signals to Google that your website is of low quality. I have also seen some as low as 50% and under.
On top of that, how many of the remaining visitors actually end up doing business with you? Do you even know the numbers or the percentage?
In many cases, that number can be as low as 1%.
Fair enough, there are a number of factors that can contribute to this. But there is ONE thing that you can do that can exponentially increase the actual amount of customers you get from your website:
Get their information, and follow up with them, even in an automated way.
Why would they give you their information? Well, you will have to make it worth their while. Offer them an exclusive discount (only for those on the list, not necessarily a big discount), or offer them a free resource – it could be a checklist, an ebook, a video with very specific information, etc.
Why do it? Well, it has been scientifically proven that most people require up to 7 instances of contact before they even
Here are 3 ways to implement automated lead capture and follow-up:
1. Collect email addresses using a service like Aweber.
Why use email? It is the most intimate form of communication – meaning that there are typically no distractions once the recipient opens your email. It’s just you and them, for as long as you can keep them interested in the email.
Have you ever been to a website that offered you something in return for your email address? You probably have. And soon after, you started receiving a series of emails with some useful information, with each email also containing an offer of some sort.
Affiliate marketers have been using this system since the early 2,000s. With remarkable success. It is almost beyond comprehension that it is not implemented by more businesses.
Fair enough, most local business websites don’t get that many visitors to begin with. But…
Consider the lifetime value of each new customer: How long do they keep buying from you, how regularly, and at how much per purchase? Do some of them refer others to you? Once you do the math, you will find that, in many cases, the lifetime value of one customer is such that it justifies going to great lengths to acquire them.
So how does Aweber – and similar services – work?
First, all of this is automated. You can add/remove/change the sequence at any given time, but once it has been set up, it does its job without you lifting a finger.
(and yes, we can help you set it up if you need us to)
On you website, you have an offer (for signing up) placed in a prominent position. And no, adding the offer once, at the bottom of one page, is not enough. EVERYBODY needs to see it.
Once they sign up, they will be directed to a “thank you” page. here is where you tell them that a confirmation email is on its way, and then you pitch your best offer to them. The one they are most likely to buy – ideally at an exclusive price (not available to those not on your mailing list).
Whether they take you up on the offer nor not, they will then start – upon confirming their email address – receiving a series of emails which contain useful information. In each email, there will be a call-to-action for an offer you present.
But here’s the kicker: You don’t stop after 7 emails.
For as long as you can some up with more ideas for useful information, you can expand that list of follow-up emails. There are marketers out there who have email sequences, sending out every 3 days or so, which run for a year or more.
Fair enough, not many people will still be on your list after a year. But some will.
Of course, you can aways add once-off emails to your mailing list from time to time as you run general special offers, or introduce new products. Just don’t do it so often that it loses its effectiveness.
Click Here to have a look at Aweber.
2. Use a push notification service like Onesignal.
Using a service like Onesignal, you can allow people to subscribe to your push list with just one tap or click. Once they do, you have their permission to send them follow-up push notification.
While the mechanics are different, you can essentially do the same thing (as email subscriptions) with push notifications.
The only major difference is that, instead of having a whole email to deliver information and/or make a pitch, you only have a short ad, which needs to entice people to click through to the content or the offer.
Fair enough, having a push notification list is less effective than having an email list – but on the flip side, it is easier for people to subscribe to your push list than to your mailing list. Instead of having to type (at the very least) their email address, they just have to do one tap or click.
In addition to that, the signup invitation is not as intrusive as it is when using email. With email you either need to embed the form, or have a button and text that either leads elsewhere or triggers a popup, both of which distracts from the information the visitor is trying to access. With a push signup invitation, there is a quick, short message that comes up at the top of their screen, which disappears as soon as they choose “yes” or “no”.
Click Here to explore Onesignal.
3. The new way: Automated WhatsApp chatbots.
While website chatbots are all the craze, one company has taken it one step further – and we think it is brilliant: Instead of having a chatbot on their website, they immediately move the conversation to WhatsApp.
For many people, it is just a more convenient means of communication that email.
However, in contrast to having a list of emails or push subscribers, WATI – the service provider – facilitates a response system similar to a chatbot. Responses depend on the behavior of the recipient.
After the conversation, regardless of how it ends, you still retain the contact. While you cannot send – as far as we can make out – a drip sequence of follow-up messages, you can send “broadcast” messages to everyone on your list.
So, you can still send announcements about new products or discounts, or even company news, to everybody at the same time.
Click Here to explore WATI.
In conclusion:
Each of these are capable to going one level deeper: You can have a selection of messages to be sent out at any given time, triggered by use behavior. For Instance, if someone did not respond to several messages, you can try sending something different. Or if they did click on something, but didn’t buy, you can follow up about that specific product or service.
There is just so, so much you can do with it.
But at the end of the day, the bottom line is this:
Adding any of the above three to your website will help you to retain some of the people who would have left. Depending on the lifetime value of each of your customers, just one new customer per month may actually be worth all of the effort and/or expense involved.
You will have to do the math – but the potential is there.
Think of it this way…
Let’s say your website currently brings you just one new customer per month. If you could add just one more, how much would that be worth in your pocket – over the expected life cycle of the new customer?