Business Growth
Business Growth is critical in today's economy. It is important
that you grow your business through customer acquisition strategies. Of course,
as we all know, it is more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to
retain a current customer. Therefore, customer retention strategies are
important as well, which we will touch on in a future article. Internet
marketing is one cost effective way to for small businesses to generate leads,
and, when handled correctly, leads turn into customers.
How to create your internet business growth strategy.
The first step is to create an online presence, so if you
already have a website you are in good shape, if you don't I would recommend
WordPress or similar software where you can easily make edits on the back-end.
Once your online, you will want to designate a landing page for visitors that
is relevant to their search. For example, if a pool company in San Diego may do
a PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign to generate traffic to their website. They would
want to have visitors land on a page that engages customers and provides
information on pool maintenance. The goal of this page is to get visitors to
take some action, whether it be enter email, make a purchase, or any other call
to action that gets the visitor to opt-in. Many online marketers call this inbound
marketing.
The second step is to create lead capture system. Many visitors will not buy from your
site on the first visit, especially if it is the first time they have
encountered your business. What you want to do is have the ability to contact
them again and build trust through future communications. Many times it may
take 3-5 touch points before enough rapport is build to make a sale. Your
landing page should give visitors an incentive to enter their information. In
our pool company example, they may offer a free pool cleaning in exchange for a
potential customers name and email. Of course in order to collect on the free
pool cleaning the company must collect more pertinent data e.g., address and
phone number. It is much easier for the pool company to collect only name and
email on the landing page, and then take the lead through a sales funnel, which
leads us to the third step.
The third step is to take the lead through a sales funnel
that you have in place. It
all begins with an auto-responder in place to start communications right after
the email has been captured. It could be a thank you email or a welcome email,
it really depends on the strategy and the product or service. The important
note is that communication begins with the lead. You do not want to
"oversell" your business and ask the lead to buy right away. Use
initial communication to relationship build, this is especially important in
the B2B context. The next 1-3 emails should contain compelling content with
small calls to action. For example, the pool company may ask their customer to
click through a link to see their new services.
The fourth step is to close the sale and create a new
customer. This step should not be too difficult if you have
taken the potential customer through a series of communications that have
gained their trust. In this message a strong call to action should be used and
ask the potential customer for their business. In our pool company example, the
company may send an email offering special pricing on pool closings to the
first 50 people who buy online. The potential customer can then click right to
the company website and easily make the purchase online.
The fifth, and final step to creating business growth is to focus
on customer retention, and up-selling other products or services.
Customers will likely continue to do business with you if they see value, but
switching costs should also be considered (I can easily choose to use Google or
Bing for any search). I always recommend clients to put a customer retention
strategy into place, which is a whole new topic that we will discuss in future
articles.
I hope that you have found this information useful and are now
ready to start growing your business. If you would like to see how you can
maximize traffic, leads, and sales please visit our website for more
information.
Jordan Hansen is Co-founder of Green Marketing Specialists
Company Bio:
If every business could think of ways to save money, increase exposure, and generate more customers while at the same time being environmentally conscious, the world would be a better place. Don't you want to have a dominant Internet presence like some other companies have created on google? Become more cost efficient. Measure your results. Market Eco-friendly. And most importantly, it's where 92% of your consumers are searching for you. We welcome you to a new generation of business. At Green Marketing Specialists, it's our mission to provide you with cutting edge, Eco-friendly marketing solutions to step up as the industry leader.
Company Bio:
If every business could think of ways to save money, increase exposure, and generate more customers while at the same time being environmentally conscious, the world would be a better place. Don't you want to have a dominant Internet presence like some other companies have created on google? Become more cost efficient. Measure your results. Market Eco-friendly. And most importantly, it's where 92% of your consumers are searching for you. We welcome you to a new generation of business. At Green Marketing Specialists, it's our mission to provide you with cutting edge, Eco-friendly marketing solutions to step up as the industry leader.
Specializations include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social
media marketing (Facebook, twitter, foursquare, pinterest, linkedin, and
Google+), and targeted San Diego marketing through our network of forty-six
concierge partners. We believe in the sustainability of the planet and donate a
portion of all sales to ecotrust, an environmental, social, and economic
well-being non-profit organization. Please give us a call today for a free
business consultation and analysis 800-798-7949 or visit online at http://gogreenmktg.com.
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