For online businesses, one of the main challenges of turning potential leads into clients is establishing trust with customers. At Lace & Liberty, we know that purchasing a wedding dress is an important decision and doing so over the internet may seem daunting. However, we’ve found that these concerns can be addressed by establishing an ongoing and meaningful online relationship with a potential customer. Here are two ways to do that:
Analyze Your Website Performance
In this digital age, our social media and websites are usually the first point of contact for many new potential customers. If your website isn’t doing its job well, you’ll have trouble engaging an audience and leading them into your sales funnel.
It’s important to remember that a conversion doesn’t have to mean a sale—it can be a series of things that lead to that final sale. An initial conversion can be a) submitting a contact form, b) scheduling a consultation call, c) signing up for your newsletter, or anything else that moves someone from merely browsing your site to becoming a potential lead.
If you’re not getting as many conversions as you’d like, take a look at your website to see how you could improve your online first impression. Some questions to ask yourself:
- Is your “Contact Us” page easy to find? If the answer is no, think about how to make this readily accessible from anywhere on your site.
- Is the messaging on your site encouraging customers to contact you? Try taking part of your brand messaging from what customers are saying and show how you’re addressing their concerns. Use your customers’ testimonials and voices to speak the language that resonates best with them.
- Where are people really clicking when they’re on your site? An insightful and easy-to-use tool is Hotjar, which records visitor sessions and creates heat maps, so you can see exactly where users are clicking as they browsing your site.
Win Over New Email Subscribers
Simple automated email marketing can nurture trust and help customers understand your brand better. After a customer has signed up for your newsletter, the first five emails sent out to this customer should be a series of visually interesting and concise emails to introduce your brand. For example:
Email 1: Welcome and who you are
Email 2: Highlight one particular product / service
Email 3: Testimonials and reviews
Email 4: Call to action—this can be a prompt to schedule a consultation call, fill out a contact form, sign up for an event, etc.
Email 5: Showcase your work or link to your blog to encourage more interaction
This series of emails keeps your business top of mind as your potential customers are considering their options. It gives them more information about who you are, the services/products you offer, and what you do well, and helps build trust and interest through showcasing your work and testimonials. A good introductory series can have a huge impact on converting email subscribers to leads
Tracking Conversions
For both of these approaches, key performance indicators (KPI) are essential. Having a weekly review of KPIs such as leads generated, leads converted, website visits, email inquiries, and other metrics relevant to your business allows you to measure performance. Furthermore, it’s a way of seeing if changes to your business are effective. (For example, did doubling your spend on Google AdWords lead to an increase in email inquiries?) Sometimes seeing progress in your KPIs compared to where you were six months ago can give you that extra bit of motivation you need.
