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Their broken email funnel leads them to unknowingly hemorrhage sales opportunities due to a bad email marketing customer journey, that is riddled with needless friction.

Learn to capture visitors and turn them into leads

In this guide, we will cover how to implement effective email marketing funnels stage by stage – for making the most of your most profitable marketing channel.

You’ll learn how to capture visitors and turn them into leads, as well as nurture your current clients to retain them for longer. All this by firing up your email automation tool.

How email sales funnels work

The traditional definition of the sales funnel defines it as a journey that a potential customer goes through from the first time they hear about your product to when they actually buy something from you. 

When you know the structure of your marketing funnel, you will have an easier time understanding how to optimize each step and convert more leads into buying customers.

The traditional sales funnel contains the following stages:

1. Awareness
2. Interest
3. Decision (often called Consideration)
4. Action 

Awareness

Awareness is the first stage of the email marketing funnel. At this stage, people who have a particular problem are looking for available solutions. This is where they meet your brand for the first time.

Interest

Once your potential clients know about your business, you need to keep them interested and engaged to make them come back. This is what you focus on during the Interest stage of the email marketing funnel.

Decision

The next stage is called consideration or Decision. At this point, prospects know exactly what they need and they are evaluating different solutions. In this phase, they want to know more about your brand, product/service, and how well it worked out for other people that used it. 

Action

The last stage is the action or conversion itself. This is where leads finally become your clients/customers.

This is, of course, a simplified overview of the whole process. There are a lot of great guides on sales funnels out there that explain it in more detail.

We have a different focus in this article, and that is to show you different ways in which email marketing can be utilized at each step of the email sales funnel.

1. Awareness stage: Generating your leads

Any business that is not an industry leader in its niche and a recognizable brand in general needs to put a lot of effort into increasing its brand awareness. That is the only way to reach qualified leads.

Without investing in the awareness stage no one will ever enter your email marketing customer journey, since they will never see a sign pointing them to your solution on their search to solve their problem.

In most cases, businesses rely on organic traffic and a vast array of paid advertising options to build awareness and create that initial connection with their potential customers. However, email marketing can be used at this stage too – with cold outreach.

Use cold outreach to start people on your email marketing customer journey

Cold outreach is an email sent to a person who presumably hasn’t had any contact with your brand yet. It is used by some companies to attract people who could be potentially interested in their product or service.

It is also a viable method for spreading awareness about an innovative solution that people don’t even know exists (so they won’t search for it themselves). 

The problem with cold emailing is that you are reaching out to people who might not be ready to engage with your brand in that particular moment – and if you are persistent or pushy – you risk that your emails get marked as spam. 

Email signatures

Besides reaching out to the right person and not being too pushy, a good way to increase the chances of getting an answer is to create an email signature. A proper email signature makes your email look more professional and increases trust in the legitimacy of your offer so you do not end up looking like a scammer. You can get much more out of adding an email signature by leveraging email signature marketing.

In general, cold outreach works better for B2B rather than B2C. As you can imagine, sending an email to the right person (like the one used in the example above), has way more chance to garner real interest than if you send a blast email to random people in their twenties telling them you’re selling a new type of smartwatch.

One thing you should keep in mind is that this email outreach technique requires a lot of repetitive work. So if you are going to use cold emailing for your business, make sure to find a great sales automation tool and learn the art of cold emailing.

2. Interest stage: Warming up your leads

When people come to your website or blog for the first time, it is very unlikely that they are ready to buy. However, they may enjoy the content and have a great first impression.

To bank on that positive experience, you can use a vast array of different lead magnets to encourage them to subscribe to your email list. 

This is a small step for the prospect, but a big step for the business because now you have a way to nurture your prospects through email marketing and lead them on a path to conversion. 

If you take a closer look at your emails in which you send over lead magnets to people who opted-in for one of your checklists/guides/white papers/etc., you will notice that not every email is opened.

It is not that rare that people never actually open or download the lead magnet you’ve sent over and just stop their engagement with your brand. Sometimes it is a technical issue, sometimes they just forget and lose interest.

Things you can do to keep users engaged right from the get-go:

• send them a welcome email (you have probably got one if you ever subscribed to any kind of newsletter)
• set up an email sequence where a follow-up is sent 2 or 3 days after the initial email to every subscriber who hasn’t opened your initial email
• set up an email sequence where you follow up with people who did open the email and download your lead magnet, asking if it was helpful and possibly send another related content which they might find useful

Here is an example of a welcome email campaign from Naturally Curly:

If someone opts in for a lead magnet, the only thing you know for sure at this point is that they know you exist. However, if they didn’t really open the email and engage with your brand in any other way since then, it means they probably are not that interested in what you have to offer.

This is why many brands use welcome emails that invite people to take certain action like completing their profile, verifying their information, giving feedback, etc. The idea is to make people have another contact with the brand and invest a little more of their time to engage with you.

Lastly, it is important to note that sometimes, technical difficulties could be the sole reason why someone forgot about your brand.

If the email confirming their subscription/containing the desired lead magnet ended up in their spam folder or if it was delivered with a long delay, you can’t blame them for losing interest.

To ensure that doesn’t happen, make sure you are using a reliable email marketing service that has all of the automation and tracking options you need.

3. Decision stage: Nurturing your leads

Once you found a lead generation strategy that works for you and when you can have a couple of interactions with them, it is time to guide them into the next stage of your email customer journey.

You can select subscribers who engaged with your emails on multiple occasions (which shows they have some interest in your brand and what you offer) and try to move them further down the sales funnel.

During the decision/consideration stage of the sales funnel you need to build trust, provide value, and develop a relationship with your leads. And you can do all of that through email marketing.

What you can send your subscribers: 

• testimonials
• reviews
• success stories
• subtly promote your notable achievements 
• case studies
• positive news about your business
• etc.

Everything mentioned above works as strong social proof because people really value real-life stories and trust recommendations from their peers. It is the best way to explain to your subscribers why should they buy from YOU.

If you see that some subscribers stop engaging at this stage, you can craft a re-engagement email marketing campaign to get them back on track. A good example is this email from Paul Mitchell that starts with emotional words “We hate Goodbyes”.

Notice how the email uses the FOMO principle (fear of missing out) and encourages subscribers who are still interested in the brand to reconfirm it.

4. Action stage: Creating (loyal) Customers

When you succeed in lead generation and nurturing your clients, it’s time to convert your leads into paying customers. At this point in your email marketing customer journey, you have hopefully built enough brand trust and shown enough value that your subscribers are ready to commit.

There are a lot of different email marketing strategies you can use at this stage to try and trigger a conversion.

In the B2C space, brands like to send limited-time offers to create a sense of emergency. You can create emergency-based offers. For example, here is the last-day offers from Express:

This is literally the last chance to get a product with a discount, and usually, it urges leads to act fast. 

If you think that your subscribers need more convincing, alongside your purchase offers, you can include things like a customer review or a notification that this is a top-selling product.

When you’re trying to close a sale with another business, however, email marketing tends to be used a little bit differently. For example, if you are selling a product or an app, the emails you send over do not necessarily have to urge you to purchase, but instead, invite the prospect to “start a trial”.

In addition, especially if we are talking about expensive products and services, email marketing often takes a supporting role. Instead of being your main salesman, you use email marketing to invite your leads to jump on a call with you so you can close the sale in person.

Using email marketing funnels to improve client journeys and solidify retention rates

Now that your subscribers have been consistently converting, you may think that your job is over, but that’s far from true. Now you have to work on the last stage of your email marketing customer journey – turning customers into loyal customers.

Done right this will drastically increase your revenue by improving your customer retention, which in turn brings up your customer LTV (lifetime value).

Email is one of the most successful ways to keep in touch with your existing clients, improve their experience, and make them fans of your brand. It’s similar to nurturing prospects, but you have more freedom to talk about your service or product directly.

According to LiveClicker, 57% of all email subscribers are inactive. In other words, out of every 1000 subscribers, 570 of them are passive. What an untapped potential! You can send them re-engagement emails with eye-catching subject lines or a discount.

Grammarly, for instance, keeps customers engaged with the product and reminds them about their achievements in a weekly email newsletter:

Their emails give their users visible statistics and compliments (“You were more productive than 82% of Grammarly users.”) along with CTA buttons encouraging them to visit their website.

Using a surprise birthday email with a freebie is also a viable client retention strategy, admittedly more so in the B2C environment. People love birthdays! It’s all about them on this day and about presents. See this example from Linoto:

Would you not rather spend money on the brand that acknowledges your birthday and offers a great suggestion on what to spend money on? Let your customers know you appreciate their special day.

Those are just some of how you can keep your clients and customers interested in your brand through timely and carefully crafted email campaigns.

With a lot of work and a little bit of luck, loyal customers will turn into brand advocates – and all that time you’ve invested into crafting perfect emails and providing additional value will be well worth it.

To Sum Up

While email marketing might not be the most effective technique at generating brand awareness, it is pretty obvious that guiding leads through your email marketing sales funnel would be an extremely hard thing to do if email marketing didn’t exist. 

While paid advertising alone could get the job done, email marketing is often a much cheaper and more sustainable alternative. 

Robert Brandl’s passion has always been web tools that make your life easier. That’s why he founded the WebsiteToolTester, where you can find reviews and tutorials for the world’s best website builders and e-commerce platforms.

The post Mail funnels optimization: create near-perfect email customer journey appeared first on WiseStamp.

There are little known and little used customer acquisition strategies that turn an OK customer acquisition process into a Goose laying golden eggs. I’m not gonna lie, these strategies require hard thought and preparation but they will transform your business.

At the heart of the user acquisition strategies I’m about to teach you lays the difference between low-value customers and high-value customers (HVC). The difference in contribution to revenue can be 10 fold for those high-value customers as opposed to regular ones. And these super spenders also tend to be your advocates wherever they go, which brings you more loyal and enthusiastic customers.

Your most valuable and fiercely-loyal customers have the ability to skyrocket your revenues over the long term. Higher-value customers are essential for the financial stability of any SMB that seeks growth.

However, acquiring those high-value customers could be very challenging for many SMBs.

High value customer acquisition and churn reduction – your holy grail

The issue of customer churn is a painful one for most businesses since a new customer costs five times more to obtain than to retain an existing one. In other words, the acquisition cost is 5 times higher than the remaining cost.

Because HVCs will be responsible for the majority of your company’s revenue, each dollar spent on acquiring these darlings is a dollar well spent, with higher returns on your acquisition cost. So, be sure you attract them and keep them! If you do, your business is sure to thrive for a long time to come.

But, to keep delivering according to what your customer’s expectations are, you are going to need to understand how they interact with your business and where they are coming from.

Thankfully, you have some helpful tools, tactics, and strategies available to you, which we will get into in a little bit. If you want to know how to find new customers and increase sales, then you’re in luck because we’ve got you covered.

Low Value Customers vs. High Value Customers

Before we get too far into this guide regarding how to find new customers and increase sales, it’s important to understand what is the difference between low-value customers and high-value customers. Here is how these two major types of customers differ:

As you can see, you will certainly want to entice high-value customers over low-value ones. Although low-value customers have their place, you will definitely want to focus your efforts on attracting higher-value customers.

There are some creative ways that you can entice HVCs to become consistent customers who keep returning to you, and even bring more business from the outside.

1. How to Identify Valuable Customers

If you want to know how to identify valuable customers, then don’t worry. We have a condensed list of five of the most creative ways to can acquire higher-value customers and grow your business.

When you follow these steps, you will land those dream clients who keep giving back to you and helping you flourish. Ideally, we recommend applying each and every one of these, for that extraordinary success you are hoping to unlock by acquiring HVCs.

2. Build and Understand Your Customer’s Relationship Map

Do you remember when you were in geometry class back in middle school or high school? You probably at some point drew three interlocking circles with a protractor. Well, you can use that same visual aid to develop the basis for a relationship map.

There are 4 different types of customers: Identity them below

1. price buyers: These consumers are most likely going to purchase products or services at the lowest price. They don’t take into account value.

2. Relationship buyers: The type of customers who you want to focus on, they rely on the relationship between their supplier, build trust, and expect good treatment.

3. Value buyers: Types of customers who strongly rely on value, they want to get the best value for their money’s worth.

4. Poker players buyers: These are customers who pretend to be price buyers to get high-value services and products for low prices.

In each one of those circles, categorize your top customers and place them accordingly. That way, you can then think about what they all have in common. What is it about your products or services that beings them together? Once you have collected your data, it’s onto the next tactic to land those HVCs.

3. Narrow Down Your Targeting to Help Potential Customers Self-Select

After analyzing the type of customers you have by following the steps above, it’s now time to prioritize which consumers you need to focus on.

To focus on acquiring higher-value customers, you need to know how to identify valuable customers and help them self-select. The hope is for customers to do most of the work for you so that you can spend more time running your business.

If you get involved in customer segmentation, you will have an easier time getting your products or services in front of potential customers who will be able to benefit the most from them.

To employ customer segmentation, you can do a few things. First, you can identify who your HVCs are. Do you see any clear connections between what you sell and who is interested in what you sell?

You can take advantage of data collected by a third party, or even an industry report. Also, you can look for similarities.

When your product or service is clearly marketed as fulfilling a particular kind of need, you won’t leave room for any ambiguity, which will help condense your target audience to be of the high-conversion and high-retention kind. Finally, you can create a customer persona that describes the segments you have identified.

4. Identify which selling approach to use for different customers

Each consumer requires a different selling approach according to their category.

1. Price buyers: consumers who don’t commit to anything are always changing suppliers. Their purchase decision is based on the lowest price they can receive.

How to negotiate with price buyers:

• Provide them with a full analysis of the cost of service or product that includes everything before giving your price.
• Don’t mention valued oriented features, this won’t make them budge.
• Establish a baseline price that you are not willing to agree with.

2. Relationship buyers: These consumers have a high level of trust and loyalty. They expect their suppliers to be professional and know everything about the service/ product they offer.

How to Negotiate with relationship buyers

• Provide them with a deep knowledge base, focus on specific problems, and provide value-oriented solutions.
  
• show them that your recommendations and forwardness is solely based on their best interest.
  
• Be persistent with examining areas of frustration how it impacts their daily life.

3. Value buyers: customers who want suppliers that offer added value to their daily operations for best price possible.

How to Negotiate with value buyers

• Don’t focus on pricing during meetings.
  
• Show them how you can add double value by providing what other competitors have to offer, in terms of value.

4. Poker players: consumers who value relationships buyers but behave like price buyers. Their intention is to get the best price and high value. So, they pretend to be price buyers which benefits them at the cost of the seller,
they often ask for more.

How to Negotiate with poker plays

• provide them with the value they will get a head of time.
  
• In order to beat them, you have to think like them. prepare your offer according to what they may ask.
  
• Own your value, stand your ground, this will make them respect you! Don’t start giving discounts this will and trust me they will purchase from you.

4. Provide Loyalty Programs to Reward Long-Term Customers

A solid loyalty program is a classic strategy to receive and retain long-term customers. If you already have a loyalty program, check up on it and make sure that it is up-to-date and appealing.

HVCs love a good loyalty program. Statistics have found that your repeat buyers will spend a third more than new ones, while an overwhelming majority of SMBs say that their most loyal customers are the primary reason for their growth. If your business can provide a great customer experience that helps achieve customer success, then they are much more likely to stay long-term customers.

A well-designed loyalty program will help you attract the kind of high-value customers you are hoping to get while increasing your overall sales. You will want to look into the best type of loyalty program for your type of business so that they appeal to your target customer. New technologies have made loyalty programs much more dynamic than they used to be. Shop around and take a look at what’s out there.

5. Offer Free Trials to New Customers Who Potentially Fit the HVC Category

Free trials are designed to give just a taste of the full experience of whatever the product or service is that you are selling.

Offering free trials to customers who are likely to fall into the HVC category of customers can benefit you big-time if you do them right.

You will want the bite they take to be appealing enough, but not give away the farm. That’s why successful trials fine-tune them to be something that is either time-limited, feature-limited, or capacity-limited.

The taste they get has to be irresistible to them. They have to feel like there is so much value to be had from your product or service that they would gladly pay to use the full-fledged version of it.

You want them to want to come back for more. If your desire is to boost higher-value customer acquisition and retention, then throwing in free trials is a surefire way to do it.

6. Referral Schemes to existing customers

Finally, you can set up something like a referral program. Something that is commonly done is to provide customers 10% off of a product or service if they refer someone else. This works extraordinarily well with high-value HVCs since the odds are high that their circle of friends also has high value.

Referral programs require you do to almost nothing or make any investment. You may even go as basic as asking your HVCs whether they could tell others in their network about your business and what you offer.

You’ll get some great leads as a result of this low-effort method of acquiring higher-value customers. Whatever you decide your referral program to be, make sure that it is appealing enough for HVCs to want to join.

As one final note, if you are just starting your new business, you can build authority by having a working referral program. By providing your service or product for free in exchange for a case study or in-depth testimonial, you can generate high opinions of your business.

When those referrals come from HVCs, the returns are going to add up to way more than you would have received if a customer simply made one transaction and never came back

Final thoughts

A majority of companies go after growth opportunities without even properly defining who their ideal high-value customer is. Given this lack of clarity, they won’t achieve the sort of profitable growth they could have if they clearly understood who their higher-value customers were. Defining and picking the right customers is vital, especially if your business doesn’t have much in the way of resources or is not that well-known.

Now that you know how to find new customers and increase sales in a few creative ways, you can get laser-focused on acquiring high-value customers. At WiseStamp, we aren’t just in the business of creative and dynamic email signatures, although that is a big part of what we do.

We also want to help entrepreneurs, SMBs, and people looking to improve their businesses and what they offer. One of the keys to doing that is to acquire and retain higher-value customers and clients. Once you have a solid core group of HVCs, your business is basically set.

They will be your repeat customers who also bring in more customers for you from out of their inner circle. When you know how to identify valuable customers, you significantly boost the potential for your sales to skyrocket.

The post High-ROI customer acquisition strategies (2024) appeared first on WiseStamp.

What is the Buyer’s Pyramid?

The buyer’s pyramid is a tool for visualizing the available market for a given product or service. The overall layout describes various states a customer can be in and serves as a reminder of all the possibilities for finding customers.

1) Ready to Purchase (3%)

The top of the buyer’s pyramid is where most SMB owners focus their entire marketing effort. Since it is only 3% of the potential customers, that may sound ludicrous. However, you will find these potential customers ready to buy what you’re selling.

The top 3% of the buyer’s pyramid is the most prepared new clients. Each has researched and pondered their decision to buy from a provider like your company. Often, they need to see that your company has what they need before they order. This deliberation also often makes them the easiest clients to work with.

For example, a shop owner wants to add a blog to his website but does not have the time. He has been looking at copywriter rates for a week already, and your Facebook ad was one he took note of for price comparison. Suppose you’re offering copywriting packages for businesses, and he doesn’t have to find a ton of time to do it. In that case, chances are you’re hired.

You now see why this is the most popular part of the buyer’s pyramid to target. Most clients buy with little effort and investment on your part.

2) Open to Buying (7%)

The next tier down on the buyer’s pyramid is the open-to-buying level. Some SMB owners do target this tier of customers along with the top tier. However, it’s more common to see these customers swept up in marketing meant for the top 3%.

The customers in this tier are open to buying your services, and many are actively interested. However, these potential customers may need more information or guidance to complete the purchase. Items like buy guides and blogs may help your marketing here.

For example, a shop owner wants to prepare for a holiday marketing campaign. She lacks time to do graphic design but doesn’t feel comfortable hiring someone else to do it either. She comes across your blog while she is researching her options. Then she finds she loves your approach and hires your company.

You already produce exceptional materials as part of your digital presence, and you already have the processes in place. With a few tweaks, you can speak to this audience and attract more customers than ever before.

3) Not Thinking About Your Services (30%)

This tier is the first large consumer block on the buyer’s pyramid. Unfortunately, it’s also one many SMB owners ignore. This is also the first tier of customers many people do not understand how to approach for their business.

Customers in this tier can be persuaded to buy, especially over time. Generally, these customers know what they want, but they do not need it right now. However, other varieties like waiting for the finances to line up also fall in this group.

The bottom line is that this group may buy your services in the future. By marketing to them now, you can achieve a positive and lasting first impression. In turn, you will find many people return to your company when they are ready to buy.

For example, a graphic designer develops a business strategy to grow their business. The plan calls for a more active social media presence after they create a camera course. Right now, they do not need a social media specialist, but they still see the ads you put out. In a few months, they buy from you because they are familiar with your work.

With this buyer’s pyramid tier, the key to gathering more customers is exposure. By engineering multiple casual touches, you are building up the trust and relationship with these customers to do business without coming across as pushy.

4) Think They Don’t Need Your Services (30%)

The next 30% are people who do not know about your services and the massive benefits of hiring your company can bring. Generally, these customers have seen services like yours before but do not see how it could fit into their lives.

In these cases, the customer may also be unclear on what and how you’re offering. These misunderstandings are easy to resolve with further information. Another option is presenting towards this need they did not know hiring you will fix.

For example, someone is bootstrapping a flower shop. You sell website services, but they already do a brisk business from the foot traffic alone. In this case, introducing the flower shop owner to the marvels of website ordering is worth the investment. It’s not something they were thinking about, but it will benefit them.

With this buyer’s pyramid tier, the idea is that you are creating a need where there was not one before. Whether that is breaking down your services so more customers understand or pointing out how your services can help, you point out how your services can benefit the customers.

5) Know They Don’t Want Your Services (30%)

Not every service is perfect for every customer. That’s okay, and it’s a fact of life. However, that does not mean holding it against business owners. Instead, recognize that this tier is part of the market.

For example, an SEO consultant is running a special. A company without a web presence happens to see the ad. Since they are not interested and nothing can be done for the clients, you let them go about their day.

A Business Example

Knowing how each tier will react to your business helps you persuade more customers. A complete example is also helpful for your understanding. For this, the company consults on human resources tasks that can be outsourced.

The top 3% are ecstatic that you have HR services and can consult on their company. They hire you immediately.

The next 7% are interested in hiring an HR consultant. Unfortunately, they haven’t had time to investigate it, but they jump on your offer.

The next 30% can be persuaded that their company would benefit from hiring your HR consulting company. The contracts may take some time, however.

Below that 30% are another 30% who do not realize that their company could use HR consultants to straighten out benefits and work with their employees. They do not know you can save their company a lot of grief until you explain.

The bottom 30% are not interested in HR consultants as they have their own HR departments already to handle the same things your company would.

How to Reach Out to the Top 70% of the Buyer’s Pyramid

Creating a comprehensive marketing plan based on the buyer’s pyramid will require some reexamination on your part. You should address more marketing energy towards persuading people that your company is the best and can provide services they did not know they needed.

1. Offer Samples

Most often, actions speak louder than words. That means that a few steps can persuade people where words fail. With good samples, your company’s methods will spread. If you do it right, you may not even need to repeat the work for each client.

One example of this is the webinar. You can create one high-quality video about one tip that can help people dramatically change their business. This video can be delivered automatically to potential customers who sign up, therefore offering the sample without creating more work.

Another option is a trial period, which works well for software. Again, this does not require repeated extra effort from your company. However, it offers them a taste of what your product or service can do. You may even find some stay because they do not want the hassle of finding another company.

2. Create Added Value

Potential customers are seeking value when they make their decision. By offering that value before a client even signs up, you’re proving that they are on the right path for their company. This value should be meaningful without giving away all your secrets.

For example, if you work with a proven five-step process for an amazing blog, creating value by letting companies have the first step or two is a great option. That’s enough for most to understand how you can positively impact their company if they hire you. With that understanding, they will keep you in mind when they want to move forward.

3. Build Your Web Presence

You never know where more customers will come from. Building a web presence increases your company’s odds of being discovered. Whether that looks like an informative blog, interactive social media, letting people know where to find you with an awesome Wise Stamp signature, or something else, your web presence and branding matter.

The other thing web presences are suitable for is serving as the start of a funnel. Adding value and offering samples are more efficient with the next steps planned out. It’s even better when you do not need to devote time to each potential customer individually.

Final Thoughts

Examining the buyer’s pyramid opens several new audiences that many companies skip over. With a little extra work, you can draw in more customers and convince them that your company will work for them. Tapping into these markets is easier when you can give them a taste of how you can positively impact the company. Then people will remember you when they want to spend money.

The post What is the buyer pyramid & how to use it to your advantage? appeared first on WiseStamp.

Don’t underestimate the impact of gathering and promoting customer reviews for your small business. A whopping 93% of consumers say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions, so if you’re not already using customer reviews to grow your business, you’re missing out on a chunk of profits.

Consumers are becoming more critical of traditional advertising and therefore are less influenced by it. On the other hand, real honest reviews are way more likely to get a client to purchase your products or request your services. If you are struggling to understand the tone of voice that should be used when dealing with customer support, check this article out.

In order to get the most out of your customer reviews, you need to know which platforms to use, how to get more clients to leave you favorable reviews, and how to deal with any type of reviews that come your way. Read on to learn more about how to use customer reviews for your small business.

Why are customer reviews helpful?

Customer reviews can help your business in more ways than one. Aside from influencing conversion, there are a few other ways customer reviews can work in your favor.

1) Brand strengthening:

online reviews make your brand appear more credible, reliable, and professional to prospective clients. Furthermore, positive reviews turn your clients into brand ambassadors who vocally vouch for your business.

2) Establishes trust:

It’s a no-brainer that consumers will trust brands that have more positive online reviews. Having regular honest and good reviews online will make shoppers trust your business more and be more inclined to purchase.

3) Learn about your customers:

Aside from leaving positive or negative feedback, customers also use reviews to provide recommendations on how your business, product, or service can be improved. Don’t ignore the value in this, as suggestions from people who have used your products or services can be extremely useful.

4) Creates customer loyalty:

If customers see that your business is getting consistently positive reviews and that you’re properly using feedback, then clients will be loyal to your brand as your business goes through any future changes. 

How to get more reviews and better reviews

Getting customers to actually leave you reviews is obviously easier said than done. For many business owners, asking someone to take a few minutes out of their day to provide some feedback is akin to pulling teeth. But, there are a few tried-and-true strategies you can use to get more customer reviews. Then, you could use your reviews to increase leads.

Timing is everything

Since you’ll likely be reaching out to clients by email to ask for a review, make sure that the email lands in their inbox at the right time. Aside from basic email marketing timing strategies, you also want to consider if enough time has elapsed since your client used your product or service. 

If it’s something like an article of clothing or a one-off service, then don’t wait too long to ask for feedback. A couple of days is a good idea.

But if your service was something that requires long-term use, like a book that might take a few weeks to read or a hair product that takes time to see results, be sure to time your review request accordingly. That way, you’ll make sure you’re getting the most accurate review instead of an initial reaction that may not be positive.

Offer an incentive

Give your customers a reason to want to leave a review. Aside from giving them great service, some people just aren’t inclined to leave positive or negative reviews for businesses. 

By providing them with an incentive, you’re making it more appealing to leave a review. To create a sense of urgency, you can also add an expiry date to the incentive offer to encourage customers not to delay. Here are a few ideas of incentives you can offer:

• Does your business have a points system? Offer additional points for each product review.
• Offer a store credit, discount on a future purchase, or gift card.
• If your business provides specific services that a client is unlikely to use again in the near future, offer a gift card to a popular local or online retailer, like Amazon, Starbucks, or Walmart.
• An entry in a draw to win a grand prize.
• Give clients an on-the-spot discount when you can. For example, you can give diners in your restaurant 10% off their bill if they show you that they posted a review on Facebook or Yelp.

Ask for feedback from your email signature

Adding a feedback request in your email signature is a great way to generate reviews. 

For example, a client reaches out to your customer service team with a question or issue. There’s an email exchange going back and forth, and every email has a signature with links to your review pages on Tripadvisor, Yelp, Google, or Facebook. When the customer’s issue is resolved and they’re satisfied, they’re more likely to click on one of those icons to leave a good review after having a positive experience with your business.

Wisestamp’s email signature generator lets you easily set up a signature with any call to action, including a feedback request.

To

Subject

Make it yours

Keep it simple

You want to make it very easy and very clear for clients to leave you reviews. If they need to sign up for an account just to leave some feedback, they’ll probably be less inclined to do so. 

There are features on popular customer review websites, like Tripadvisor, where you can send your client an email with a direct link to leave a review. This makes it easy to provide feedback directly from your client’s inbox.

Similarly, if you’re sending your own email to a client to ask for feedback, make it very clear and be sure to make your email specific:

• Use the customer’s name.
• Mention the product or service they purchased.
• Add an image of the item, if relevant.
• Highlight any incentive you’re offering in exchange for a review.
• Suggest things to talk about in their review, like the level of professionalism, customer service, price, quality, speed of delivery or service, etc.
• Add a CTA or a direct link to where clients can leave their feedback.

Dealing with the good, the bad, and the ugly customer reviews

How you handle reviews says a lot about your business, and potential customers will take note. While there’s a lot of effort that goes into gathering new customer reviews, it’s also important to be proactive in handling and responding to them.

How to handle negative reviews

Getting a negative review can be demotivating, but you can turn it into an opportunity. Since all customers will be able to see your negative review, you’ll need to respond quickly and responsibly. Here are a few pointers on what to do and what not to do when you get a negative review:

Even though sometimes clients can be out of line, their reviews not entirely accurate, or their requests outlandish, ask yourself if being “right” is worth it. You might need to take a hit to rectify the situation, but the benefit of maintaining your image as a responsible and accommodating business owner is invaluable.

Don’t Ignore the positive reviews

It may seem obvious that negative reviews need more immediate attention, but that doesn’t mean you should skip over the positive ones. 

As a best practice, it’s best to respond to all reviews, even if it’s just a simple “thank you” or a small message of gratitude to your client for taking the time to leave a review.

If you get a rave review from a client that’s more than just a couple of words, consider using it to your advantage. You can ask the client if it’s ok to use their review as a testimonial on your business’s website. 

Another way to highlight it is by sharing it on social media to reinforce your brand’s image. You can get really detailed and create a marketing campaign around this positive review. When customers see an authentic story of how your product or service really helped or impacted someone else, they’ll be more likely to remember you and trust your brand.

Best customer review platforms

There are so many different places where clients can leave reviews for your small business online. The truth is, you might not always get to choose where and when clients leave reviews, so it’s important to monitor each one regularly. You might also want to consider promoting one platform over another depending on your industry.

Google

Although it wasn’t always popular for this specific purpose, Google is now the place to go for honest and reliable customer reviews since so many people rely on this search engine regularly. If you’re already investing in ranking on Google, then you should go the extra step and make sure your business appears on Google and that clients can leave reviews there. Google reviews are suitable for all types of businesses, so this is now a necessity for any company.

Facebook

Many consumers prefer leaving reviews on social media channels since it’s a platform they’re familiar with and it’s easy. Most people already have a Facebook account, so they aren’t required to sign up for a new review site to leave a comment. Like Google, Facebook should be used by any business. If you have a Facebook page for your business, you can start facebook marketing and collecting reviews.

Yelp

This is a great tool for small businesses that rely on local recommendations. Users can post reviews about local businesses, and Yelp will help you learn how to respond to those reviews and gather even more. This review site is ideal if your company deals locally and especially if you have a service-based business.

Better Business Bureau

The BBB’s goal is to help people find businesses they can trust. Being ranked on the BBB’s website often has a negative connotation since the bureau also aims to protect consumers from fraudulent business or scams. However, if you can gather positive reviews here, it can really help any business establish a baseline of trust with consumers.

Angie’s List

Do you offer local services like plumbing, house painting, or electrical repairs? Typically, businesses that offer services like these gain new clients by word of mouth, but Angie’s List has made it easy for clients to review and recommend local service providers. Since users need to pay to access the list of service providers in their area, you can be assured that reviews will be real and not spam.

Tripadvisor was initially meant to help people make choose things like hotels, tour companies, and restaurants while traveling. While this is still its main use, many people will consult Tripadvisor for local restaurant reviews as well as to book tables or accommodation directly on the site. That means that positive and negative reviews can have an immediate impact on your profits.

Bottom line: customer reviews are essential

Customer reviews are a necessary part of your business plan, and you’ll need them if you want to improve and reach a broader audience.

Don’t shy away from asking clients to leave you feedback. At worst, they ignore your email, and at best, they leave you an amazing online review for the world to see. Aside from being helpful for prospective clients, reviews can be personally rewarding to a business owner since you can truly see how your company is having a positive impact on your customers and your community.

The post How to generate reviews online 2024 appeared first on WiseStamp.

But even solopreneurs who know how to brand themselves well, attract an audience, and capture plenty of leads often struggle to nurture those leads effectively and close sales.

Let’s take a look at some unconventional ideas for lead nurture tactics to help maximize your conversion rates, so you can increase your profits.

1. Research Your Leads to Determine Fit

Research each of your leads to determine their potential fit or lack thereof. You can look them up using use market research tools like SimilarWeb, aHrefs, and others, you can sift through their social media channels, and go over their website, and other online assets. You can even find information on B2B leads from Google Maps.

Look them up on social media, to find out more about who they are and how well the product or service you’re offering is likely to fit their needs. This way, you’re not wasting time on leads that won’t convert, because you don’t offer exactly what they’re looking for.

Even if you did manage to convince someone who’s a bad fit that they should do business with you, there’s no way that they’ll stay with you for very long. They’re likely to resent you in the end, too, and they might tell their peers about that. This is why lead qualification is so important.

There are some great tools available that can help you with automated “lead enrichment” data. But if you’re just starting out, you’re probably looking at a small enough workload to justify taking five to 10 minutes to snoop around on your own.

Plus, the research will help you find the best angle to approach them throughout the nurturing process to increase the chances of conversion. Creating a landing page for capturing conversions is also a smart strategy. 

Check the information the lead provided in your contact form. Many may offer a false phone number to avoid getting a phone call, but that doesn’t mean the email is false.

Remove any records where contact methods don’t work. Check your CRM to make sure someone else on your team isn’t already working with the lead. Visit the company website. If there’s no website, search the company in Google or LinkedIn to verify its existence. This step ensures the legitimacy of your lead.

2. Keep in Touch – Without Pitching

Part of the lead nurturing process involves staying in touch of course, but if you’re constantly pushing your sales pitch, people will start to ignore you. They will buy when they’re ready to buy, so the best thing you can do is provide useful information to them. You’ll not only establish credibility in your niche and become a trustworthy source for your leads, but you’ll show them you care about their business interests, rather than just the money in their pockets.

Stay in touch with email automation, encourage engagement on social media, and drop them quickly, personalized notes now and then.

Make sure to send them relevant blog posts, and perhaps most importantly, curate content from other sources that your audience will also find useful. Make sure you don’t exclusively share content published on your owned properties, even if you’re not focused on the sale. It will seem like all you’re doing is talking about yourself, which will turn customers off.

3. Move the Conversation from Channel to Channel

The more channels you can use to connect with your leads, the better. The multichannel approach puts your customers in control because it allows them to choose the places where they want to interact with you. And because you’re in multiple places, you’re ready to engage with them no matter where they choose to engage with you.

Of course, the multichannel customer experience comes with its own set of challenges. It contributes to the feeling that you have to be everywhere all the time. And yes, while you need to be in more than one place, you don’t have to be everywhere.

If your customers aren’t on Snapchat, skip it. If they are on Pinterest, you should be there, too. HubSpot’s data shows that 95% of Millenials, 87% of Generation X’ers, and 70% of those aged 45 to 60 expect brands to be on Facebook, so at the very least you need to be communicating there and via email.

Your email signature can be a great source of traffic – and a great way to promote your various social presences – but who wants to take the time to change the links in the signature all the time?

Beyond using standard links to your social media, you can use WiseStamp to generate an email signature and include dynamic links in your signature. Aggregate your latest Facebook status, tweet, blog post, and more, automatically. Whenever you update your social media status or blog, the link will automatically change to the most current option.

4. Pay Close Attention to Available Signals

Dive into all your analytics and available data sources to determine where your leads are in the sales funnel at any given moment. Knowing where a lead is will help you determine your engagement messaging accordingly.

You could just use a blanket messaging approach for everyone in your CRM, but that would mean ignoring a major opportunity to maximize messaging relevance. Segmenting your leads allows you to craft a strategy that will drive the most conversions.

Optimizing your Google Analytics setup for tracking funnel progress across marketing channels can help a great deal. You can even create custom audiences from your lead data on Google AdWords and various social media networks, to allow you to advertise directly to your leads on those platforms, as a form of funnel position-specific remarketing.

On LinkedIn, you can upload a list of up to 30,000 companies, which allows you to target ads to those companies’ employees. You can then further refine your audience using more parameters, like age, geographic location, gender, and job title.

On Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, once you upload your email list segments to the ads platform, the ad engines will match the email addresses to their account owners, and you can then book ads targeting these people. On Twitter, you can also choose to upload mobile phone numbers.

You can use this to increase your follower count with a promoted accounts campaign or deliver targeted messages to segments with promoted tweets.

Using Facebook and Pinterest tracking pixels, you can even serve ads to people who have visited certain combinations of content pages on your site but haven’t yet opted in to your email list. Facebook, of course, offers the most sophisticated options for B2B ads that take audience intent signals into account.

7. Send Smart, Automated Follow-Up

Automation is key, but going completely automated removes the human element from your business that you desperately need if you want to make connections and build real relationships with your leads.

So, rather than automating every aspect of your marketing, focus on automating the follow-ups, so you can spend your available time actually engaging with your leads and customers.

When to send the follow-ups depends highly on your business, so there’s no one size fits all approach. In eCommerce, for instance, it makes sense to send an automated follow-up when someone abandons his or her shopping cart. If you are selling a service, using automatic proposal software can also help you close more leads into clients.

It also makes sense to send an automated follow-up after an order arrives and they’ve had time to use the product, asking for reviews and feedback. This approach can be highly effective for B2B situations as well, and it can even help maximize retention rates.

Wrapping it Up

Ultimately, closing more leads is only possible when you’ve done everything you can to optimize your digital footprint for lead capture, lead nurture, and experiences that delight audience members.

You must have a product or service that’s quality, and it must be positioned to meet the needs of your target audience. You must provide stellar content on your blog and social channels, and you must be sure you’re targeting the right leads in the first place.

If any of these elements are off, you’ll struggle to close deals no matter how well you’re doing at nurturing them.

The post 7 top lead generation tips for beginners 2024 appeared first on WiseStamp.