Whether you’re marketing for tenants, off-market deals, attendees for your events or a webinar, you need to optimize your marketing efforts. One of the best ways to do this is by increasing your conversions and reducing your cost per lead. Marketing automation allows you to put your crucial digital marketing tasks on autopilot while also maximizing your conversions.
Let’s take a look at the current digital marketing ecosystem and then drill down into three specific areas that are critical to hitting your goals. I’ve found that properly introducing these three components into a marketing strategy can actually triple conversions.
Even if you’re not familiar with all the interfaces shown in the diagram at right, the concept is simple enough. This model starts with driving traffic from Facebook, Instagram and your website into a sales funnel. Once the customer navigates through the funnel and completes the ‘goal’ (in this example, RSVPing to an investor event through Eventbrite), I use Zapier integration to move their information into the database or CRM. Then I start email communications to keep the line of communication open with them and nurture the transaction.
Let’s see where we can improve this process.
1. The sales page/funnel
When implementing your funnel, create a dedicated set of pages away from your website. The branding can be the same, but website menus and other information shouldn’t be present in your funnel, for two reasons:
Fewer distractions. The number-one reason why a product doesn’t sell is because people don’t know about the product or understand its value. Creating a dedicated set of pages without distracting menus or other offers lets you convey the specific offer and its value clearly and succinctly.
Ease of use. A well-designed funnel makes the product easy to purchase. The forms should be clean, and the information should persist from one page to the next. Checkout should be clean, easy and fast. A dedicated funnel, away from your website, benefits both your clients and your business.
While the initial setup will require some effort and creativity on your part, once your sales pages are in place, you can automatically articulate your offerings and value in a distraction-free environment, which should translate into more conversions.
2. Integration
Here’s where automation starts making its presence felt. After you’ve increased conversions by achieving more customer goals, the next step is to create a central repository for future communication and follow-up.
The job of integration, in this case, is to capture the information entered by your customer and store it in a central location. In more complex systems, there will be many points of entry into the central database or CRM. The more complex the system is, the more important it becomes to implement a central database where all information is stored.
With applications like Zapier, the integration process becomes simpler because it can be automated without the need to hire a programmer. Setup is quick and easy, and once it’s completed, you won’t have to spend time ensuring your customers are entered into your system each and every time you receive an RSVP.
The CRM also serves as a platform to facilitate future communication beyond this initial goal. Very rarely do you want to transact only once with a customer. Typically, if a customer purchases/attends/consumes one of your products, they’re going to see value in hearing from you again and potentially purchasing more at some point in the future. For a business to understand the value of its clients – and maximize it – having a central repository like Keap is essential.
3. Nurture and follow-up
Now that each customer’s information is securely in the CRM, you can easily automate your communications with them. The nurture sequence serves two goals. First, it provides communication and follow-up (such as a confirmation email with the event date, address, etc.) for the transaction or goal that your customer just made. Second, it will allow for communication around the theoretical event you’re hosting. In the examples above, you’ll see very straight forward pre- and postevent nurture sequences – all automated so you can focus on other areas of the business while still providing value.
As my event date approaches, attendees will hear from me three times. Each message will cover three unique benefits of the event they’ve signed up for and a reminder of the time and location. After the event, I target communications through different segments, offering them some potential next steps.
By segmenting customers into four targeted groups, I can provide them with more relevant communication and more valuable messaging. Regardless of the specifics of your marketing needs, your nurture sequences should be:
Interesting. There’s nothing worse than a boring message. How do you avoid sending one? Don’t be afraid to be funny. Also, find intriguing details relevant to your product and tie them into your messages.
Reasonably frequent. Whether it’s a webinar or an event, the principles of following up stay the same: Once the customer has indicated that they find value in what you’re offering, stay in touch. It’s the best way to ensure you’re delivering value.
Personal. Whether you’re making a video or writing an email, talk to the customer like you’re having an inperson conversation. People don’t want to hear a formal message to a large group. They want to hear from you, speaking directly to them.
By adding a marketing automation strategy like this, I’ve been able to triple my event conversions. In fact, in one case, I tripled conversions even when I had 24% less traffic to the event page. The net effect is that my marketing ROI has increased significantly – and, more than that, it’s automated, meaning less effort and fewer errors.
Chris Shebib is co-founder of Venture Property Investments and an award-winning investor and real estate investment coach who focuses on select markets in the GTA. To learn more, visit venturepropertyinvestments.com or email info@venturepropertyinvestments.com.
As part of its response to Canada’s ongoing housing challenges, the federal government has added another 12 new properties to the Canada Public Land Bank,...
As part of its response to Canada’s ongoing housing challenges, the federal government has added another 12 new properties to the Canada Public Land Bank,...
