Do you ever lay awake at night thinking about all of the leads you’ve lost? All of the people of that were on your site but didn’t convert? The people who unexpectantly closed their browser while checking out?
Ok, you can stop thinking about it now!
When you’re looking at your analytics it’s easy to justify it as just another number, just a dip in the trends. But would it change your mind if you could see the dollar amount that you’ve lost over time?
‘This year you’ve lost: $$$$$$$$$$ to ‘almost-there’ leads!’
Yep, seeing it as a dollar amount is a bit of a shock to the system. Anyway, I’m not trying to give you a heart attack…let’s move on to the solutions.
In this blog you’ll learn:
- How to identify why you’re losing leads
- 5 ways to recapture lost leads
There are two reasons that leads are lost. Either the solution or product isn’t for them (or they don’t understand how it is). This is when you’re either targetting the wrong audience altogether or you’ve got your audience right, but your message wrong.
And the second reason for losing leads? Distraction. Yep, it happens to the best of us!
Let’s start with the latter, distraction!
When it comes to attention span humans aren’t quite at goldfish standard…but we’re getting closer every day. On average people spend less than 30 seconds on a web page, 2-8 seconds reading emails and less than 5 minutes in a store.
We are busy people and multi-tasking, or our inability to do so efficiently, often leaves us distracted. A message notification may pop-up, something interesting comes on the television, we’re on our phone while in-store or we simply can’t be bothered getting up to find our bank card.
Moral of the story is…get your customers attention and hold it. But when that fails as it will from time to time, you need a backup plan to recapture these leads and convert them. Now let’s look at the second reason that you’re losing leads!
Solutions and Benefits Aren’t Communicated Clearly
Your product or service isn’t going to be for everyone and that’s totally OK. If someone has no reason to want or need what you’re selling then they’re not your audience and you’re wasting your time trying to push it on them. Not only are you wasting your time, but you’re also totally giving off morning show infomercial vibes. These aren’t the kind of lost leads that you should lose sleep over!
The focus needs to be on the leads you can convert. Your product could be something people do want or need, they just don’t know it yet. Example one, snuggies!
Our resident sales expert Natalie bases all of her training off what we call ‘solution-selling’ and this is a strategy we also like to apply in marketing. Think of it this way – you’re not selling a product, you’re selling a solution, something that will improve their lives, make them happier or just make things easier.
If you haven’t identified the features and benefits of your solution in your marketing then potential customers are going to miss the memo. Understand what need, desire or frustration your product or service solves and market to that.
5 Ways to Recapture Lost Leads
If your insights show that you’re losing leads due to distraction here are a few tactics you can use to recapture them.
1. Retargeting Ads
Picture this…I’m on your website and I’m really enjoying your content. Just as I’m about to send an enquiry my phone goes flat…now I’m hungry, let’s see what’s in the fridge.
You could consider this a lost lead OR you could see the opportunity and continue to nurture the interest. Retargeting ads are a great way to remind people ‘I’m here when you’re ready’ or ‘How about you take another look’. Not only does it jolt their memory it also increases your brand exposure and builds trust.
Check out our blog: Re-Marketing For Beginners
2. Offer Value Before Your Sales Pitch
You will lose the majority of your leads in the early stages of research and brand comparison. This is when people are just browsing with no intent to purchase (not yet anyway). If you hit them straight up with a sales pitch they are going to get scared off. Getting in the face of your shoppers with huge discounts and sneaky sales tactics might work for Asian street vendors…but trust me it won’t work online!
You should always educate before you sell. If they’ve subscribed send them some relevant blogs, use a bot to ask if they need help, give them resources to download or videos to watch.
3. Messenger Bots
I don’t know about you, but for me, a great shop assistant makes such a huge difference when I’m shopping in a store. Seriously, I definitely so many things I didn’t need just because the shop assistant was awesome.
You can’t have a shop assistant online so bots are your next best option. Did you know you can now embed Facebook messenger on your homepage?! Yep check it out!
4. Simplify Your Checkout
There’s plenty of reasons people abandon their purchase at checkout (see below). Imagine if you had to complete an obstacle course every time you went to your favourite supermarket…you’d be switching to a competitor pretty damn fast!
And it’s no different online. Read this blog to check if you have a good checkout: Do You Have A Good Checkout? How To Innovate Your Checkout Process.
5. Abandoned Cart Emails
Sometimes, even with the most streamlined checkout process, people will abandon their carts and that’s where your safety net comes into play!
The bad news…
77% of shoppers will leave your site without completing their purchase.
The good news…
60% of shoppersreturn to make a purchase within 24 hours of receiving an abandoned cart email.
A great abandoned cart email will recapture interest and drive traffic back to your site! CASE STUDY: Increase Your Abandoned Cart Email Conversions by 175%
Before focussing on bringing in new leads, driving more site traffic and growing your audience you should be focussing on the leads you already have. What can you do to plug the holes in your sales and marketing funnel?
If it’s strong foundations you want to build, but you don’t know where to start we’ve designed our 21-day challenge just for you!
Watch the video below or click here to learn more!
