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How to Drive Sales Offline With Local Online Calls to Action
Jan 27th
How to Drive Sales Offline With Local Online Calls to Action
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
One of the real underutilized opportunities these days is to use your online presence to drive local offline sales.
In order to do this you must think beyond the content aspects of your website and start to think about ways to tap local buying behavior and enable local buying tools.
The heart and soul of this kind of thinking is the tried and true call to action. Marketers have been using the simple act now, buy now, call now language to get prospects to take all manner of action since the dawn of advertising.
As Internet use has become the primary way that even local shoppers find information and make buying decisions, it’s become essential for local businesses to integrate local calls to action into their websites.
It’s easy to think this is something that only restaurants and salons can take advantage of, but with mobile and search use so high almost any type of business, even professional services, can benefit from this idea.
Example calls to action
Free pass
Let’s say you have a membership type of offer like a gym. Put a “get a free pass” button and form on your site so that you can put a free trial offer in their hands before they come to your door.
A financial planner could use this same approach for a upcoming seminar on investment advice. Or you could allow customers to grab a “bring a friend” pass for an early bird sale.
The easiest way to handle this would be a button that linked to a print friendly web page, but you could also use a form so you could capture a little info and send the pass to their mobile device.
Coupons
People love coupons and coupons certainly drive sales. This is an approach you can update and rotate with all kinds of new products, sales and sample offers.
A restaurant could place a coupon for a free appetizer on Tuesday night, but an insurance sales person could also place a coupon for a free iTunes card with every rate quote.
You can create your own trackable coupons through services such as Coupontank and don’t forget to use the coupon feature on your Google Places page as well as locally focused networks such as Local.com and Craigslist.
Click to call or chat
Many times people that come to your website either don’t immediately find what they are looking for or wonder whether you have that cute little dress on your homepage in their size.
By adding services like LivePerson, BoldChat or Olark you can make it very easy for people to call or chat with your business and get that one piece of information they needed so that they jump in the car and come into your business.
Schedule now
Businesses that run primarily by appointment must start making it easier for today’s mobile enabled customers to book a time on the fly. This means adding appointment booking functionality to your website so that prospects can schedule when it’s convenient for them and see that you have that perfect spot open in two hours when they are free.
There are a number of click to schedule tools like ClickBook, GenBook and Schedulicity. Or use the tool set from a service like Agendize that allows you to add call, chat and schedule options all from one tool.
Driving call to action
In addition to you creating compelling offers and tools you’ll want to promote the fact that you have openings, coupons and special.
Pay per click – Using locally focused Google AdWords in conjunction with your call to action is a tremendous way to get terrific offline bang for your online spend.
Social – Facebook has a very robust local targeting mechanism that offline businesses have been using along with strong offers to act. You can also use tools like the Wildfire app to create calls to action right on your Facebook page.
Don’t forget to Tweet your Tuesday offer and drive customers to your site to get their coupon.
View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
Creating Killer Calls to Action
Jul 23rd
Whether you’re looking for leads from your website or clicks from your Tweets, having a good, solid call to action is key.
A call to action is messaging that encourages the reader to do something: click, call, buy or download. Without using the appropriate wording, visitors to your site may be left not feeling the urgency you want them to, and they may leave. It’s important to catch them while they’re in the mode to do something further. Invite them to download your free whitepaper, sign up for a free trial, subscribe to your email newsletter or call for a complimentary consultation.
Your call to action should be:
- Short
- Easy to understand
- Urgent (“now!”)
- Highly visible on the page
- Encouraging people to click a link
- Throughout your site
Here are some great (and not so great) examples of calls to action from Boagworld. You can also use savings as a call to action, such as “Save 40 percent when you spend $50 today.” Remember to use wording that will appeal to people: What do your visitors want to do? Save? Learn more? Get something free?
Try not to bombard your visitors with too many choices for what to do next. For example, if they have the option to click, download and buy, they may be overwhelmed and leave. Instead, choose one call to action for each page. On the product description page, focus on a buying call to action. On the homepage, offer a free download. On Twitter, the call to action would focus on clicking your link.
And speaking of calls to action on Twitter and social media, you want to give people a reason to follow you, as this post from 10,000 Words explains. Prove your presence on social media is useful to them. It could be as simple as “Please RT” after an interesting blog post, or “Share your thoughts on this” after a poignant question. Engage readers with your call to action.
Experiment to see what call to action verbiage gets the best results. Consider doing an a/b test page using different calls to action. Whichever one gets more clicks is the winner.
Creating Killer Calls to Action
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Start Making Video Calls on Facebook Right Now
Jul 8th
Start Making Video Calls on Facebook Right Now
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Yesterday Facebook announced the addition of Skype enabled video calls inside the walls of Facebook. (Hmm, wonder if they own those too – but that’s another issue)
Today I’m seeing some folks anxiously awaiting for this feature to come to their page, so I thought I would do a quick post about using it now. I actually did a video chat with my buddy Chris Brogan during the Facebook press conference as the service was ready then.
First off go to the Facebook Video Calling Page and click the get started button.
As with most things online, your operating system, security settings and browser will impact what happens next, but Facebook will actually try to install a calling plugin that you’ll need. I’ve seen some reports of challenges with this step. My set-up is a Mac running Firefox and it went very smoothly. (Oh, Opera Browser is not supported at all.)
Next you can go back to your page or profile and, just like chat, find friends that are online, click on one and hit the camera icon to start a call. The good news is that they don’t need to have the plugin installed because FB will prompt them through it. They will of course need to have a camera and mic on, and hopefully done their hair, but they choose whether or not to take the call.
Pretty simple really.
It’s worth noting the Google’s Hangouts, part of Google+, allows group video chat while, for now, FB is one to one. Heavy Facebook will certainly will like this feature, but the Hangouts function does take a little of the awesomeness out of this new Facebook tool.
I do think business folks will find this feature useful for doing quick meeting or catching up and saying hi to a customer or vendor.
View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
An Angel Investor and Serial Entrepreneur Calls You on Your B-*!#*(%
Nov 20th
Neil Patel is an interesting guy. He co-founded two Internet businesses, Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. If you’re looking to raise venture capital, he’s got some interesting insights — he’s now an investor who’s made 15 angel investments. But he knows what you lie about when you pitch VCs, because he’s also been an entrepreneur.
He did a post recently on this topic, What I Learned About Entrepreneurship Through 15 Angel Investments, over on his entertaining blog, QuickSprout. The upshot — entrepreneurs often don’t tell the truth.
Here are some of my favorite lessons he shares, and how you can use this knowledge to help you land investor money.
Stop exaggerating. Don’t tell potential investors the company is doing great-great-great when in fact you’re 60 days from closing the doors if someone doesn’t give you a lump of cash.
Don’t play funny with the books. Patel says entrepreneurs who’ve pitched him tend to count revenue they know is coming, but isn’t yet actually in the door. Investors have a sophisticated industry name for this scenario: They call it lying.
Share your financials openly. Transparency is highly prized by investors — if you’re in talks with possible angels, send them frequent financial updates so their information on the company’s cash-flow situation stays current.
Be openminded. Look at things from your investors’ point of view — how does the model look purely as an investment? Where’s the return on investment potential? Also, if investors have suggestions, listen. Remember that their goal is the same as yours: To grow the business. When that happens, everybody wins.
Sell yourself. Patel says he invests in a great entrepreneur more than a great idea, having learned the hard way that doing it the opposite way around doesn’t work out. A great idea’s going nowhere without a brilliant entrepreneurial mind at the helm.
What have you learned from seeking investors? Share your pitch lessons in the comments below.
View full post on Entrepreneur.com – Daily Dose
Publications MSN Tastemaker Calls On Social Media Experts 09/13/2010
Sep 13th
| Social media can motivate and educate. The series calls attention to an idea, brand, product or message through the challenges. The first challenge… |
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Parent Company Calls
Aug 13th
Business offers an almost inexhaustible wealth of jargon. Honestly, it’s difficult to page through the business section without tripping over words or phrases that just beg to be mocked.
So when I ran across “parent company” one day, the floodgates opened and I had tons of new material. Or so I thought.
One thing cartooning has taught me over the years is to never trust a great writing day. I’ve been tempted into drawing up something that, at that moment seemed brilliant, only to find out months later that it was lukewarm at best, or nonsensical at worst.
So all the “parent company” ideas went into what I’ve labeled my Idea Box. Ideas go in to marinate for a while so that when I pull them out weeks or months later – I have a fresh pair of eyes on the joke.
The above cartoon was the only survivor from that seemingly outstanding writing session. . . sigh.
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Modern Manners: Social media calls for new brand of politeness rules
Jul 19th
| Modern Manners: Social media calls for new brand of politeness rules And what of those quaint old etiquette laws — do they still… |
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Calls to boycott Arizona multiply on social media
Apr 27th
| Calls to boycott Arizona multiply on social media, Calls for boycotting Arizona and its businesses because of its new anti-immigration law have begun… |
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Denver Internet Marketing Consultant Calls for Amazon.com Boycott
Mar 10th
| DENVER, CO–(Marketwire – March 10, 2010) -… Denver Internet marketing consultant Jason Lancaster has called for a statewide boycott of Amazon.com. |
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