You have a beautiful website and you’re proud of it. But the number of sales inquiries you receive has not increased. So, let’s go down the checklist to make sure you’ve done everything possible to get those leads.
- Website looks nice – CHECK
- Website loads fast – CHECK
- Website states clearly what you’re offering – CHECK
- Website ranks well in search results – CHECK
- Website traffic has increased – CHECK
- Website is being promoted via online marketing – CHECK
Now, these next 3 items could give you the boost you’re looking for…
- Website has clear and engaging calls to action?
- Website allows visitors to easily “chat” in real time?
- Website makes it easy for a visitor to schedule an appointment?
Now, it’s possible that not all three of these items apply to your business, but let’s explore them to see if they could help generate more leads.
CALL TO ACTION
A call-to-action (CTA) is wording on your web pages that encourages a site
visitor to take some action: call you, fill out a form, email, subscribe, etc.
There are a lot of ways to ask for these actions and the most successful ones
will generate leads. Here are a few that have worked well for us and our clients:
Ask The Experts – usually placed above a form or on a button that will open to a form. Note that it’s not “Ask An Expert” – asking THE experts is more powerful and it lets the visitor know that your company is top in its field of expertise.
Yes! Start my subscription – pretty much any CTA that starts with “Yes!” is powerful because of the positivity of it. “Yes! I want a better website”, “Yes! I want more sales leads”, “Yes! Talk to me about your services.” You get the idea. You are essentially giving the site visitor the subject line of their inquiry for them.
Are you…? This one is not as successful as the ones above, but it could work for some businesses. Typically, the CTA starts with “Are you” and finishes the sentence that is appropriate to the problem your product or service solves. For example; “Are you tired of drippy mops?” It would be followed by a short instruction to call or fill out a form to learn why your mops don’t drip. Here’s a few other examples: “Are you tired of missed deadlines?”, “Are you tired of tardy employees?” and so forth… you can also just start with “Tired” and eliminate the “Are You” since it would be implied.
Moving on…
CHAT
Online chat has been around for a very long time. Back in 1998 Web-Kare installed
chat on our website. It didn’t produce any chats at that time. But times change
and there are a lot of good uses for chat in addition to sales opportunities. A
chat widget does not have to reside on every page of your website. You could
have a “customer service” page that not only gives information about who to
contact but also offers instant real time contact via chat. This could be the
only page on your website with the chat widget. What’s notable about chat,
particularly in customer service and sales, is that one chat “operator” can
manage at least 6 chats simultaneously. Try that with a phone.
As younger people age and enter the workforce, they are far more comfortable with chatting online, so you may see an increase in chat no matter how you choose to use it on your website. If your product or service is directed at younger people or tech services, it’s a must. Nearly every hosting company we work with today uses chat for tech support and have turned off their tech support phones.
And finally…
APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING
There are many low-cost and even free widgets out there that you can add to your website for site visitors to be able to schedule an appointment with you online. Many of them use your Google calendar to find your availability. In fact, Web-Kare uses a widget online that allows visitors to schedule a consult AND a calendar widget in our CRM – both use the same Google calendar to locate available slots. So, if a website visitor schedules a consult, it will show up in my Google calendar in addition to my being notified and accepting it. That slot is then “taken” so no one else can schedule the same time and day.
Now, you may think that bookings are only for hairdressers, doctors, etc. but I can tell you that there are many more types of meetings that can be “booked”: sales consultation, phone call, product review, product demos, website audits, marketing plan reviews, and the list goes on…
Don’t be afraid to try different things on your website. Experiment with CTA’s that match your offerings, try some of these widgets – all of them offer at least a “free trial” if not a free version of the service. Web-Kare’s website right now features tawk.to online chat (free) and Calendly.com (free version) for appointment scheduling.
Happy selling!