I spoke to a potential client yesterday on the phone.

They had a decent amount of natural, organic traffic to their website – but less than a 1% conversion rate (any type of conversion on their site).

They informed me they had spent the previous evening researching and setting up a Facebook PPC campaign they were planning to launch.

With their flagship product making around £10 profit after postage, it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to know this campaign is probably destined for disappointment.

But this is consistently the case in the digital marketing world: people want to sell before their customer is ready. 

This is the biggest cause of failure and loss of faith in digital marketing practices. Frankly speaking, people are doing things the wrong way round.

The Customer Value Journey

Figure 1: Customer Value Journey – Source: digitalmarketer.com

Here’s a better way forward:

1)  Start with an Email Conversion

Seldom does your target audience buy upon their first visit; you don’t need me to tell you that.

But what they are usually willing to do is exchange a snippet of their personal data in return for valuable information.

The goal should be to engage with them in some capacity and raise awareness (see figure 1).

That’s where a Lead Magnet comes into play.

If you’re unaware on what a Lead Magnet is, please watch the video below for a quick introduction:

Our goal here is a simple conversion: we want them to subscribe to us.

It’s the first stage of trust on the Customer Value Journey that’s ubiquitous across all businesses (revert back to figure 1).

 2)  Optimising the Lead Magnet with Exit-Intent

A Lead Magnet is a fantastic start to increasing conversions and putting your customers at the beginning of the Value Ladder.

However, getting as many people as possible to the beginning of the ladder requires technical expertise and optimisation.

At Magnet Monster, we find Exit-Intent software (we use Optin Monster), has had tremendous results across a range of businesses.

Exit-Intent is what the name suggests: a pop-up/screen takeover that appears when it’s detected that your user is about to leave your website.

We’ve found exit-intent typically increases conversion rates to 5% as a minimum (lower end), but we’ve had some staggering results with certain clients when it’s evident we’ve nailed the Lead Magnet and spiked customer curiosity (see below).

Figure 2: Screenshot of Professor Nutz campaign in Optin Monster dashboard

You can see the complete case study of how we achieved incredible results with the Professor Nutz brand here. 

3) Begin Remarketing

Once you’ve gained the trust of your followers by engaging them, only then should you begin the selling process.

At Magnet Monster, we prioritise email marketing as our primary method of remarketing for innumerable reasons.

The most important, however, is that it simply converts better: there is more trust attached to an email, a higher click-through rate, and often, more visibility when compared to social media and other forms of digital advertising. [1]

We believe too many companies have overlooked the effectiveness of email marketing in recent years in pursuit of new technology.

And while we believe in innovation, we also believe in focusing on what works, and the statistics are very clear on that: email drives conversions strongly across the board and provides unbelievable value for money.

Conclusion

Selling is a process, and nurturing customers through the customer value journey requires a carefully executed strategy.

Start by capturing an email address and adding value to their lives – the sale will come afterwards once the trust has been established.

If you need any assistance setting up this part of your business, then contact us directly at Magnet Monster and we’ll be more than happy to talk to you.

References

[1] Anon, (2019). [online] Available at: https://optinmonster.com/email-marketing-vs-social-media-performance-2016-2019-statistics/ [Accessed 30 Jan. 2019].