How do You Drive Website Conversions?

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleHaving plenty of fresh visitors to your website is all well and good, but if you’re not converting those site visits into sales then you’re not actually accomplishing what you need. Having low conversion rates is one of the key signs that there is something wrong with your website service, and sometimes it takes just one factor to convince a potential customer to abandon your site in favor of one that is easier to use. If your conversion rates are lackluster, then it’s time that you gave some thought to the proven strategies that will encourage more sales and reduce your rate of site abandonment.

Calls to Action

Asking your site visitors to do something specific is known as a call to action (CTA). What you’re asking them to do will depend on your current marketing strategy, but usually it entails things like signing up for a newsletter, registering for a special offer, or voting in a poll. These are critical, because the longer that a customer stays on your site, the more chance you have of making a sale. It really is that simple. You want to provide something in return for their time, so make sure that your CTA results in unique content or offers that can’t be accessed without the action being taken. Your landing pages will be critical here, and need to be the right blend of simple to understand and a gateway to other pages on your site.

Use Testimonials

When up to 64% of consumers read online reviews before committing to a purchase, your testimonials are clearly important. Businesses that fail to make use of positive reviews are missing out on a vital marketing tool. Testimonials are effective because of a few factors. They add credibility to your brand, and by doing so, they also promote the right level of trust that may be the deciding factor when a site visitor is hesitant about finishing the sales process. In 2018, reviews have started to change in terms of consumer trends, and video testimonials are becoming much more prolific. These are particularly useful if your business is relatively new, and by making use of professionals to review your product, you are giving your testimony content an incredibly fresh and exciting new format for customers to enjoy.

Quality Content

From product descriptions to blog posts and white papers, content is one of the most important tools when it comes to boosting your conversion rates. This is largely because the best content will have the effect of boosting your SEO rankings, making it far easier for consumers with a specific need to find you. If you struggle with content or SEO marketing, then make use of www.blackbeltcommerce.com, who can design a content and marketing strategy that will see your SEO rankings rise and your conversions see a vast improvement. Mix up the type of content that you post, and assess your analytics to check which types work best for you.

Your conversion rates are a good indication of the health of your business, so it’s vital that you keep working at them to keep them as high as possible. If you follow the above advice, you will stand a much better chance of encouraging customers to commit to that all-important final click.

Leadership Inspirations – Socially Responsible Leader Branding

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“Transforming a brand into a socially responsible leader doesn’t happen overnight by simply writing new marketing and advertising strategies. It takes effort to identify a vision that your customers will find will find credible and aligned with their values.”

Simon Mainwaring
Social Media Expert and Advertising Creative Director for Mashable

How A Business Can Benefit From an Online Presence

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales ArticleThe internet allows companies of all sizes in all industries to reach new customers, connect with new suppliers, and increase recognition. So, even some more niche businesses could benefit greatly from online advertising.

It’s time for conventional companies to look beyond traditional marketing tactics, such as newspaper ads and flyers, and start focusing on online marketing campaigns. Here are three businesses that can benefit from moving online.

1. Recycling Company

Many businesses wanting to flourish and grow must start adopting modern technologies and marketing tactics. For example, there are new technologies on the market that are simplifying tasks, which can increase onsite productivity. This can apply to the recycling trade.

An online presence can, however, be beneficial to any business, as it allows them to reach a larger audience. It can also personalize a business, which can prove you provide a valuable service to the community. Professional blogs and web content can also add value to your produce, which will make people more likely to turn to your shipping business. Also, use the internet to improve your operations by researching into the most appropriate equipment, regardless of the goods you are recycling. For example, you could take your pick from reputable suppliers online, as you could buy high-quality, affordable cardboard baling wire from Baling Wire Direct.

2. Real Estate Agents

No longer are people looking through a real estate’s windows to find their dream property. Nowadays, house hunters or property sellers want to find or promote a listing online. This allows prospective buyers to easily browse through multiple properties, so they can make an informed decision and choose their new home at their own pace. If you want to compete with more forward-thinking real estate agents, you must develop a website and social media profiles, or you’ll be forced to watch potential customers turn to your competitors.

3. Retail

The rise of e-commerce has posed a serious threat to bricks and mortar stores. Unfortunately, even the most established stores are not safe without an online presence, as more and more people are choosing to shop online. If you’re a retailer without an online store, you may lose out on sales and can witness a drop in loyal custom, as consumers will choose to shop with a more flexible, helpful, and forward-thinking brand.

To survive in the modern marketplace, you could offer an e-commerce website with a fully-optimized checkout, and informative customer service and contact information. It will allow customers to shop at any time of the day, rather than being limited to opening hours at a physical store. So, an online presence could help you to generate money 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

Conclusion

There is absolutely no reason why traditional businesses should avoid moving online. By launching a website, creating social media profiles, developing content marketing strategies, and utilizing pay per click advertising (PPC), you can connect with people not only within your local community, but across the globe. It could help you to become a leader in your industry and generate a great return on your investment.

How Your Smartphone Can Help Your Business Grow

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Just a few years ago – certainly within living memory for most people in business today – there were no smartphones. There were no tablets either, or any other kind of mobile device except, perhaps, for standard cell phones that did nothing except make and receive calls, and perhaps send and receive text messages. However, technology has advanced hugely, and now a smartphone or tablet can actually enhance our businesses in many positive ways, giving customers more choice and adding more profit to the bottom line of your company. Smartphones used to be just for fun, but today they are an essential business tool; here are some of the reasons why that is.

Keep Track Of Your Expenses

Running a business can cost a lot of money, and if you aren’t keeping track of your expenses, it can cost you even more than it should. If you have a smartphone or a tablet, you can download one of a number of apps that means you can keep all of your outgoings in one place. You may be able to upload images of receipts and organize them in a cloud-based system, for example. This makes getting your taxes done a lot quicker and easier than dropping into your accountant with a bag full of crumpled receipts.

These apps are also useful for budgeting as they will be able to tell you – once you have pre-determined the limits – when you are spending too much. This way you can re-assess your budget or your spending before it becomes a problem and you could potentially prevent a serious issue from occurring.

Present To Your Customers

Sometimes a business owner will need to make presentations. This could be to gain a big, new corporate client, or perhaps to explain a product to end users. Carrying a lot of equipment to your meeting and wondering how to set it all up can make your company look more amateur than it really is, but taking a tablet (or even a smartphone) that is easy to set up and, thanks to intuitive apps, easy to create presentations on can make a big difference. This can show your clients just how professional you really are.

If you have the right apps, you can even make a presentation on the move, so that if you find you are coming face to face with someone who needs to know more about your business, with a few taps you can create something not only informative but personalized too.

Spread Your Message

Our smartphones go everywhere with us, and many people feel lost if they happen to leave the house without their mobile device, even if they don’t intend to use it. Since our smartphones are going to be everywhere with us, it makes sense to use them as some advertising space too. Order a personalized iPhone case from new startup Indkly with your logo and website on the back, and every time you use your phone, you will be letting people know more about you.

Be Responsive

A responsive business is a successful one a lot of the time, which is why it pays to answer phone calls, emails, and reply to comments on social media as quickly as you can. You may not always be in the office in front of a computer, however, especially if your business is a mobile one. Therefore, you can use a smartphone or tablet to keep on top of customer questions and answer them much more quickly than if you had to wait to get back to the office. By that time, especially if you have a full day ahead of you, the customer who had the question may well have found another company who answered them more quickly and therefore secured the sale.

Take Orders

A mobile device can be used to take customer orders, and you may well have seen it happen already. It is becoming more and more standard to see waiting staff using mobile devices to take their customers’ orders and send it directly to the kitchen. This speeds up the entire process and gives customers a much better experience. Tapping the order into a smart device leaves less room for error than writing it down, or even simply remembering what was said, plus the servers can engage more with their customers which makes for a more pleasant experience all around.

Order taking devices don’t have to be limited to restaurants and bars. With the right equipment, they can be used in almost any sales situation. You can have an app designed for your business that means you can process orders there and then, rather than having to go back to the office or asking your clients to fill in long-winded paperwork. As a bonus, this means that less paper will be printed and used, which can benefit your business as well as the environment.

Accept Payment

What if, as well as taking orders from your clients, you could even process their payments should that be necessary? There are many apps that allow you to do this, and the money will appear in your bank account straight away. This means you can take credit and debit cards without the need for a special merchant machine, and that means you don’t have to turn away prospective buyers who don’t have cash on them – they can still pay you. If you give each of your salespeople a tablet that is designed to take payments, they can make more sales because they won’t have to go back later to process the payment.

Obtain Signatures

In some industries, particularly in sectors such as real estate, the signing of the contract can take a long time, delaying all the other parts of the transaction. However, with a tablet or smartphone, the contract can be signed immediately through the app, meaning that everything can be speeded up and become a lot more efficient. You will get paid more quickly, and your customer will have a better experience because their order will be processed speedily.

3 Strategies to Fuel Your Business Growth

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleGrowing a business is a complicated matter because it takes a lot of time, determination and sometimes even a bit of investment. Besides finding a profitable idea, defining a target audience and providing them with either a valuable product or service, one has to figure out the best marketing strategies for their company. Whether they are selling products, services or sharing information with their customers, it is important to note that the business world has become hard to access. That is why it is vital to find the right marketing strategies. Otherwise, making a profit or staying afloat is a complicated matter.

Nonetheless, finding the right marketing strategy is a struggle itself. You need to find a way to get your message to the right audience, boost visibility, increase sales and many more. To do that, you can check out the following strategies.

Create Video Tutorials

Creating video tutorials is probably the best and most effective way of getting the word out. It is simple and quite quick. Moreover, thanks to your expertise and valuable knowledge, prospects can easily turn into regular customers or at least frequent visitors of your page. Video tutorials are a very good way to start. The better those videos are, the more value you provide to your audience. As a result, you are able to boost your visibility and ultimately, increase your sales. Most people use video platforms in order to learn something quick. This could be the future of marketing, especially since people don’t have a lot of time on their hands.

Start Blogging

Every business company should have a blog. However, it is not absolutely necessary to have a blog on your own. There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there who find this task mundane because they don’t get that much visibility. Therefore, they start authority blogging. If you’re new to the blogging world, this is a great way to gain exposure. There are quite a few platforms out there that allow you to post valuable content. The only difference between your blog and those platforms is that they have massive audiences, a factor that gives you instant reach. Though, if you consider starting a blog, you should definitely learn more about SEO techniques. Get online and learn how powerful SEO Techniques can boost you and lead to business growth.

Build a Great Lead Magnet

Another great and effective marketing strategy is creating a lead magnet. A lot of professionals believe that the right lead magnet presented to the right candidates can have incredible results. There are many types of lead magnets that one can build from e-books, to cheat sheets to videos and checklists. Though, before doing that is it important to identify pain points so that you know how to offer solutions. Of course, the lead market plays a small part in this equation, but it is important to create the right one. If you want to reach your audience, you need to make it as effective as possible.

There are many great strategies that entrepreneurs can use to grow their business. While most of them are effective, they all require a bit of effort.