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Hello everyone – welcome to today’s Digitize Your Firm webinar where we’ll be discussing how to grow your contact base through signup forms, landing pages, and CRMs!
For anyone joining us who is a landing page wizard or anyone looking to gain some additional insights, simply click the green speech bubble at the top of the screen to open the chat and either type out your comment or ask to speak.
As with all Digitize Your Firm webinars, this will be recorded for later playback in case you wanted extra time with a certain section or for listening on the go. If you haven’t already, visit the Weekly Webinar Schedule on our Digitize Your Firm page to check out our past webinars.
Now, let’s go over today’s agenda.
We’re going to start off by talking about the magic of signup forms, followed by a discussion on what makes landing pages such a powerful resource. After that, we’re going to talk CRMs and pipelines, which are great for anyone looking to enhance their service. As always, we’ll end off with a recap of everything we covered, next week’s topic, and some time to answer any additional questions you may have!
Now, let’s go into it…
Let’s start off by talking about digital signup forms and why they’re important which is – first and foremost, they help you to get to know your customers or leads.
So, why do you need to get personal information anyway? Being able to personalize your marketing is the new frontier, and standard, of marketing. The old way, trying to appeal to everyone with a few mass ads, is no longer effective in today’s world. Consumers expect marketing that fits their needs, not one-size-fits-all marketing. Building up a personal profile that contains important information about each contact helps make your outreach much more personally targeted. That means it will be more effective!
The quickest, easiest way to gain information is through signup forms on your website, landing pages, and social media pages. In just a few seconds, a lead can go from anonymous to a contact with a name who you can personally market to.
Signup forms are very basic. Yet, they are also essential. You need to get each lead’s personal information and obtain their permission to send them messages. Gaining permission has two very important functions. The first is to make sure everything is done legally. Many countries have strict anti-spam laws, and if you don’t get documented permission to send messages to each of your contacts, you will be held legally responsible and can be heavily fined.
The second reason to obtain permission before sending is about engagement. If you start sending messages to someone who doesn’t want to receive them and is not interested in them, how do you think they will respond? The vast majority of people who receive unwanted messages (read: spam) simply delete them or filter them out of their email. In addition to breaking the law, you are wasting your time and money sending to these people.
Luckily, asking for permission during the signup process helps you avoid both of these issues! You can use a simple checkbox to indicate permission, but be careful. In some countries, such as Canada, you cannot pre-check this box. The contact must check it themselves. You can also use a double opt-in process where the contact must confirm they want to receive messages by clicking a link in the first message. You must gain permission to send emails, voicemail, SMS messages, and faxes.
To improve the chances that leads will sign up, prominently advertise the benefits of signing up. Why would a lead want to sign up for your newsletters or for a free account? Let them know the benefits right away so they will be excited to provide their information.
How do you get anonymous leads to provide their personal information so you can start marketing to them more effectively? People visiting your website are often reluctant to provide their information, yet you need this information in order to market more effectively.
Make the signup process as simple as possible with an easy online signup form. Did you know that a complicated or lengthy signup process is one of the main reasons for people falling off before they complete their signup? You can always ask for more information later, after you already have the contact. For now, just ask for the basics so website visitors will be able to sign up in just a few seconds.
Online signup forms enable you to gather personal information that is automatically organized into each contact’s personal profile. In the beginning, this information may be limited to just name and email address. As your contacts interact with your content and build up a trusting relationship, however, the amount of information in each contact’s personal profile will increase. The more information you have, the better-targeted messages you can provide.
Signup forms are very versatile. You can include whatever fields you need and you can place your forms almost anywhere. You can require leads to provide information when they download a resource from your site. You can have a tablet signup for customers at the checkout in your bricks and mortar store. You can have a short code text message signup for leads who want to receive SMS promotions. The options are endless. Where and how you use signup forms depends on your unique needs.
It’s time to learn about a great way to increase conversions: landing pages.
Even if you have all the signup forms in the world, leads will want to know why they should sign up. Listing the benefits of signing up in a prominent spot by your signup form is great, but if you have a whole page dedicated to converting leads you will gain even more signups.
It’s also handy to have stand-alone pages for specific events or promotions, when you may want to hide or turn off the page after a period of time. Does such a magical targeted page exist? It does. It’s called the landing page.
Landing pages are designed to convert. Therefore, they are meant to be very focused and specific. They should have a definite goal and all content on the page should point to that goal. There should be clear calls to action and targeted content mean to entice the visitors who will land on the page. You want to collect each lead’s information on this page!
Landing pages are separate from your website, making them ideal for events, surveys or any time-sensitive promotion. As mentioned above, it’s easy to turn landing pages on and off based on your needs. In general, each landing page has only one specific function. It welcomes people and draws them in.
For example, if you are hosting a webinar you would set up a comprehensive landing page for the webinar. That landing page will contain all the relevant information that participants need: a signup form to register them for the webinar, the time the webinar takes place, where they go to sign in and view the webinar, instructions on how to provide feedback and so on. The page provides everything a visitor needs to know about one specific thing, in this case the webinar. Once the webinar is over, simply turn off or delete the page.
Landing pages are ideal for staying organized and presenting consistent branding to your audience. They are easy to set up and they are separate from your main website. This distinction means that you can track the data of a landing page separately and gain traffic reports that are not affected by your main website. Studying your landing page reports provides you with valuable insight about your leads and customers.
You want to hold an event, provide a simple place for leads to download a whitepaper, run a targeted advertisement that provides comprehensive information about a product, conduct a survey, offer a free trial or whatever. But you want to be able to track data about this particular item separately from your main website. You want to see where each lead came from.
A well-designed landing page is like an inviting entryway in a home. It welcomes people and makes them want to travel further into your house. A great landing page will draw leads into the rest of your content, your products and services, and your website. The initial offer or event or promotion hooks them and boom! You now have a hot new lead who you can learn about, nurture and market to.
The best part about landing pages is that they track everything, which means they provide you with a lot of useful data. You will know where each lead came from (how they reached the landing page) and which parts of the landing page caught their attention (where they clicked or interacted on the page). You can also A/B split test two different landing pages against each other to see which one performs better.
All the data that is collected helps you optimize your future pages. By reviewing your reports and seeing how leads interacted with each of your landing pages, you will learn what types of content and calls to action actually convert.
If the system is integrated with a CRM, all lead data collected from your landing pages is fed into personal profiles and detailed reports. You can easily manage event RSVPs, set up reminder messages, nurture your leads and more.
Okay, so personalized marketing helps you build stronger, more loyal relationships with each customer and sell more. But, does it make anything easier for your marketing and sales teams? They are the ones who have to use the tools, after all!
Do you ever get the feeling that your teams are disconnected from each other? Marketing and sales often bicker amongst themselves, saying that leads coming from the marketing team aren’t qualified enough, or that sales loses the leads that marketing brings in. That sort of confusion is often natural when you’re using inefficient tools.
Marketing automation connects sales and marketing teams and enables them to work together more effectively. Automated tools and sales pipelines speed up the sales process while giving complete control and comprehensive organization to your staff.
A CRM helps you unite your marketing and sales teams because it keeps everything simple and organized. You can identify hot leads, learn what their interests are, see which ones have been reached out to and so on. But you need to actively make the most of your CRM. Tasks and pipelines are effective tools that help you move leads through the marketing and sales process more quickly and easily.
A sales pipeline is a sales tool designed to shorten the sales cycle and help nurture and convert qualified leads. Salespeople follow a lead from the first point of contact, through to turning them into a qualified lead or prospect, and until they close as a customer.
Pipelines helps salespeople identify the hottest leads who are most likely to convert. Having a well-organized pipeline keeps all leads organized and displayed for convenience. The intent is to nurture the lead (with relevant content and salespeople contact) all the way through to conversion, or until they drop off. In general, the farther a lead moves into a sales pipeline the more likely they are to close.
You have so many contacts! How can you possibly nurture them all? How do you keep track of which contacts have already been reached out to by your team? How do you get your sales and marketing teams working together?
A comprehensive CRM enables you to create detailed sales pipelines through which you can move your leads. Pipelines help you keep track of where each lead is in the process, making it simpler for your team to stay organized and know which leads they should reach out to. You can also create tasks in your CRM to help direct your sales team (sort of like a to-do list).
You already know we’re talking about the CRM. But you may not have used a pipeline before. A pipeline is a sales process that helps you convert leads into customers. The pipeline will have several stages, maybe even dozens of stages, and it’s up to your salespeople (and their tools) to move leads through these stages. Not all the leads who you put into the pipeline will come out as customers on the other end. Some will fall off, and that’s OK.
A pipeline is great for keeping your leads organized. By looking at it, you can see where each lead is in the sales process. This helps you learn what steps must be completed in order to keep the lead moving or complete the process.
Any member of your team can view the pipeline, making it easier for teams to communicate and understand what is happening with each lead. No more “Did you ever even call this guy? He was a hot lead! What happened to him?!” By checking the sales pipeline, you will know.
You can also create tasks in your CRM to remind yourself or alert other team members of specific items that must be completed.
To review, let’s go over what we’ve covered today:
1. Signup forms are your go-to for gathering information on a potential customer or lead. Not only do they allow you to personalize the marketing experience, but are versatile can be often be used across multiple channels. Another positive aspect is that they help you remain legally compliant by having contacts opt-in to receive more information. Just don’t forget – do not have opt-in boxes pre-checked, as it is illegal in Canada and other countries.
2. When it comes to having a focused resource for an event, promotion, or initiatives, look no further than landing pages. Not only are they highly versatile, they are also highly focused and can easily be turned on and off. They also can often provide unique analytics that don’t meld in to your main website’s traffic, allowing you to judge the page on it’s efficiency entirely on its own. Remember to keep them informative and inviting, and don’t be afraid to try using A/B testing to see what language or graphics your audience responses best to.
3. CRMs and the pipelines they provide are a powerful tool for any team, specifically sales and customer service teams. Not only do they share information on leads or issues between staff members, but can used to identify groups of leads or customers who require your team’s focus. Not only does this help provide best-in-class customer service, but helps to foster loyalty among your consumer base and foster stronger relationships with possible new clients.
Next week, we’ll be talking about:
1. By using mobile marketing,
2. Voice broadcast marketing,
3. And take a deeper on how to do so with increased personalization!
