Barriers to purchase can be formidable to overcome. In a previous blog we talked about how to nurture short-term leads to become short-term customers, but we know that sometimes short-term customers are just as hard to engage as long-term customers.
Sometimes customers don’t want to be sold to. And as marketers it’s often us who inadvertently put up those barriers. How many times have you asked a customer to give you just a little bit more information to make your job just a little bit easier? The more fields required to complete a form, the harder it is to get the subscriber to complete it. If you’re asking them to click a link, complete a form and make a phone call, you’re winnowing your prospects down to a small sliver.
In cases like this it’s easier to go around the mountain than over it, and that’s where emails with marketing automation can play their part. Instead of asking subscribers to provide information that you know they already possess, rely on your database to do some of the heavy lifting. Email has extremely high cut through and leveraging your existing engaged subscribers is so much easier than casting the net wider in the hopes of new prospects.
One of the easiest automations to set up is sending a notification when a link is clicked – this gets you the details of your warm leads and allows you to strike while the iron is hot.
Consider this example: you’re a restaurant with a growing database. You’re collecting people’s information after they’ve made a booking. Inbound phone reservations make up the majority of your inbound traffic – people call, they book.
Why not invert that strategy when dealing with existing or returning customers by using marketing automation to generate emails to diners letting them know about your latest special offer. When customers click your call to action, you can receive a notification and call the customer to make their booking for them. You’re creating the expectation in your existing customer’s mind that they’ll be receiving a call and then it’s up to you to help them make the booking.
The same example could be said for service providers with regular, predictable intervals like beauty or hair services. Do your clients have appointments at 6 week intervals? You can automate campaigns that will send 5 weeks after their last appointment asking if they want to book their next. Clicking the CTA will generate a notification which you can add to your call sheet as a priority customer.
These automations can also be used to ensure that people actually want to come to the party. Have an option that allows customers or clients to be told they’re not interested or to contact them at a later stage. Each of these links can generate a notification which you can sort into different priorities for your business, telling you something important about each client.
Campaigns where barriers to purchase are greatly reduced can make a huge difference. Want to go around the mountain? Get in touch with us. We’d love to hear from you.