Post Highlights
*Why small business should be capturing leads
*Why captivating contents are important in email marketing
*How being honest can encourage customers to fill opt-in form
*Why you shouldn’t be asking customers too much information
Capturing leads is essential to help your small business, especially, in email marketing.
You will all agree with me that email marketing campaigns require capturing leads.
But attracting people to a website – particularly a new website, is not really as easy as some people think. It requires lot of courage and hardwork.
What is the point of writing those valuable contents when no one reads them? And for small business owners, email marketing offers a huge opportunity for products and services to reach your potential customers.
Good read: Content Marketing For Small Business: How To Make Content Marketing Work For Your Business
However, it’s not just about using email marketing for your business or product promotion, it’s more about making this marketing strategy work for your business.
Struggling To Capture Leads For Email Marketing Campaigns?
Now that you are attracting people to your website to see your valuable contents, you need to entice them to give you their contact information so that you can nurture them over time.
Nurturing them will be good for your startup email marketing strategy which is capable of improving how your business performs in terms of leads and eventual sales figures.
So many businesses have been benefiting from email marketing as it helps take the contents, products or services to both the loyal and potential customers.
However, small businesses sometimes struggle to capture leads through their web forms as the majority of their website visitors never submit a form. So, if this is the case for your site, information below could be the reasons dissuading people from opting in.
#1). Your contents are not captivating enough
How valuable are your contents to your readers? This is the first question you must ask yourself before asking visitors to fill out a web form.
In most cases, visitors are more interested in consuming contents that add value – contents that open their eyes. This is why you should always take readers into the consideration while writing contents.
So, if your opt-in rates are low, it could be because your content doesn’t seem to offer enough value.
Solution / Tips:
Always come up with informative and original contents. Before you write about something, make sure that you at least know what you are writing about.
This is what will motivate your readers to share their personal information with you. Don’t just copy and paste because it will never get you anywhere.
#2). You are not being honest or straight forward
If your small business have a newsletter sign-up form, another reason why you may be struggling to capture leads can actually be because of you not being straight forward enough, and this is very common nowadays.
You should understand that when you ask people to share their contacts with you, they would want to know why they should do so. You can’t just put an opt-in form at the end of your content page and ask visitors to sign up. It wouldn’t simply work like that.
Be mindful of the fact that newsletter sign-up form is becoming less effective because people look for ways to reduce the number of emails they receive in an already overloaded inbox.
Solution / Tips:
If you do offer a newsletter, be clear about the benefits of subscribing. Make sure the way you describe your content motivates visitors to act.
To do this, use a strong headline that entices them to action, clearly state the benefits of the content and help them feel rewarded for taking action.
#3). You are asking for too much information
It’s an undeniable fact that people are becoming more protective of their personal information. Not many customers would just want to share their contact information online, especially, when you are asking to many information.
To be able to improve and maximise the performance of your opt-ins, it’s imperative to minimize the number of required fields on your forms. Stop asking people for their age, gender, location etc. Typically, name and email are sufficient.
If you sell to other businesses, you may also want to capture company name. A good rule of thumb is that the more information you ask for, the more value you need to provide. You can always ask for more data as your relationship grows.
Solution / Tips:
When you ask people to fill your opt-in form, you are indirectly asking them for a hand in relationship. This is a mutual e-relationship between your business and your customers.
If you really want to achieve success with your newsletter sign-up web form, it’s important to keep it simple and ask for few data.
#4). Customers don’t trust you
If a visitor is reluctant to submit a form on your website, it could be because your site doesn’t look credible enough. When a prospect visits your website, they should sense that you offer a comfortable level of expertise.
Anything less means that they will continue to shop around until they find someone who inspires confidence.
Demonstrating expertise can be as simple as including customer testimonials or case studies, mentioning industry awards, listing credentials and certifications and linking to your privacy policy.
