When I’m asked what is the best way to increase sales and engagement (without spending more on advertising) my answer is always direct: Ask, and you shall receive. This is why I favor direct response marketing.
You probably spend a lot of time, effort and money on the upfront communication of driving more traffic to your website and landing pages. Don’t waste it by not telling the prospect to do something.
So, if you want to increase sales – change that now and create better Call-to-Actions. Don’t just go for one-time interactions and then leave it up to your BDC to do the rest.
Get more engagement, grow relationships and move people down the sales funnel with every interaction. When you do that, you’ll multiply your reach and impact and get more sales at the same time.
Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to give you seven very specific direct response approaches you can apply instantly to increase engagement and sales. Some, you may already do well and that’s great! But, there is no good idea that can’t be improved on – so look to optimize those.
Today, let’s discuss the first direct response approach…
(1 of 7) Have Clear Calls to Action – Everywhere
The future hall of fame coach of the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick has a motto: “Do Your Job.”
When he communicates that motto, he says it should be assumed that everyone is expected to do the job well.
The same goes for your Call-to-Actions on your website and landing pages.
You have an opportunity to increase engagement and sales on every page just by asking for the deal. This step of the process, it could be as simple as asking them to fill out a form, call, request more info, etc.
You want to lead prospects exactly where you want them to go next.
This is important because of two reasons…
1. You maximize the potential of the traffic that comes to your website and landing pages.
2. You start to train your visitors to take the instructions you give them.
If you never ask people (who were willing to take the first step and visit your site) to take the next step, odds are, they won’t give you the opportunity when it’s time to decide which showroom or service department to visit.
However, when you ask visitors to take an action each and every time, you deliver value in advance. Then, asking them to buy is not unusual as you continue to move the process forward.
When you do this, something subconsciously begins to happen. Prospects begin to appreciate and expect that your relationship with them is a give and take, rather than them taking without giving back to you in some way.
Take the Easy Car Buy dynamic landing page used in our Virtual Sales Events for example. It offers multiple Call-to-Actions.
The conquest prospect is offered a compelling offer (different than everything else they’ve seen). They’re offered (or invited) to participate in a very unique opportunity where they are granted access to an exclusive site created specifically for them. They’re offered a chance to lower their payment with no money down and drive away in a newer vehicle.
The conquest prospect has already hit two call-to-actions before they even get to the site – they clicked on an email link, social link, display ad, or typed in the landing page address (if they responded to direct mail).
Then on the squeeze page (not pictured), we tell (ask) the prospect to provide their name and email to gain access to their exclusive site.
There are not one, but multiple opt-in opportunities throughout the landing page to move people down the funnel.
(For a free case study click here)
Conquest prospects are told to add their trade-in. They are motivated (bribed) to do this because the dynamic landing page will not only value their trade but calculate their payoff and automatically adjust the payments on the fly (including all manufacturer incentives).
This provides the conquest prospect a lot of value in advance because they don’t have to bounce all over (and leave your site) to get the information they want – like their payoff, the value of their trade, their payment, etc.
Then, as the conquest prospect navigates throughout the dynamic landing page, it triggers more engagement from the visitor by leading them to customize their payment and view vehicle detail pages.
And of course, there are more opt-in opportunities throughout.
If you want to increase sales, you have to increase engagement.
If you want to increase engagement, you have to increase the value you provide – and do it in advance.
I measure the value provided by how engaged a prospect is.
Prospects on this landing page invest 3x more of their personal time. That’s anywhere from 7 to 12 minutes per conquest prospect!
Today, that doesn’t happen unless you provide more value.
You want to make offers and set up compelling call-to-action on every page and tell people what to do. In addition, you want to set up offers with every interaction (we will go into detail on this in the next article with approach 2 of 7).
