Only 40% of small businesses are considered profitable…sounds pretty scary, right?
No matter what industry you’re in, the growth of your business heavily relies on your marketing strategies. This means creating funnels that can run without you is key to generating more revenue.
If you want to blow your competitors out of the water, it’s time for an elevated approach focusing on your data, trends, and research.
1. Customize your client experience
Use technology to automate any tasks you regularly repeat and automations save small and medium sized businesses hours each week (before you roll your eyes there’s a reason I’m telling you this).
As customers are targeted with the same marketing tactics (and their market sophistication increases), these automations feel impersonal so they can alienate your ideal customers.
In fact, McKinsey & Company found that companies that drive 40% of their revenue from personalization grow faster.
Like the Coca-Cola Company who launched their “Share a Coke” campaign in 2014, where they printed names and nicknames on their label.
This helped to increase soft-drink sales by 2% and turned their hashtag #shareacoke a number 1 global trending topic on social media.
The reason we love personalized interactions is because we perceive them as higher value if they’re a result of human agency, rather than a computer automation.
Add personal touches to your marketing and customize your client experience to build an intimate and lasting connection with your audience.
This example from Intelligent Change highlights how creating a custom experience can be created with your email provider and a clever use of automations.
Other ways you can offer your customers a personalized experience is by suggesting similar products they might like based on their buying history or use conditional messaging in your marketing.
2. Improve your customer service
Marketing is more than acquiring new customers. It’s also keeping your current customers satisfied, so they want to buy more from you.
The problem occurs when business owners are so focused on generating more sales that they forget to look after their current customers.
I’m sure we’ve all felt peeved when a business we’ve paid money to regularly doesn’t make us feel like a valued customer.
Meaning we’re more likely (and your customers are more likely) to take their business elsewhere…and, here’s the kicker, it will probably be to your competitors.
Now you might have really strong marketing systems and terrible customer service.
Which means that they’ll only buy one thing from you or stay in your subscription a shorter amount of time.
So your customer lifetime value (and therefore your revenue) will be capped.
The lifetime value of your customer is the most important metric you can look at in your business.
Why?
Because it shows how long customers are staying with you - the higher the lifetime value, the higher your revenue.
But how do you make sure customers ar staying with you for longer?
Add touchpoints to your funnels by using surveys or forms to get feedback from your customers.
All of this intel can be leveraged to optimize your message or fine-tune your customer experience so that people continue to buy from you after the first time.
Here’s where I’d add in touchpoints:
The thank you page of your opt ins to ask why they subscribed to your email list
Chat logs
Immediately after they’ve purchased
If they don’t purchase in an abandoned cart sequence
3 months after they’ve purchased to understand any transformation from your offer
Use this customer feedback in your messaging to better write copy that resonates.
3. Check your data
The key to growing your company is becoming intimate with your numbers. Your metrics are facts and intel about what’s working and what isn’t working in your business.
So by knowing your metrics and analyze where you’re losing people in your funnel. Once you can see where people are falling off, you have a starting point to optimize.
For example, if your subscribers aren’t opening your emails try A/B testing different subject lines so see if you can increase those open rates.
A really overlooked way to increase your revenue is to attract people at the top of the funnel (where you’re raising awareness of your brand) and then keep as many of those people moving through the funnel as possible, to increase that momentum.
To do this you need to focus on the micro-conversions - the micro-actions you can get your customers to take, for example, email open rates, email click-through rates, landing page opt-ins.
Plus these micro-conversions have less friction than selling a product so it’s easier to optimize them and get better numbers. This means that by focusing on your micro-conversions (and not just sales), it can lead to better conversions at the bottom of your funnel.
Keep a spreadsheet (or whatever format works best for you) with your numbers. It’s important to compare the data against your usual metrics, and the industry standards. Then you know the overall health of your funnels.
The takeaway to growing your business and implementing new strategies doesn’t need to take a lot of time or money. It’s about implementing the quick wins that will help you build a company that’s around for the long haul.
Nicola Moors.
Nicola Moors is a funnel strategist and copywriter, offering full launch support and copywriting as well as funnel optimization.
Her numbers-first approach to funnels means she's a pro at high-converting copy.
She regularly gets her clients above-industry-average results like:
- 68% increase in sales page conversions
- 13% conversion rate on warm and cold traffic for a sales page
- Up to 85.4% open rates on launch emails
She’s appeared on many high-profile podcasts and stages, including The Copywriter Club podcast, CopyHackers, and Jordan Gill’s Done In A Day Virtual Conference. And she’s written for Digital Marketer, Entrepreneur, and Medium.