The Simple Shift Online That Opens a Flood of New Leads

[TRANSCRIPT]
0:00:03 - (Jared Erni): This is the for Impact podcast, the destination for impact driven entrepreneurs striving to live life on their terms and create a ripple effect of positive impact in the communities they serve. Where we put your success stories center stage, dissecting the lessons learned and sharing insights and ideas that will help you amplify your impact. And now, here's your host. Jared Ernie.
0:00:38 - (B): Had several conversations this week with people about the subtle shifts we do that will open up a massive stream of new leads and sales to your business. And this is just with a simple shift in how you position yourself online. And so I wanted to dive into that in today's podcast episode to really give you the framework in how you can do this, but show you also how simple it really is. So let me first give you a little backstory.
0:01:03 - (B): This is with Jerome back. I mean, years ago when I was just kind of experimenting with these frameworks, I had met Jerome. He was actually a client of ours and a partner with ours in our prior business. But when I was looking with him about his marketing, we had met about his website, and I was curious to understand how many leads he was generating from his current website. He had a really nice WordPress website that he spent a lot of time and energy in building out, creating a lot of information out there. And you really go in the traditional method of SEO, trying to optimize it for better search results. But he couldn't give me a good answer on the number of leads. He gave me a guess, but there was no real way to track how many people were actually moving forward because of coming to his website.
0:01:48 - (B): And so with encouragement and a little bit of reluctancy, he agreed to allow me to actually completely scrap the website just for a few days to test and replace it with an actual sales funnel site. Today I call this a homepage funnel. But a sales funnel is a process of taking someone from point a to point b, and in a digital landscape online, what we do is we create a website that actually facilitates this journey.
0:02:14 - (B): And that's what I call a sales funnel rather than a traditional website. So we set up a sales funnel for him, and over the next three days, we just wanted to see what would happen with the amount of traffic he was already generating to his website. We knew this wasn't a traffic problem, it was a conversion problem. In three days, I can't remember the exact number, but he had twelve to 15 new leads come in through this funnel. In just three days.
0:02:39 - (B): He had four actually book under the calendar. And on that third day, the first had come in for an offer that he was giving, but they also upgraded to a one $200 package, and he could not believe the difference in three days what this subtle shift allowed him to do. And over the next 30 days, he generated in between 60 and 70 new leads with no new traffic at all. Simply by making the simple shift of how he positioned his website and going forward. He was actually, at first he was super excited, and then he got a little bit angry. He was like, because he didn't realize how much money he was leaving on the table by not having his website function this way. Now most local business owners are doing the same thing. They see everyone else does, and they're modeling other businesses that are doing mistakes.
0:03:29 - (B): They're getting a traditional website, they're putting up information on it, and most of them are encouraged to create a lot of content for SEO purposes to try to rank more. So they end up taking traffic, taking people, visitors on their website down rabbit holes of information, and never really getting to the one thing you really want them to do, which is to opt in to give you information, to become a leader, buy your thing.
0:03:54 - (B): That's the difference that a sales funnel allows you to do. Rather than going in like you're in a showhole to Netflix and scrolling for 30 minutes, but never actually watching anything. A funnel is going to make it really easy to make a decision and move someone directly to that one thing that you want them to do, and that is a massive shift in how you can help your business. So here are three things you have to do to your website in order for you to open up that same kind of floodgate of new leads. Number one is you have to create a really great offer.
0:04:25 - (B): It's so important. This is the one thing that if you don't do anything for your business except get really good at creating an offer or creating offers, it'll do more for your business than anything else. Because at the foundation, it's your offer that moves people forward. It's your offer that converts. The problem is when I say offer, most people think, discount your price or coupon. We want to compete with value, not price. What people care about more than price is convenience, quality and value.
0:04:51 - (B): And the best way for you to articulate that is by creating an offer that has high perceived value. If you do this right, you're going to attract way more leads. You're going to decrease your cost per leads. If you're doing any paid ads, you're going to increase the quality of your leads. But ultimately, all of your marketing is going to work better because more of that traffic is going to move forward with you.
0:05:11 - (B): So get really good at creating offers. And I would suggest, depending on your business, that what you do here is create an introductory offer. Something that's small and a small commitment that moves people forward, that allows you to earn their trust and be able to ascend them to the other maybe more expensive or more costly services and products that you can provide them. Because you're going to increase your lead flow or you're going to increase your ability to serve people at higher levels. When you get them in on a small thing, there's some psychology behind it, but also you decrease the friction involved to move people forward.
0:05:53 - (B): So don't lead with the really expensive big offer. Lead with something that's small and introductory that allows you to get feet into the door, put your foot in the door, earn their trust, build that rapport, and then be able to direct them to the next offer that's going to serve them even better. So think about what that introductory offer is. This is called a value ladder. You start small and you can bring people up that value ladder as you go.
0:06:17 - (B): The second is make it the very first thing people see when they come to your website. I see traditional websites missing a massive opportunity today. When you go, you see a big image header and it has maybe a big title on it or a logo or something. For SEO purposes, it's usually more about the business than it is about the customer. This is where you want your offer to be. When people come to your website, it's because they are looking for your type of service.
0:06:49 - (B): They're coming there and we're not giving them an offer. It needs to be the first thing that they see. Most of the time when someone comes to your website, they already know they want your service. You just need to sell them on using you instead of your competitor. So make your offer front and center. Give it to them there. If you think about the first thing that happens when you go to a restaurant is you sit down and you get the specials menu they are operating with. The very first thing is give you an offer. Right now, obviously it's a little bit different scenario. You've got maybe multiple choices to choose from. We want to make this very easy. It's just one choice. Here's your offer.
0:07:24 - (B): Move forward or not. That's it. Make it simple, but give them the offer. Make it the very first thing that they see. So get a really good offer, make it the first thing they see. And then the third is require them to give you their information. In order to claim that offer, you need to collect that lead. Don't make it where they have to call you or just automatically book. You need to capture that lead's information to claim that offer.
0:07:52 - (B): Because at any given point of time, there's maybe only about 5% of your market who's ready financially and emotionally to make a decision to move forward. But there's a big part of that market that is not. If you can reduce the friction of moving forward and make it more of a micro commitment, say claim this offer instead of book now. When you say book now, you're speaking to only the people who already know they want to move forward with you. If you're saying claim this offer, you're reducing that friction, allowing more people to come into your world, giving you their information.
0:08:22 - (B): And those that are ready to move forward on the second step can book with you. But if they don't, then you can begin to nurture them and increase your ability to convert even more of them. In addition to that, when they make a micro commitment to give you their information, this is a transaction. It's an exchange of information for something that you're providing. And when they make that micro commitment, they're six times more likely to make the next higher level commitment. So you're actually helping them ascend to coming into your location or store or beginning services with you.
0:08:55 - (B): So when you get them to say yes, they're six times more likely to say yes to the next thing. And that's an important psychological factor to this. And of course, your ability to convert those leads will weigh heavily on how you respond to those leads, nurture those leads, and close those leads into more sales. So it is imperative that you collect their information so that you can have a strong, nurturing follow up sequence behind that. Now, one of those things is understanding that if you don't respond to that lead within the first five minutes of opting in, your chances of booking them go down as much as 70%.
0:09:28 - (B): So, build in some automations that allow you to begin that nurturing and get them engaged with you, and you will greatly increase your ability to convert them. You have to collect their information in order to do that. If you can do these three things with the way that you position yourself online right now, make these shifts to your current website, you're going to open up a whole flood of new traffic turning into leads for your business. In fact, most of the time when I work with clients, they come to me because they think they have a traffic problem to start with.
0:09:55 - (B): Usually is not a traffic problem. When we look at it, they're actually generating a good amount of traffic and enough traffic. What it is is a conversion problem. This is going to change the game for you. It will actually take you from a traditional website which only converts one to 2.8% of traffic into sales today, to having a real funnel process for your business which will feed your business with more leads and sales.
0:10:18 - (B): In fact, a proper funnel will generate up to 540% more revenue. That's the power of these simple principles. And if you can make these to your business, it will open up a whole new floodgate of high quality clients that you've never had before.
0:10:37 - (Jared Erni): Thank you for tuning into the for Impact podcast where we're all about driving positive change through entrepreneurship. Remember, your impact matters and your journey matters. If you found inspiration in today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Your feedback fuels our mission to empower impact driven entrepreneurs like you. You can stay connected with us on social media and go to forimpactpodcast.com
0:11:09 - (Jared Erni): to take our impact marketing challenge. Keep pursuing your dreams, making an impact, and living life on your terms.