How-to increase LVO (Lead Value Optimization) with SMS, Email and Social Media?

If you own an e-commerce website, investing on marketing and planning return on marketing investments play crucial role on determining your profits and business growth. You may have a thousand ways to increase the viewership for your advertisements/ campaigns. But once the viewer clicked on the link and stepped into your website, your goal is to make sure the viewer buys something and becomes a customer.

According to a recent marketing metrics study, looks like most of the businesses focus on CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) during this process. CRO is nothing but creating more buyers from the viewers. Ensuring more people make at least a purchase before they leave the website. The conversion rate is the basic measurement to determine whether your efforts and campaigns worked or failed.

But sadly, there is another concept that is equally and probably a little more important when you are working on the viewership of the website, but is being ignored often. That is LVO (Lead Value Optimization), which is an effort to increase the value or number of the products an average user buys. In simple words, making the best out of every lead and make them spend more.

Since the digital media advancement, an online purchase doesn’t happen through one or two channels. A browser wanders around multiple mediums such as blog posts, social media, review aggregators, search engines, text messages, and probably then back to the website before making a purchase. So, advertising and being visible at place won’t get you to the desired numbers.

Let’s start with the channel that is almost immediately used after browsing your online store. i.e., Social media. A successful social media advertising needs to follow the funnel methods. It’s a multi-stage process that take time but surely creates an impact on the viewer, creates awareness and brings them on to the website. By creating tracking pixels, you can re-target the leads by showing the products from their recent visit to the site. Simultaneous emails and SMS would strengthen the process. We’ll talk about that in detail.

You can create leads using social media!

For example, Facebook lets you run lead ads which is an effort to make the process of filling out forms online a lot less painful. It’s just a one-click process for the browsers and you may capture the opted-in contacts and re-target them via different channels. Plus, these are opted-in contacts so chances for ignoring and spamming are very less. Email lists that are captured through the data sync with social media opt-ins work like magic.

After gathering your acquired contacts and opted-in Email lists, you are good to go for the email blasts. But sending out the same dump of emails to every contact is almost useless. Nurturing the leads is the most important part of value optimization. While you send out confirmation emails for the current purchases, make sure the add-on and up-sellable products are tagged in that email with a link to the respective pages. Cross promotion between complimenting stores or niches would make the customer click on add cart once again…

There is a recent case study on e-commerce marketing which says, only 18% of the emails are opened by the customers and only 27% of social media ads are being clicked. But with combined strategies, if the data sync is applied, 16% more visitors can be acquired.

The other way to make a customer/ visitor come back to the website is SMS. The text messages are the most ignored yet most powerful tool if they were wisely used! Not so surprisingly 91% of the adults will always have the mobile phone at the distance of an arm stretch. And 90% of the messages are opened with in 3 to 5 minutes duration. But in many countries, SMS is highly regulated and spamming will bring a lot of troubles to the brand and company as well. But a well-planned SMS can bring a loyal customer to the store if sent in right timing. A shortened link to the product page with right information attached can get you surprising results. But always and always give unsubscribe option while sending the message. Loyalty is important that a lead.

Apart from all these ways to get the customer click on the website link, there are a few tips you may follow to ensure a better browsing experience thus better lead value optimization (LVO).

• Cross Promoting the related stores.

E.g., Keeping the complimenting niches visible while browsing a product.

• Prompting the informational products.

E.g., E-books, DIY tutorials, white papers, etc.

• Upselling add-ons at the cart.

E.g., Lesser priced items that can be used with the selected items.

• Upselling intangible items during or after the sale.

E.g., Overnight shipping options, warranty extensions, etc.

E-commerce is the most competitive yet profitable business model if executed well. Giving a pleasant and effortless browsing experience and offering right add-on in right timing will increase the cart value and the lead value.

Happy marketing!

Sending SMS is still a considerable Marketing Investment?

True! The data network and application based messengers took over the text messaging tradition but that is only for P2P (Person to Person) messaging. A2P (Application to Person) messaging is still the most preferred channel of conveying information from companies to customers/ leads. Spam has been minimized after the new SMS regulations. But based on the technology advancement, companies still think whether to consider SMS as a profitable marketing investment. Since 1980’s, text messaging is around and over 3 decades it still didn’t lose its charm. So, here we are presenting some facts and benefits about SMS Marketing to take a smart decision.

Why should we consider SMS?

It is Immediate.

Text message doesn’t need Wi-fi, mobile data or Bluetooth to be on to reach the recipient’s device. A recent study states that the text messages are read almost within 3 minutes. Unlike this, other mediums such as print ads or email marketing, this method reaches the prospects almost in no time. Launching an SMS marketing campaign is as simple as sending a normal text message from your phone.

Opening Rates are high.

The recent studies state that 90% of the text messages are read within 3 minutes. It is basic and easy. One format of the message is understandable to everyone Irrespective of the customer category. When you compare, the opening rates of SMS campaigns are 98% better than the other communication methods. 

It is Trackable.

Almost all the software providers of online marketing business are providing very detailed analytics and tracking reports for each campaign that is launched. Sent, delivery, read, response analytics can be tracked very easily. The top players of marketing never launch the campaigns without enabling tracking codes. This way, it is effortless to compare the ROMI (Return On Marketing Investment).

Very cost-effective.

You can plan, compose and execute SMS campaigns for any budget and any size of a business/ requirement. This is one of the reasons Text messaging should never be shelved in a ‘to-do list’ of future marketing tactics. It should be an on-going process from the very first contact you acquire. This keeps the ROMI scale healthy too. 

Only Serious Customers opt-in.

Most of the time the database/ contacts are acquired via customer opt-ins. i.e., the customer has already expressed interested in that product/ service. It isn’t shooting in the dark anymore. All you must do is composing a constructed message and send across with right instructions. This fact drives ROI. 

Understanding the importance of reaching the customers at a personal level is the first step to compose the right message with in the characters limit. Now that you know SMS Marketing is nothing to ignore, let us give you some pointers that might encourage you to plan a campaign soon. 

Text messaging is quite flexible that it doesn’t need any extra set-up on the phone and is same to almost all the operating systems and phone models. Engaging the customers with the universal format is not complicated. 

There are over 1.7 billion mobiles are being used in India and only 65% of them are equipped and activated with 3G or 4G. So, the ultimate way to get into their inbox is text messaging.

In today’s world, the mobile phone is at the reach of an arm stretch most of the day. Recent observations state that an average person checks the phone 150 times a day. Do you need more reasons to say SMS is most viewed?

Leading marketing experts say that 75% of the customers prefer to receive ads through text message. Only 15% and 10% customers prefer to view the ads on internet and mobile aps respectively. 

Text messages often show 45% of response rate where it is just 6% in email marketing. Writing short codes and shortened URLs can show immediate results for the campaign. 

If curving up the sales graph and improving the communication with the customers is your immediate goal, then SMS marketing certainly shouldn’t be over looked. It doesn’t need hefty budget allocation, yet is a very powerful tool to keep your customer engaged with right information. 

Handout For Finding Right Marketing Automation Service

How tough is it to find the right marketing software for a business? While spending approximately 30% of entire marketing budget solely on technology, and having over 3700 odd options to choose from; it can be nerve-wracking to find the right one for right reasons. Since it is always a good idea to look around before diving deep, we are here to give you a few aspects you might want to consider before you go for your software shopping.

The ‘W’ Words. Why & What?

As we already mentioned, Online marketing is going to cost. So, it is always a good thing to take a minute and think why do you want to get into Online Marketing, and what do you want to achieve through this. Once you know the problem that you want to solve, you are one step through the filtering process to find the right platform for your marketing needs. Not all the Businesses need Digital Marketing and online presence. But the ones that require online existence should always have their immediate and long-term goals listed out.

Calculate Potential ROMI

Demonstrating the value of any investment is necessary to balance the capital and returns in any business, especially for small businesses and start-ups. Before employing a new software, make sure you run a trail campaign before signing up for longer terms. Most of the platforms do give a free trail or smaller packages to try on. Don’t hesitate to take advantage of them. Analysing the average opening rates and conversion rates (assuming Email Marketing Campaign) along with some forecast of the business promotions and possible reactions; compare different tools. Investment with no foreseen plan on returns is almost dead capital.

Don’t Hesitate To Discuss

SFAs (Sales Force Automation) can be confusing for beginners. There is no shame in asking questions and understanding the module’s abilities and how it can solve your marketing issues. Reach out to the representative from the software provider or a marketing expert and explain your current drill and your target. This will allow them to pass on the right suggestions.

One Size Does NOT Fit For All

Often the executives from online marketing software solutions sell the point that it is a swiss army knife model of marketing technology. You need an application that is perfect fit for your business needs, not the one that has hundreds of features. The right one is not always fancy/ flashy. If you find a software that has few features but fits the bill, that is all you need. Look for the one that can integrate to the platforms you use.

Never DIY A Marketing Software

Always spend your sources and time on the product, you built the company to develop. Making an in-house solution for online marketing is not a suggestable move for businesses with a different core product/ service. Advantage with marketing software companies is, they build and develop the module based on the new age technology and can afford to have dedicated teams for research, testing and maintenance. It’s a huge investment for the non-marketing businesses to infuse man power/ sources/ capital on this, with no guarantee on ROMI.

Take Advantage Of Free Trails

Most of the automation software companies do give free trails. Utilizing them to check how apt is the software for your business gives you more understanding about online marketing and various features that they have got to offer. From budgets to reports to features; check everything before signing up for a long term. Online marketing practices are very demanding and takes a lot of calculated decisions. So, go through the reviews about the platforms before you take a call.  

Demonstrating the effectiveness of a Perfect Marketing Plan is not as black and white as sales reports. While the sales can be indicated through hard numbers and revenue oriented metrics, marketing activities can only be determined with the number of clicks, leads and some other data metrics that may or may not be translated in to real money. Since the online marketing is occupying deliberately more space in whole marketing, spending enough time on finding right marketing automation software.