My agency provides online marketing services for a lot of large service-based businesses. From law firms to cosmetic surgeons, their goal is to generate leads via their website and convert them into paying customers. A lot of these service providers have high ticket items. Leads for dentists, lawyers and surgeons are worth several thousand dollars in revenue, making quality leads very valuable.
In order to generate a high volume of leads online you need to be active in several areas. The higher your ticket item is, then the harder it is going to be to generate leads. It’s much easier to get a consumer to drop his or her email address to claim a $10 off coupon for a bottle of weight loss pills than it is to have someone provide their information for a legal consultation.
So, in order to generate the volume of leads necessary to experience business growth, you need to make sure you are leveraging several strategies and methods that are all designed to help you reach that goal.
When you do everything right, you will see several things happen. Your website authority will increase, helping you obtain more organic traffic. Your overall traffic will increase when you start to see visitors from different channels like social media and your email list hit your analytics, and your branding becomes stronger as a byproduct of a well-rounded online marketing strategy.
I put together a list of eight ways all service-based businesses can generate more leads online, and nothing I’m going to touch on below is overly complicated. You need to be committed and understand it’s a long-term play. Those that expect overnight results become discouraged and quit before they see results.
Follow these to generate more leads online for your business..
1. Be active on social media and think of it as your main customer service channel.
You need to gain a potential lead’s trust before they are going to give you any kind of personal information, and that applies to simple opt-in lead gen forms that just require an email address to those asking for a bit more personal information.
When people want to get information about a business or a professional these days they turn to social media. It has become an information hub, almost like a more personal search engine. It’s also where customers turn to when they have questions or have an issue that needs to be addressed.
Being active on social media not only helps to amplify your reach, and possibly attract new customers, but it also shows those that are checking up on you the peace of mind that your business is responsive and cares. This is a huge selling point, and with so many options available, you need to do everything you can to stand out in a crowded online environment.
By simply having a pleasant “voice” on social media, you are showing potential customers that you care. This triggers emotional confidence, and can be the difference between someone submitting his or her details for a call back or consultation, and skipping over your business in favor of a competitor.
2. Optimize your opt-in forms on your website for two-step data collection.
Everyone says that the best way to increase the number of leads is by limiting the data fields required. A lot of high ticket services require much more information than a name and email address in order for it to qualify as a lead, but if you put a long-form opt-in form on your website as the first thing someone is presented with you will find that most will not complete them.
This is why I suggest something that I refer to as a two-step data collection process. You can create a long-form submission form that contains all of the data points you need in order to create a high quality lead, but before you present that to someone you need to collect the basic info, which is a name and email address.
Create a bribe, whether it’s a free eBook or a discount code, and then set up an auto-responder that sends the person your more in-depth opt-in form once they submit step one. This way, you at least have a name and email to constantly market until you can get them to submit that more valuable data.
You will see a much larger number of leads generated this way, and over time you collect a large list of prospects that have the potential to convert into those step two valuable leads at a later date.
3. Use your email list to educate and inform on a regular basis.
You should be collecting emails from a variety of sources. Your blog should have an opt-in offer, your social media should always be promoting your list, and you will collect a lot of opt-ins from the step-one phase as described in the point above.
Anyone that submits his or her email address has an interest in the service you provide. Not everyone that submits is ready to convert into a client right away, so it’s important that you focus on constantly nurturing your list, because you never know when that time comes. The more active you are when it comes to email marketing, the more customers you will convert from your list.
Let’s assume you own a debt counseling company, and your email list has 3,000 subscribers. These people that submitted their info are interested, and maybe they were shopping around or maybe they just weren’t ready to address their problem, but if you are constantly sending them useful emails, it will pay off in the long run.
If they are shopping around, but see that you are providing value, they are going to be more likely to go with you, rather than someone that they have received zero value from. Also, if someone wasn’t ready when they submitted, but you happen to inbox them when they are ready to pull the trigger, they are going to convert, because you hit them at the exact moment they turned into a very warm lead.
4. Create infographics to put your message in front of larger audiences.
Anytime you can place your business in front of a larger audience, you will have the opportunity to not only brand your business as a leader within your industry, but there is also the possibility of attracting new customers that are interested in the service you offer.
It all comes down to numbers. If your business is published on a website like Huffington Post for example, you could be seen by tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of consumers.
Getting exposure by large websites is not easy, but infographics can be an easy way into even the most elusive websites, simply because publishers love how easy they are to post and how much engagement and shares they receive.
Create an infographic that isn’t an advertisement, and showcases some interesting stats or data related to your niche. By simply branding a great piece of content it will get your business a lot of attention, website traffic and leads.
5. Use live broadcasting to let potential customers get an inside look at what they can expect and/or experience.
Live video is so popular right now, and smart businesses are taking advantage of it and mastering it before their competition has a chance to catch up. Remember 20 years ago when reality TV was new? People were obsessed with it because it gave them a look into a perspective that was new to them. The same concept applies to live broadcasting.
It’s something that can work for almost all service providers. A tattoo shop could live broadcast tattoo sessions or do live Q&As with its artists, which is a great way to make their audience feel comfortable about stopping by or booking an appointment online.
A law firm could do live broadcast sessions with attorneys and discuss common questions revolving around their practice areas. No matter what it is, there is an audience waiting to consume live content.
Getting started can be difficult, because your audience will be small. If just 5 people are watching a live broadcast don’t worry. Focus on delivering value and word of mouth will spread. Soon you will be drawing a dozen viewers, then fifty, then a couple hundred, etc. There are some businesses that have thousands of people watching them at all times.
6. Publish blog content on a consistent basis.
Publishing blog content on a consistent basis is great because it gives your audience something new to read every time they hit your website. But when it comes to most service providers, they have one shot at converting website traffic and they aren’t counting on repeat visitors as much as say an e-commerce website would.
Let me explain.
If a DUI law firm gets a visitor on their website then the person more than likely has an immediate need for a lawyer. They aren’t hoping that the person comes back in a week or in a moth. Nobody is visiting a law firm’s website that specializes in DUI defense “just in case.”
So, while publishing blog content on a regular basis is great for many reasons, I’m going to focus on SEO benefits for service-based businesses. The more quality content you publish, the more organic traffic you can pull in. If you are targeting the right search terms and long-tail phrases, then most of that traffic will be potential customers.
The more traffic that hits your page, the more leads you will ultimately generate. Your traffic needs to be quality and your opt-in offer needs to be compelling, but if you nail these two points and publish content non-stop then you will see your lead volume grow exponentially.
7. Constantly have an SEO campaign running in the background.
Just because there are other things to implement into your online strategy, that doesn’t mean you should slow or pause your SEO effort. Search engine optimization is something that should always be running, even if in the background. You cannot sit idle, and this is where a lot of companies fall into trouble.
They want to do everything, but their budget is tight, so they stop link building and SEO, and then after a month or two they slip down. Why? Because their competition didn’t slow down, and the smart ones would have seen their effort slowing and turned up the volume on their own in order to surpass.
The good thing is that all of the tips I am discussing here can be done without breaking the bank. They can be done if you just want to use internal employees to handle the tasks, or they can be done even by a one-man operation, as long as the person is willing to put in the time.
Never slack on SEO, slowing or pausing forward momentum. Think of it like pushing a car up a hill. If you stop halfway up, it is much harder to get rolling again.
8. Put out video content on YouTube (2nd largest search engine) and social media.
Everyone thinks of Google when they hear “search engine,” but what about YouTube? It’s the second largest search engine, and with video content becoming more popular, it’s quickly becoming the first choice for many consumers.
You will want to use the same keyword strategy that you do with your regular SEO, and your content will need to provide value, just like your blog content does. Video also gives you the chance to build a personal relationship and it helps consumers connect a face to your business.
Create videos that explain what your business does, why you are the experts and how an interested consumer can get more information. Make sure that your call-to-action directs the viewer to a webpage on your site that is relevant and has a lead opt-in. Just like with your blog, the more content you publish, the more organic traffic potential you create.
Conclusion
Having strong rankings and pulling in website traffic is one thing, but it won’t automatically translate into leads for a service-based business. Customer trust is a huge component, especially when you are talking about high ticket priced services, like lawyers and cosmetic surgery.
Little things like an active social media presence with a focus on customer service and having video content available online are things that can help push your website visitors to submit the information required to turn them into a lead.
In order to succeed online these days you need to have a complete digital strategy, composed of several smaller actions that all work together to achieve your main goal, which is generating leads that you can then close and turn into paying customers.
The tips above are simple enough that even a small business with a limited budget can get in on the action, yet effective enough that large national corporations use them in order to generate leads responsible for millions of dollars in annual revenue.
If you have any questions related to the topics above, please leave them in the comments below and I will do my best to answer them as quickly as possible.
