You may as well not call, you know you are going right to voicemail.
But you do anyway because this is your job….. or maybe more is riding on it and this is your company.
You are calling back the leads from your PPC campaign, and every single one of them has lost interest.
Are they avoiding you?
Have they gone with a competitor?
You are frustrated and feel like you are spinning your wheels. They were clearly interested when they filled out your form so why are they avoiding you now?
This is the problem faced by many who utilize PPC – you receive quality leads but by the time you call them back these leads have either forgotten about your business or have gone with one of your competitors.
There is a simple and effective way to fix this and all it all has to do with having the need…..the need for speed.
Too Little Too Late
Behind every click is a real live person and…..real live people have different priorities during the day.
At one moment, your solution may be the most pressing thing in the world to them, five minutes later they completely forgot about your product or solution entirely.
That is just the reality of the world when you are dealing with a consumer that is constantly distracted and is bombarded with messages. One study found that the average consumer sees over 5,000 advertising messages per day. And those are just advertising messages.
Think about all the other messages and content a user sees per day such as facebook status updates, what TMZ is saying about the Kardashians, and the latest episode of the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where Titus sings Pinot Noir.
It is no wonder the user has forgotten about your particular message.
Even if they do remember your message think about it from the user’s perspective from what I call the frustration effect. Think of how often you do not give a business a second chance because they took too long to make a connection and you got frustrated and left. The times you have:
- Hung up the phone because it took too many rings to answer
- Left a store because the line was too long
- Left a restaurant because the waiter took forever to get to you
If you don’t get to your customers quickly then you have missed your window of opportunity.
Reach Your Customers By Optimizing For Velocity
Though it is certainly important to have a great offering, there are times when simply connecting with the lead quickly is a huge competitive advantage. You want to make it your business to connect with your lead as soon as possible. In fact, one study reported in the Harvard Business Review found that responding to a lead within an hour generates 7x more meaningful conversations with key decision makers than contacting a lead even one hour later. You can image how this would drop even further as the days go on.
You need to strike while the iron is hot and to do that you need to optimize for velocity.
Optimizing for velocity allows you to contact the lead:
- While they are in the buying mindset
- Before they have been beset with all the other messages
- Before they forget about you and
- Before they go with a competitor
How To Optimize For Velocity
Below are three ways to help you connect with your leads faster:
- Optimize for Velocity by Utilizing Live Chat
These little online chat boxes, called live chat, are a great way to instantly connect with your customer and more importantly they produce business results.
According to an article by the Conversion Scientist, live chat can increase conversion rates, and one of the main reasons is that:
“Around 44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a Web site can offer.”
The speed of which you and your potential customer can enter into this conversation via live chat is a perfect reason to consider this method when optimizing for velocity.
To utilize live chat in your PPC campaigns simply add live chat to your landing pages. This is usually done through adding a line of javascript the live chat provider gives you. Once it is installed, just make sure it is staffed appropriately – otherwise you lose the velocity as the user waits for you to respond.
- Optimize for Velocity By Utilizing Calls
Calls allow a user to instantly get in touch with your team, These interactions are valuable – in fact, one study found that phone calls are 5-10 x more valuable than form fills!
Again this has to do with how a user can instantly get in contact with your team to ask questions, receive answers to their objections and interact while they are still interested.
Phone calls are a little more friction than live chat as they cause the user to have to pick up their phone and dial – but there are two good ways to reduce this friction and allow the user to get in contact your business with velocity.
- Make the Phone Number on Your Page Click to Call
This seems like an obvious one, but having a clickable number on your landing page will greatly increase the speed at which a user can call your business.
These clickable numbers are (as they sound) when the number on your landing page can be clicked to complete a call. This works well for mobile as well as desktop if the user utilizes an app such as Google Voice.
To make your number click to call, use the href tag, and instead of a sending a user to a URL, utilize the tel variable like so:
<a href=”tel:+15555555555”> Call Now! 555-555-5555</a>
Bonus: You can also make a click to call button in a similar way. You do this by enabling an image hyperlink with a tel variable like so:
<a href=”tel:5555555555″><img src=”https://www.yoururl.com/files/image-you-want.jpg”></a>
- Utilize A Call Only Campaign in AdWords
With call only campaigns, the only option for a user to perform on their mobile device is call your business. No clicking, no landing pages – just an instantaneous connection with your team.
And get in contact they do. In fact, according to one study, 70 percent of people searching on mobile will call a business directly from the search results. You want your business to be that call, because as we saw before, calls are 5-10x more valuable than form fills.
Call only is only available in pay-per-click (another win for the PPC community!) so you are not even competing with the organic results.
They are easy to setup (here is an article I wrote about how the steps to accomplish this) and they don’t cost more than a normal click.
- Optimize for Velocity By Utilizing Auto Responders
Auto Responders are those emails that are automatically kicked out when someone fills out your form on your landing page. Of the three options I have included, they offer the least velocity since a user still has to wait for them and the user is not instantly connected with your team.
However, I am including this as an option because at least you are letting the lead know that you have received their request quickly. This is so much better velocity than just having a user sit and wonder if you have received their request while they go and find a competitor to instantly connect with.
In your autoresponder include when you plan on contacting them as well as any other information that may provide value.Then connect with the user as soon as possible.
Bonus:
The user shouldn’t be the only one who receives an auto-responder.
It is important to set up your system so that you and your team receive an email when a user converts so that you can get back to them ASAP.
As an example, most of my forms from PPC campaigns go through UnBounce. I have the system setup so that when a user fills out a form to request more information that my team and I receive an email alert immediately and can call them back.
How have you optimized for velocity?
Top Gun Meme from Pinterest
Titus from Tumblr
Zach Morris: Created via Meme generator
Bender: JoyReactor
