How to Build a Community to Increase Customer Retention

There are many different strategies for driving traffic to your site and increasing customer retention. While you could spend large sums of money on advertising and marketing, there are other solutions available. Building your own website community is a great method of building loyalty and repeat traffic.

What’s an online community? Basically, a community is a group of regular visitors that frequently discuss topics and regularly interact with each other. Instead of just randomly commenting on blog posts, these visitors are actively engaged in what’s going on.

Here are some tips to help you begin to build an online community in order to boost customer retention and keep visitors coming back for more.

Create a Community on Your Website

The first step is to create a community on your website. This can be done by adding a forum to your site. If you use WordPress, this is relatively easy. You can create a sub-domain and install a forum theme on the sub-domain. For those without WordPress, there are many great forum templates that you can use.

You should build a forum that is relevant to the product or services that you carry. Promote the forum as you would any other website. Use proper SEO to help drive traffic to the forum. Include links from your main site to the forum and discuss your forum on social media.

Respond to Every Blog Comment

Along with creating a forum, you should respond to every blog comment on your blog posts. Again, if you’re using WordPress, this is easy. You choose to receive an email notification every time a new comment is left on your site. This also applies to your forum.

Every time someone leaves a comment, if it’s worthy of a response, then respond to the comment. Try to respond as quickly as possible. When a visitor sees that you actively respond to comments, they’re more likely to come back and leave other comments.

Create a Subscriber List

You can include an opt-in form on your forum for users that wish to register. In fact, you might want to think about requiring user subscription in order to post a comment on your forum. If you have quality content, users will want to subscribe.

Don’t bombard your subscribers with useless emails. You should keep this subscriber list separate from existing email lists. Have one list that is exclusively for your community subscribers. The emails that you send should be relevant to the forum and the community.

Integrate Social Media with Your Community

Combining the best of both worlds, you can integrate your social media business profile with your online community. How does this work? Through your business profile, create a social media community. Make this a mirror reflection of your online website community. Follow the same principles—responding to comments promptly and encouraging people to leave comments.

Create Exclusive Content for Your Community

Creating exclusive content that you only share with your community members will help increase loyalty. Your members will appreciate receiving content that’s not available elsewhere. Make sure the exclusive content is valuable and informative. You still need to focus on quality when creating this content.

Building a community can be a lot of work, but it’ll pay off in the end. You’ll find that you have a large number of regular visitors and steady traffic to your site. This can help you boost sales, increase customer retention, and compete with major players in your industry.

You don’t need to necessarily be at the top of the search engine rankings to remain competitive. Use these suggestions to begin building a community. For even more internet marketing tips, click on this link to learn about my beneficial done-for-you lead generation system.

5 Tips to Instantly Boost Conversion Rates

A low conversion rate will waste your efforts to drive traffic to your website. If you can get a thousand people to visit a landing page, you’ll only get 10 new leads if your conversion rates are at 1%.

Typically, if you’ve got low conversion rates, there are just a few areas that need to be tweaked. By making a few small adjustments, you can instantly begin improving the percent of people that complete the desired action on your landing page.

Here’s 5 tips for instantly boosting your conversion rates.

Get Rid of the Jargon

You first need to get rid of the jargon on your landing page. People don’t respond to phrases and words that they don’t understand.

When you’re writing sales copy, you want people to understand your message. Keep it simple.

You need to get rid of the fluff. Here’s a few examples of jargon that needs to be eliminated:

• State-of-the-art
• High-quality
• Powerful
• Ultimate

These fluff words don’t need to be added, if you have a real value to offer your visitors. Instead of stating that you’ve got a “high-quality product”, you might state that you’ve got a “product that will change how you handle…”

Decide How Your Product is Different

You also need to know how your product or offer is different from your competition. You should never state the obvious in your copy. Instead, focus on what sets you apart. Otherwise, you’re focusing on what makes you the same as everyone else.

For example, if you sell tax preparation software, you wouldn’t list “helps you prepare taxes” as one of the benefits of your software. This is a given.

By focusing on the strengths, you can set yourself apart from the rest of your competition.

Address the Most Common Objections

Write a list of reasons why people may be hesitant to make a purchase on your website. Be honest and come up with the most common objections.

For example, people may be hesitant to purchase from an unqualified source. To address this, you need to explain why you’re qualified to offer your product or service.

Another common objection is that your product may not work for every customer. To address this objection, you should include a variety of customer testimonials.

Write the list of objections and then address them, one at a time. Use this list as a checklist that you go over before going live with your landing page.

Keep it Short

Keep it short. This applies to everything on your landing page. The words, sentences, and paragraphs should all be short. This makes your content easier to read.

Most people don’t read every single line in a sales ad or landing page. They skim through it. Break up your content and use shorter paragraphs.

Make it Easy to Complete the Next Step

Another solution for improving conversion rates is to make it easy for your visitors to complete the next step. Whether you’re having them subscribe to your email list or register for a webinar, the form they fill out needs to be short.

Typically, you should only include the required fields in your form. This includes name and email address. You really shouldn’t require more than 3 or 4 fields. Beyond this, conversion rates start to drop.

These are just a few tips for increasing your conversion rates. You should also try using A/B split testing to try different headlines and calls to action.

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How to Boost Your YouTube Video Views and Conversion Rates

If you’re not already using video marketing to acquire new customers, then you’re missing out. Video drives traffic and provides higher engagement rates.

You can use video to showcase customer testimonials, product details, or demos. It’s a simple way to communicate your message in a format that people enjoy. In fact, internet users on mobile devices tend to prefer video over text.

In order to drive traffic to your site from a video on YouTube or posted to social media, you need to have a clear goal. You need to decide on what you’re trying to accomplish.
After you’ve set your goal and created your video, there are a few steps you can take to boost conversion rates and get more views.

Choose the Right Thumbnail

Perhaps the most important element of your video is the thumbnail. This is the first thing that most people will see when your video appears in a search result. More than anything else, this determines whether someone chooses to click play.

When you upload a video to YouTube, you can choose a thumbnail from a selection of screen grabs. Instead of using these random images, you should take the time to create your own.

Make sure that the thumbnail is a clear image. Place the title or a relevant keyword over the image, so that anyone that sees the thumbnail immediately knows what your video is about.

Use a Consistent Brand Image

It always helps to establish a brand image, when you’re trying to make money online. Even if you’re selling affiliate products, having an identifiable brand helps you attract more leads.

In keeping with this concept, you should use a consistent brand image across your website, social media profiles, and the use of video.

For example, if you use specific colors on your website and social media profile, then incorporate these same colors in your video. You can insert title cards between scenes or on-screen messages using a theme that matches your brand.

Pay Attention to the Video Length

Viewer engagement peaks at 2-minutes and then starts to drop. So, you’ll want to keep most of your videos to 2-minutes or less. Generally, the only time that you want to create longer videos is when you have more information to provide.

For promotional videos and testimonials, shorter is better. Use these short videos to enhance your landing pages. Instead of just showing quotes from customers, show their video testimonial. Showcase the features of the product or service that you’re selling.

Include a Clear Call to Action

The final step in boosting conversions from videos is to include a call to action. You need a call to action to let people know what to do next. Though, most people make the mistake of placing the call to action at the end of the video.

You should actually place a call to action toward the middle of your video. The CTA could appear as an on-screen annotation or an embedded text overlay. Then, include another call to action at the end.

Make sure that your CTA is clear and direct. Remember that it needs to describe an action, such as “call me, book an appointment, click this link, complete this form, order today, or visit this page.”

Increasing video conversions begins with the thumbnail. This grabs attention. Then, you need to think about branding, video length, and your call to action. In addition to these steps, don’t forget to include the appropriate metadata, such as an attention-grabbing title and an informative description.

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4 Ways to Use Social Media to Obtain High-Converting Sales Leads

Being able to obtain high-converting leads is an essential part of online marketing. There are many tools at your disposal, but one of the most cost-effective tools is social media.

With the power of social media, you’ve got the ability to reach millions of internet users that are ready to buy.

You’ve probably already started using social media. But, with a few simple tips, you can leverage your existing tactics to gain more high-converting leads.

#1 Choose the Right Social Media Networks

The first way to gain better leads through social media is to streamline your efforts. You shouldn’t spread yourself out too thin. You don’t need to have an account on every single network.

Stick to the basics. Every online marketer needs a Facebook business account. In addition to this, you’ll probably want Twitter, along with one or two other networks.

When choosing your 3^rd and 4^th options, consider your target audience. For example, Pinterest contains a lot of content related to DIY projects, crafts, fashion, beauty, hobbies, and entertainment. Instagram is becoming more of a platform for driving brand awareness.

#2 Target Your Audience with Paid Ads

Social media paid ads have become just as beneficial as traditional pay-per-click advertising. You can get thousands of impressions or dozens of clicks for a fraction of the cost of Google PPC ads.

Whether you use paid ads on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, you’ll want to use targeted ads. All of these social media sites allow you to target your audience based on their interests or other criteria. This simple step helps boost conversions but limits your reach.

#3 Share More Video Content on Social Media

You should also start sharing more video content on social media. It’s known that video drives engagement, which results in higher conversion rates. So, use more video when sharing posts related to your products or services.

Posts and tweets containing videos are more likely to get noticed. They get more shares, clicks, and likes. You can now even use video in Instagram paid ads.

Creating a video to market a product is easy. You can create a short customer testimonial featuring satisfied customers. You could create a demonstration video highlighting the benefits of your product or services.

Use these videos to drive traffic to the relevant landing page. The higher engagement will lead to higher conversions.

#4 Use Keyword Research to Choose Your Tags

You should put the same care into choosing hashtags on your social media posts that you give to keyword research for blog posts and paid ads. Conduct keyword research to find the right terms and then choose 4 to 5 relevant keywords to use as your hashtags.

Place your hashtags at the end of your content, instead of using them as word replacements. This makes it easier to read your message.

The hashtags act as search filters when people use the search features on their favorite social media network. It also helps the social media network provide relevant suggestions to users. So, using the right hashtags can help you attract the right audience.

These tips are intended to help drive high-converting traffic from your social media accounts to your website. Make sure that you’re using these suggestions in conjunction with a social media marketing plan.

You should be posting a mixture of promotional and non-promotional messages to your followers on social media. If you do this and continue to use these tips, you should get a spike in referral traffic from social media.

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4 Tips to Dramatically Improve the Quality of Your Content

One of the biggest obstacles that every entrepreneur faces is generating fresh content. You can only go so far with paid ads and a strong social media presence. You also need to drive traffic to your website.

The best way to gain traffic, build backlinks, and increase your search rankings is to regularly publish new content to your site.

But, if you don’t have good content, you won’t get the traffic that you want.

For this reason, a lot of entrepreneurs rely on outsourced content. They pay writers to create articles. The problem with this is that it’s hard to find writers that can emulate your style and tone. It’s hard to get them to create content that perfectly matches your brand.

You don’t need to be a professional writer to create high-quality content for your site. Writing content for blogs, ads, web pages, and sales copy is a skill that you can develop.

With these 4 tips, you can learn how to dramatically improve the quality of your writing and drive reader engagement.

#1 Make a List of the Topics That You’ll Cover

Before you start writing your article, you should make a list of the main topics, tips, or ideas that you want to discuss. Use this list to create your subheaders.

This same rule applies whether you’re writing a blog post, website copy, a product review, or sales copy. For example, with sales copy, you’d make a list of the features that you want to discuss. These would then become individual paragraphs with their own subheader.

The subheaders break up the content and make it easier to read. This also helps you stay on track and remain focused on the initial purpose of your content.

#2 Present the Main Problem at the Beginning of Your Content

Always start your content with the main problem that you’re about to address. For example, at the beginning of this article, I mentioned that the biggest obstacle is generating fresh content. These tips help you learn how to overcome this problem by creating your own content.

Address the problem early, possibly identify a few pain points of your readers, and then mention how this article will help solve the problem.

That is the overall structure of your opening paragraphs. You’re getting the reader’s attention by identifying a problem and then you’re telling them how you’ll solve it.

#3 Use Short Paragraphs to Improve Readability

There are several factors that determine readability. First, you need to think about the structure of your content. As mentioned, including subheaders can help break up the content. Adding images and graphics can also help with this.

But, there are a few other ways to improve readability and they all have to do with your writing. You need to use short words, sentences, and paragraphs. Though, the paragraphs are the biggest concern.

Typically, you will want an average paragraph length of 2 to 3 sentences. Preferably, the sentence length should be less than 12 words. You can also replace long words with shorter synonyms.

Don’t make the mistake of over-explaining a topic. By using short paragraphs, you’ll find it easier to remain focused on the main points that you want to address.

#4 Don’t Edit Your Content Until You’re Done Writing

Hold off on editing your content until you’ve finished your initial draft. If you start editing as you write, you’ll find that it takes much longer to finish writing.

After you’ve finished writing, remember to proofread. Use the spell checker in your word processor and then read the entire content line by line. This will help you catch any grammatical errors that weren’t found by the spell checker.

You now have a few tips that can help you generate better content. It’s not difficult, but it will require practice. Along with these suggestions, you can get even more powerful internet marketing tips, and a solution for gaining conversion-ready prospects each month, by clicking here to learn about my done-for-you system.