Your ideal customer just visited your site…

He goes through your homepage, likes what he sees, glosses over.

and then…

Then he leaves.

Congrats! You just lost a warm lead from your site who could have converted into a repeat customer.

So, what should have been done to not lose this valuable lead?

The answer: Lead Capture Forms

You need to power up your site with lead capture forms.

You can install lead capture forms (slide in pop-ups, exit intent pop-ups, welcome mats, countdown timers, inline forms, etc.) to get fleeing viewers signed up to your newsletter (from where you can nurture them to be a repeat customer).

Here’s a list of lead capture forms you can add to your site:

a) Welcome Mats

b) Exit intent Pop-ups

c) Slide in Pop-ups

d) Countdown Timers

e) Welcome Discounts

f) Inline Forms

g) Floating Bars

h) Lead Qualification Pop-ups

Some lead capture forms which usually convert great for us are slide in pop-ups and exit intent pop-ups.

Lead capture forms can be omnipresent on all your pages or be unique to your content for a specific page.

But having a lead capture form is not enough.

You need to double it down by powering it with great copy that offers something of value to your site visitors. 

A simple rule to follow for writing great copy is offering them something which solves their specific pain point and gives them instant gratification.

For example:

“How to do x (some instant solution solving a very specific pain point) in 15 minutes”

or

“How to do x (some instant solution solving a very specific pain point) without Y (something bad like expensive resources, length of time, etc.)”

Pro tip: Now let’s go all elite with this. One thing you can do to maximize your results from lead capture forms is to use countdown timers.

Have a countdown timer slide in form. The copy of the form can offer a free product/report giving an instant solution to their specific pain in exchange for them signing up for your newsletter.

The countdown timer works great for us as it instantly catches attention, adds excitement and urgency.

How to convert these leads into repeat customers?

Now that you got your lead, what should be the next step in converting them into customers for your business?

The key is to nurture your leads by demonstrating your expertise.

How to do you demonstrate your expertise?

By actually helping them solve a problem they have.

The idea is to take them from point A of pain (where they are currently at) to point B of relief from that pain (where they want to be).

You can do this in many ways. Some top ones are:

1. Give useful tips on how to get towards the solution and tying it up with your product.

2. Give detailed case studies with respect to their niche.

3. Give free trials and demos where you demonstrate in real time how you can help them.

and so on.

Next Step

Hope this lesson was a great starter kit for you in terms of getting leads for your business and convert them into repeat customers.

But how do you get these visitors to your site in the first place?

How do you convince them that you can help them?

How do you differentiate your brand from the noise in your market?

How do you automate your business growth without it sucking your time, life, and energy? (Business is about having fun and doing what you love right?)

Well, if you want solutions to all these pressing issues, then I think a consulting call with me will be the right fit for you.

Are you a business owner looking to get leads from your website?

If you answer YES, you might want to stop and pay attention to this post.

As some of you may know, apart from The Starting Idea, I have a Web Design agency called Brand Bridge Solutions.

Now over the 5+ years of me being involved in web designing, I have created some winning growth recipes for a highly converting website that gets you leads on autopilot.

I use these very strategies every day, to get leads consistently for my different websites.

Here’s a screenshot of how I used these strategies recently to get 400+ leads for The Starting Idea in just 1 month.

So, without further ado, here’s the exact strategy for making a conversion optimized website based on 5+ years of data-backed results.

STEP 1

Discovery and Research Process

1. Discovery workshop – Sit down with your team and determine your goals and compare it with your site visitor goals.

See the gap and fill it by correcting your brand language, look & feel, and functionality.

Optimize it for the end result you want to achieve.

2. Evaluate data – Evaluate your existing data, your website metrics (if applicable) with respect to the number of sign-ups you are getting currently.

To accomplish this, use tools like Google Analytics & SE Ranking/Ubersuggest to understand which of your pages are more popular and analyze the reasons why.

3. Hotjar Tool installation – Install Hotjar CRO tool. This will help in understanding what users want, and how they behave on your site.

It will give you visual data on clicks, taps, and scrolling behavior, revealing the motivation behind user actions.

Use this data to optimize your site for more Call-to-action clicks and longer sessions on your site.

After both the initial steps are done, we move on to design optimization phase.

STEP 2

Design Optimization to build a Conversion-Optimized Website

1. HSTOC Homepage – Create a homepage arranged with the HSTOC method: (Headline – Social Proof – Testimonials – Offer – CTA)

2. Blog – Create a special blog section where you host all your blog posts.

3. Create a special subscribe page – Make a special subscribe page with name and email fields to turn leads into your avid subscribers.

4. Create Lead Capture Forms – Use lead capture forms (slide in pop-ups, exit intent pop-ups, welcome mats, countdown timers, inline forms, etc.) to get fleeting viewers into your email list.

They should be omnipresent on all your webpages, so you do not miss out on capturing any lead.

5. Live Chat Installation – Use Live Chat to chat with your website visitors and convert them into leads.

Assist them by proactively chatting with them and sending them targeted messages as they browse your website.

6. Quiz Tools – Create a Buzzfeed style quiz that engages your audience, generates leads or promotes your brand.

7. Email Marketing Automation Software Integration (Newsletter set up) – Integrate your website and email address with an email marketing automation software to send timely, relevant, personalized emails for individual contacts when they take a specific action on the website.

8. Social Media Integration – Integrate social media sharing buttons to allow web visitors to share content from your site with their network on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

9. Viral Marketing Tool Installation – Use special “Thank You Pages” (web page a person sees when they sign up for your free lead magnet) and power it up with Viral Marketing Tools.

Here’s how it will work:

A person who sign-ups for your lead magnet will be led to a thank you page where he will be asked to share your website (or any other specific offer you want to promote) in exchange for getting a free gift (a free report/PDF/Digital Download).

This way your product/offer will go viral without spending money on expensive ads.

10. Usage of colors to trigger conversion – Use a combination of typefaces and color palettes to trigger conversion behavior. For example, make the CTA button stand out in contrast to the rest of the site.

Contact us if you want to use our 5+ years of performance data to create a conversion-oriented site for you.

11. Google Tag Manager Integration – Install Google Tag Manager, a system that allows you to manage and deploy marketing tags (snippets of code or tracking pixels) used for tracking and analytics on websites, without having to modify the code.

12. SEO optimization – Optimize the speed of the site, make it mobile friendly with user-friendly URLs.

STEP 3

Copy Optimization

1. Copy Mindset – Be ultra-specific about what people can expect when they sign up for your newsletter.

2. Lead Magnet that solves a specific problem – Create and promote lead magnets which solve a specific pain point of the customer.

3. CTA Text – Have very clear Call-to-Action text, which is driven by a clear value proposition that people can expect once they sign up.

STEP 4

Reiteration

1. A/B Testing – Compare every lead capture form and see which ones are converting better. Test headline, copy, CTA  text and images to maximize conversion. 

2. What to notice – Notice the value proposition, font styling, CTA button style/color, etc.

3. Reverse Engineer – Reverse engineer the formula of the winning forms and apply it on other areas of your site.

The Next Step

Hope by now you are getting a clear idea about how to supercharge your normal website and make it into an automated lead generating a machine that looks stunning and converts visitors into leads on a regular basis.

There are many other aspects & features that go into making a magnetic website, but it will go beyond the scope of this post.

If you need any help with it, I will be happy to offer you a free growth consultation along with the following bonuses:

1. Free Web Design Checklist for your existing/planned site
2. Free Website Audit for your existing site (or a competitors site)

Just fill in this form below and if you qualify, we will set up a Skype Call 🙂

Today I want to share with you the super simple “Swipe and Deploy” trick that will help you leverage your industry leader’s marketing for your own success.

So here it goes.

STEP 1

Visit the websites of all your industry leaders.

STEP 2

Use a chrome extension called Full Page Screen Capture and take a full page screenshot of these companies websites.

STEP 3

Save them to a folder named: “Industry Leader Web Copy Swipe Files”

STEP 4

Next, it is more than likely that you will be retargeted on Facebook, YouTube, and Google by these companies.

Whenever you see an ad coming in your feed or stream, record it with a free tool like CloudApp.

If it’s a static ad, use CloudApp to take a screenshot.

After recording the ad, click the ad and visit the landing page. Screenshot it with Full Page Screen Capture.

STEP 5

Create a folder called “Ad swipe files” and under it name sub-categories based on names of your industry leaders.

Save all the ads pertaining to one company in their respective subfolder.

STEP 6

Now every time you need ad copy, take inspiration from these industry leaders.

See the kind of language they are using, how are they presenting the problem and the solution.

Since they are industry leaders, they are proven winners.

Most of the copy that you see will be market tested and coming up after a lot of tests, experiments, and refinement.

Take advantage of their research and hard work, and simply templatize the approach for your own marketing campaign.

STEP 7

Do the same swiping for emails sent by these industry leaders.

Simply search the industry leader’s name on the from field in the search mail section of your Gmail.

Search the name of your industry leader and see his emails.

Notice the subject line presentation, the copy, the time the mail was sent and the amount of time between two emails.

Copy paste the emails for future reference.

STEP 8

Additionally you can use some famous online swipe file sites like swiped.co and swipefile.com to take even more inspiration about marketing copy and campaign arrangement.

Did you like this hack? This is just one of the many advanced level hacks where you can literally spy on your competitors and take their best performing brand strategies, and swipe them for your business.

Not only that, but you can also see the worst performing strategies of your industry leaders and know the dangerous pitfalls to avoid.

All these strategies will be part of just the Marketing Vault in The Starting Idea VIP – A straight to the point no BS library of advanced level strategies covering every topic from Marketing, Entrepreneurship to Productivity.

Stick around for further details. It’s going to be awesome.

Have you heard of the guy who invented the helicopter ejection seat?

Well, it never really took off.

Moving on from this lame joke, the point I am trying to make here is that spending precious time on building a product no one wants is simply ensuring failure for your business.

Do not be that guy.

This is the reason, why I always use Alexander Osterwalder’s Value Proposition Canvas, and YOU should too.

This business model generation tool will help ensure that your product or service is addressing an acute customer need.

Alex Osterwalder is widely known for his creation of the Business Model Canvas – a tool that allows you to map out your company’s business model and test it against other alternative models.

By using this tool, you can verify whether your product or service will be a hit with customers, before even getting it out in the market.

How to use this business model generation tool?

Firstly, start from the side of the customer and ask yourself the question,

“What job is my customer hiring my product to do?”

This will compel you to look at your product from the point of view of customer needs.

Brainstorm the pain points that they’re looking to solve and the gains they’re hoping to achieve by using your product or service.

Next, put the focus on your product.

“How does your value proposition solve the customer’s pains?”

“How does your value proposition enable and ignite your customer’s gains?”

Finally, map the two canvases side by side and evaluate your product market fit hypothesis.

Are you solving a problem that makes your product a “must have”?

If not, how can you correct the product to address better the needs of your target customers?

Doing this exercise will lead you to build a product your target customers really want.

That’s it for today. Do this exercise and tell me how it went.

Like this tool? Want to find out 8 other free business model generation tools? Click here.

The buzz around the future of money is hard to miss these days. Sensational stories of how a teenager or a college drop-out have become millionaires overnight have been making news quite often… tempting people to start investing in digital money or what are more technically known as cryptocurrencies.

But the gurus of investing adhere to one rule: invest in what you understand.

Here is then a quick rundown on cryptocurrencies.

What is cryptocurrency?

Firstly, cryptocurrency is not just Bitcoin. It’s actually the other way round.

Bitcoin is the first, the most popular and the cryptocurrency with the highest market capitalization.

Then there are others like Ether, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Monero, Dashand around 900 more.

Next, what exactly is cryptocurrency and how is it different from liquid money?

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized – they are not controlled by any one person or entity.

Cryptocurrencies are not printed, they are digital currency and are held in digital format.

Usually, they are mined by people or entities called miners.

Miners use computers to perform mathematical computations to put the transactions into a database and get rewarded with units of the cryptocurrency.

For example, Bitcoin miners get 25 BTC (Bitcoin) for each block of transactions they put to the database.

Miners compete with each other to win the block reward.

Cryptocurrency transactions need to be confirmed by the network of miners before the ownership of the tokens pass on to the receiver.

Should you invest in cryptocurrencies?

Recently, several cryptocurrencies experienced a massive increase in market share.

Ether, which facilitates companies, organizations, service providers, in general, anybody who has enough technical knowledge to conduct Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), has grown massively and at one point surpassed Bitcoin in terms of market share. ICOs are much like IPOs, in that the company raises money through them.

But instead of giving you the company’s shares, it provides Ether-based tokens.

These can either be traded on the exchanges (once the exchanges feature them) or exchanged for some service that the company provides.

Also, most ICOs are pre-product – companies raise funds to develop their products, update products, pay salaries, etc.

ICOs have become the main mode of crowd-funding these days and have attracted the attention of a lot of people.

But there are dangers that investors should be aware of:

• Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Many currency holders have made fortunes, but they didn’t do so overnight – nor is it possible to do so.

• Cryptocurrencies are not regulated by many countries – the threat of future regulation always looms over them affecting the price. China recently banned ICOs as an illegal fundraising method and the Bitcoin price took a dip from around $5000 to $4000. Following this, Russia’s central bank, The Bank of Russia, issued a warning on cryptocurrencies and ICOs. We can expect more such regulations and bans in the future.

• Cryptocurrencies may be forked or split into two or more. Bitcoin recently split into Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). After an attack on one of the Ethereum-based projects, Ether was split into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic networks. A split may lead to a depreciation in value of one of the resultants and appreciation of the other – investors have to choose wisely which network they want to support.

• Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities that they can exploit to steal coins. Mt. Gox exchange hack is one of the biggest hacking scandals where hackers stole $460 Million and forced the exchange into filing for bankruptcy.

• Cryptocurrencies involve a steep learning curve during the initial stages of investments. You need to be tech savvy to be able to set up your wallets and handle your addresses properly and securely. Addresses are like your unique account number where you receive coins. There are multiple types of addresses.

• Also, there are various types of wallets like online web wallets (accessible through browsers or mobile apps), desktop wallets (connected directly to the network) and hardware wallets (since cryptocurrencies are nothing but 1s and 0s you can store them in hardware wallets that are off any network and are more secure because of that).

• The most popular rule for investing in cryptocurrencies is: only invest what you can afford to lose.

• Keep in mind that investments in cryptocurrencies may take a long time to give a good ROI. Don’t get overawed by news reports of people becoming millionaires – for every cryptocurrency millionaire, there are countless others who have lost majority or all of their investments in this highly volatile world.

• Stay away from websites and the so-called investment platforms that claim to be providing a high ROI in a short span. Such platforms are called High Yield Investment Programs and are scams or ponzi schemes. No legit investment platform will double your investments in 10 days!

Cryptocurrencies are no doubt the future of currencies. But read, learn, exercise caution and then dive in.

References:

• What is cryptocurrency?
• China bans ICOs
• The Bitcoin Split
• The hack of Mt.Gox
• Things to know before starting with Bitcoin

Just think about what made companies like Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and the like change their terms and privacy policies one after the other. You must have noticed the notifications by now.

Yeah, Facebook is already in the limelight for user data discrepancies. But look at what’s happening to all the cookie policies. Companies are updating their terms quickly.

What’s triggering this frenzy? Of course, this is happening because of one law that has managed to stir the business world – G.D.P.R.

The European Union’s GDPR law takes effect from May 25, 2018. This has been in the news since its inception and adoption by the EU Parliament in April 2016.

The Law will affect businesses that manage a large amount of data. This applies to all EU citizens’ data, irrespective of their location.

What is GDPR and why is it being rolled out?

In simple terms, as someone who resides in the EU, my data is being protected because of GDPR. 

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It replaces the old and obsolete 1995 Data Protection Directive. GDPR is more relevant today as a lot has changed over a period of two decades.

Rapid technological advancements and data processing/usage by businesses has led to realize the need for a law like GDPR.

This new regulation is being brought into effect to give personal data control back to EU citizens. It is put into action to control a business’ ability to exploit public’s personal data. GDPR is rolled out to give the citizens their digital rights. 

This law does not require national governments to pass any sanctioning legislation. This means that it is naturally applicable to any person, organization or business that deals with EU citizen’s data.

This law applies to your business irrespective of your company operating on a business to business level or business to consumer level. 

How will GDPR affect your business?

About the effect the GDPR wave has had, there is both good and bad news. Let’s see why.

Some small business owners are panicking and complaining about the sudden work overload. Russel Xiam, owner of a product support company says that there is so much to do to migrate to GDPR compliant software platforms.

Planning for GDPR is equivalent to revisiting your business choices. –  Russel Xiam

This implies that small businesses are the most affected.

John Higham, owner of Azybao, a project management company said that people are refusing to do business with European companies because they are afraid that they’ll be caught in the jam.

Isabelle Trijt, an HR officer from Germany says –

I had to modify/change/scrap the new hire and employee onboarding policies so that we stay inside of the GDPR compliant circle. I also had to take up the responsibility to delete all the old records containing data of the past interviewees.

To add to this, a business owner in Brussels migrated to MailChimp from Convertkit because Convertkit wasn’t giving a checkbox option that lets the user “choose” the data. This implies that business owners are abandoning email service providers that do not give more control to the user, although Convertkit has updated their functioning as of today. 

This makes sense because you, as a business, shouldn’t be put in jeopardy due to the rules your email service provider did not follow. After all, the email responder may have policies that do not hold themselves accountable for any loss caused to your business, right?

Although it is rare that such a scenario arises, you will still be held accountable for not conforming to the laws as it is your email list.

On the other hand, Sidney Burks, the CTO and Co-Founder of Ivizone from France says,

The new policies haven’t had a huge effect on our business. This could largely be due to the fact that French law already had quite stringent requirements around data protection and privacy. GDPR did force us to take data privacy into the core of our products, and think of it from the ground up, however as we are developing a new release for our product, we were able to do this in a clean and efficient manner.

Sidney also adds that GDPR has forced the businesses to get their data houses in order. They have now added additional policies to delete stale and unnecessary data and reinforced their internal security policies around data storage and access. This means that they provide a higher level of data security to their clients.

So, if your business or organization handles and processes user data, you should be concerned about your user data security. You are obligated to be GDPR compliant in this case. If your business does not comply with the GDPR law, you may face heavy penalties. 

The highest penalty for the severest deviation will cost you 4% of your global turnover or 20 Million Euros, whichever is higher (more about penalties in later sections).

The GDPR Law applies to ____?

There is a huge confusion about who the law applies to. There are few sources that talk about EU citizens and there are others who talk about EU residents.

The confusion arises as people with GDPR rights are referenced as “data subjects”. But who are these data subjects? 

Data subjects, who are they?

Does the GDPR apply to all EU citizens’ data?

Or does it only apply to people who reside in the EU? 

Data subject are defined as a natural person whose personal data is processed by a controller or processor. The controller or processor could be a business or an entity employed by the business that specifies the data processing funnel. 

The term “data subjects” doesn’t have a specific definition. In fact, it is a connotation. GDPR requires businesses to protect the privacy and personal information of EU citizens under any transactions that occur within EU member states. According to Cyber Counsel, any person present in the EU member states at a given point becomes a data subject. 

What are the kinds of data that is subject to scrutiny?

The GDPR considers any and all personal data concerning a natural person as a belonging of that person. The kind of data may include:

• Digital Information
• Biometric Data
• Genetic Data
• Encrypted Data
• Personal Data

The rights of a data subject:

3. You are also given full power and authority to change your personal data or withdraw your data at any given point. This is the main reason why businesses should provide checkbox options (discussed in the above section) to give the user more freedom and power to get their consent.

4. A data subject can also object processing of any/or all of his/her data if s/he thinks that the data being processed is inaccurate or incorrect.

5. A data subject can also object to or resist the transferring of their data from one service provider to another. In addition to this, as a data subject, you can also request to delete your data from the records. But this right may not be earned by the data subject if the data being processed is for legal purposes, public health purposes, research purposes etc.

In short, it applies to all EU residents irrespective of the location of the business, organization or their citizenship. And, breaching the rights of the data subjects attracts heavy penalties. 

What are the factors that determine a penalty?

Please note that none of the above factors guarantee a specified penalty because the determination of fine is completely within the EU laws’ discretion.

For more information, refer to the core principles that lead to the GDPR Law enforcement here. 

Appointing a Data Protection Officer (DPO)

The data being processed in your business may have to undergo monitoring. If you need help in organizing your business to comply with GDPR, the EU body advises to seek expert consultation.

Each of the EU Member States may nominate one or more independent public authorities to help monitor the data laws’ compliance.

According to GDPR, Data Protection Officers should be appointed if your business operates at the following levels:

1. Organizations that act as public authorities

2. Companies that deal with large-scale data aggregation and monitoring

3. Companies that deal with large-scale processing of crucial personal information

5 Myths about GDPR

2. Small business owners need not worry about GDPR – A business small or big: if it handles user data, it should be GDPR compliant.

3. User consent is not mandatory if the user is choosing to enter their personal information during subscription – Explicit consent from the user in the form of a checkbox is mandatory from May 25, 2018.

4. If you are not doing business inside the EU, you shouldn’t be concerned – If you are a business dealing with EU citizen’s data, irrespective of the citizens’ location, GDPR applies.

5. User data is only the data provided by users – Any data collected, generated, modified, morphed or acquired in the form of cookies, user behavior is still user data.

Conclusion

If you are a business with a website that collects personal information of data subjects, you are now obliged to implement legally compliant ways to acquire user information. For example, if you have a pop-up or subscription form on your website, the only way to ensure you are getting the consent of the user is by:

• Implementing the double opt-in method that pools in only interested members with consent.
• Giving the user the options to choose to regulate his/her data.
• Giving the user the option to unsubscribe.
• Ensuring all the third party services you use are GDPR compliant.
• Keeping your data acquiring procedures in check.
• Communicating your privacy policies in a transparent manner.
• Designating a Data Protection Officer or educating and train your business to avoid the data breach.
• Ensuring regular data audits and accessibility.
• Minimizing the data you hold and process.

Disclaimer: The information above is solely for reference and informational purposes. It does not stand as legal advice. Please seek legal counsel for any further advice.