Engagement
Search vs. Purchase – Customers Need To Find You And You Need To Track It
- 5th October
- Kim Irvine 3
Online purchases are not the only answer! Kim Irvine discusses how to maximise your marketing campaign by having your phone number on display.
A recent study by Google has found that Australia has the second highest penetration of smartphones in the world, behind Singapore, and consumers are increasingly using them for activities such as social networking and researching products before purchase.
Now, more than ever, brands need to ensure they can easily be found online to enhance the sale of their products and services. One way this can be achieved is through SEO strategies that aim to increase website traffic and market reach.
Once customers have found what they want online, they then need to buy it. While some may choose to buy it online, others, especially when it comes to buying larger items, need personal interaction to complete the purchase.
While brands may want to encourage customers to complete transactions online, they still need to give an option for potential buyers to give them a call. It gives customers a sense of security that they are buying from a reliable and trustworthy business.
It may seem a simple task to advertise a phone number online, but did you know there are many different types of phone numbers that attract customers in different ways?
Toll-free numbers: add a professional edge to a business’ presence and also have the benefit of increasing the perceived size of a business, making it seem larger than it is. Toll-free numbers are a low or no cost option for a customer to call, encouraging them to pick up the phone.
Virtual local numbers: local numbers that give a business a local presence but have the same functionality as a toll-free number. How they work is that when a customer arrives on your website from Melbourne, for example, they will be shown an (03) number whereas someone from Sydney will be shown an (02) number, but all calls will still be routed to where your business is based in Adelaide.
Smart numbers: use word/s within the phone number to help customers easily recall your number. A business can choose its own number, for example a gym may choose 1800 FITNESS or an online clothing store may want 1800 FASHION. Customers are more likely to call a number they can remember, rather than one they have to search for.
Once they call
When a customer transacts online it is easy to track how they found your site, which could be through a search engine or an advertisement on a different site. But once they pick up the phone to call, how can you track the method they used to find your phone number?
Call tracking fills in the missing piece of the puzzle by linking a unique phone number to each of your marketing sources. This has varying levels from assigning a number to each campaign to assigning one to different keywords used to search for your business. Information that can be tracked includes source, keyword, medium, IP Address, landing page, last URL visited, time and date of call and the results of the call.
When a customer clicks on that ad to go to your site, they will see that unique phone number, which is called a “dynamic number” because it changes automatically based on where the visitor was before reaching your site. Call tracking can also be used on print, TV, radio and outdoor advertisements.
Having call tracking in place means a business can track the sources that are increasing sales calls and cease the ones that aren’t working. Businesses can then maximise marketing campaigns by adjusting their campaigns based on which sources are effective, saving on their bottom line and increasing sales.
With the ever increasing rise in customers using online to find the products they want, businesses need to be doing everything they can to make the most of their online presence and ensure they stay relevant in today’s dynamic markets.
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