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Driving Direct Leads: Are You Doing All You Can To Boost Local Sales? |
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by John Federman
National franchise operations have marketed in the same ways for
years and years. That is, the national budgets were applied to brand
building and the local franchisees were charged with creating local
lead flow.
But as they say: that was then, this is now. Certainly the approach I
described above will continue to be the chief formula for many
franchise marketing strategies for years to come. But new technologies
afford franchises the opportunity to explore new formulas.
The Internet: a game changerThe Internet, along with a
number of related technologies, has fundamentally changed the way
people find information and communicate with each other. Just ask the
editors of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, which recently
added the word "google" as a verb. Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times
reported that linguists said, "Google entered the lexicon especially
quickly. It reached the pages of the dictionary just five years after
its first known public reference as a verb in a New York Post article."
One large effect the Internet is having is the way consumers discover
information about their local surroundings--most notably, the
businesses in their area. People are finding this information not just
through search engines and community websites, but also by
communicating with complete strangers through blogs and social networks.
This dynamic is causing a shift in the approach of marketers at some of
the world's most recognizable franchise brands. Not only are they
responsible for difficult-to-measure awareness campaigns, but they are
being charged with driving leads directly to their local franchises.
Why is this?
Prior to the rise of Internet search and new low-cost communications
technologies, it was ineffective for franchisors to take responsibility
at the local level. With the emergence of these tools, some franchisors
are realizing they can--and must--channel some of their marketing
resources to driving leads into the hands of franchisees.
The second question is: How? Jenny Craig and DaimlerChrysler have made
changes to their corporate web strategies and implemented new
technology to support local lead distribution. Both have experienced
dramatic results.
A franchise and its online presenceBusinesses use websites for
a number of reasons, including driving e-commerce sales, garnering
feedback to create a dialog with customers, and keeping the customers
and prospects aware of new products and features. Consumer-facing
franchise websites were mostly designed for branding, and served
primarily as information portals. For online sales, companies were
content with offering customers self-service tools, therefore avoiding
the perceived costs of direct contact. However, as transactions
increased in value, sales became more and more complex, and began to
require more than just self-service tools, e-mail, and FAQs. So
companies began to evolve their online customer communications to
improve processes in order to be able to quickly respond to changing
customer requirements.
The nature of many franchise businesses makes it unlikely that
consumers will purchase something sight-unseen and without engaging in
a one-on-one dialog. If that were the case, many franchises would not
be franchises in the first place-they would exist in a few central
locations and ship their products from there.
Jenny Craig and DaimlerChrysler both have found innovative ways to
drive sales directly from their online channels to local businesses,
using an emerging technology called "click to call." Click to call
allows companies to proactively engage customers by offering web
browsers a chance to speak to a customer service representative
instantly through either their PC or phone, based on the browser's
online behavior.
For example, a customer who has navigated to a product page, and spent
a significant amount of time on that page, will be prompted with an
invitation to speak to a representative if they navigate away from that
page, or show some signs that they're unable to find the information
they're looking for. Both Jenny Craig and DaimlerChrysler use similar
technology to route calls to local franchises based on a prospect's
geographic location.
One of the underlying principles supporting the strategy is that all
Jenny Craig and DaimlerChrysler franchises still largely rely on voice
and in-person interactions to make sales. Most local franchises do not
have the resources to support extensive web marketing. And, needless to
say, their core expertise {ITAL}is{ITAL} talking to customers.
Grabbing the loose changeClick to call is part of a larger class of technologies that many refer to asproactive conversion solutions.
What is so important about proactively offering customers communication
when they are on your website? Consider this--at this very moment,
there are a substantial amount of people on your website willing to
purchase what you are trying to sell them. That's good news. However,
the majority of them will never buy anything from your website. That's
bad news. So how do you effectively convert more browsers to buyers?
Ample evidence suggests that many websites don't offer customers their
preferred channel to complete transactions, resolve problems during the
buying cycle, or have their questions easily and quickly answered. So
instead of consummating the transaction, these people simply leave the
website. Forrester Research reports that 50 percent of people who
research a product at one online retailer's site actually purchase from
a different offline retailer, and a lot of them never come back. Can
you imagine the result if those online shoppers were offered a way to
ask additional questions about a product they were looking at online,
instead of having to drive across town to ask their local retailer?
By adding proactive conversion solutions to a website, companies can
reach out to customers at the exact moment they are making a purchasing
decision - and when it's a complex purchasing decision, it's all the
more important. For Jenny Craig, it's the moment when a person has
decided they are willing to make a commitment to losing weight. For
DaimlerChrysler, it's the moment when an online browser has gone
through all the steps of selecting the exact model, options, and
features for a vehicle and is ready for a price quote. By reaching out
to customers at that moment, these companies capture lost sales in ways
that affect the bottom line.
The results for both companies have been positive. For DaimlerChrysler,
20 percent of people who use the click to call service purchase a
vehicle, as compared with only 10 percent of those who use traditional
channels like the 800 number at the same point in the transaction
process. And, sales initiated through click to call are closed in a
fraction of the time compared with standard inquiries. Most important,
these calls have increased sales originating from the web without
taking away sales from other channels-in fact, DaimlerChrysler has seen
no drop in its 800 calls.
Jenny Craig has also doubled its online conversions by using click to
call. Previously, interested consumers were required to fill out a web
form that local Jenny Craig centers would respond to in 12 to 18 hours.
By connecting with these prospects instantly by voice, they are able to
prevent them from going to a competitor, or simply not acting on their
impulse to take steps to lose weight. Click to call engages the
consumer at the precise moment in time they are most likely to convert.
One of the promises of the Internet is immediacy. Consumers have grown
accustomed to getting the information they want online--immediately.
Now, as more people become used to shopping for products and services
online, they'll expect the same immediacy in a sales environment that
they've grown accustomed to in a research environment. Long gone are
the days when a consumer would willingly put up with waiting for an
e-mail response from a business.
The cases of Jenny Craig and DaimlerChrysler, however, aren't about
technology. Both companies altered their fundamental approach of how
they use their website to generate leads for their local franchises. By
being able to connect with prospects when they are ready to buy, they
are sending a strong brand message while helping their local franchises
take better advantage of the marketing dollars being spent nationally.
John Federman is the CEO of eStara, a provider of proactive conversion
solutions for enhancing online sales and support initiatives.
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