You spend a serious sum of money to encourage a prospect to call the store, visit your website or drop in. They do so – accumulating knowledge and insights into your products and services and then they leave. In some cases, you know who they are but in most cases, they simply hang up, leave your website or walk out the door. You’re left wondering if this anonymous enquiry will return and you feel somewhat deflated and impotent.

What if you had the power to control the conversation? What if you were able to instigate the next contact and nurture the prospect along the buyer’s cycle? How many more leads would turn into sales? How many lost sales would be won? There is NO reason why you can’t take control and manage the conversation – you just need to capture the prospects details. It’s not rocket science but still it’s generally not done well or done at all.

Being able to maintain the conversation, usually via email, is such an important facet in the customer’s journey.

In past articles, I’ve gone to some trouble to explain the journey the customer takes to arrive at your door. It can take days, weeks or months for a prospect to move from awareness to interest to consideration to action and, along that journey, there will be numerous touch points. Imagine if you were in control of that journey or at the very least were able to influence it.

If that sounds exciting, keep reading. I’ll provide you with some suggestions that will help make your print advertising even more effective but apply equally to all your advertising channels.

Capture their details

It goes without saying that if the prospect has contacted you directly or via the phone, you should ask for some basic details. Most people are willing to give this up, especially if they initiated the contact. It’s a good idea though to give a reason why you’d like their email address. Maybe it’s so you can forward a catalogue, product data sheet or information to help them with their decision.

Landing page

The vast majority of prospects see your print advert directed to your website and then disappear. Maybe they weren’t ready, perhaps your product wasn’t what they were after, or maybe the experience on your website was poor. Whatever the reason, they have gone never to return. This is where a landing page comes in. A landing page is a web page dedicated to the promotion you are advertising. It should be simple, easy to understand, and steer the viewer towards one action. Today with available software and CRMs, you can build one in an hour for less than $100.

How to get people to give up their personal details

In order to get your prospect to go from your print advert to your landing page and then to give up their details, you need to offer something. Some call it ethical bribery.

There are three primary ways of doing this:

Free information

In this technique, you are offering knowledge – perhaps an e-book, tips on how to…, a product catalogue or review, information on a seminar, a podcast or video. There are many options but they ALL must be perceived to have sufficient value for the prospect to willingly give up their personal details.

Free service or product

Here the prospect is offered a free review or assessment or even a sample of a product. This is very common in industries such as finance and telecommunications, for example, ‘Send me your last telephone bill and we’ll show you how much you can save.’

Competition

The most blatant of ethical bribes – ‘Win a free……. when you fill out your details’. This can be used to cast the net very wide or it can be used to target a very specific audience. For example, ‘Win an iPad’ will have all ages and genders enter, whereas win $1000 off your next purchase of hardwood will attract far fewer people but entrants will all be well advanced in the buyer’s cycle.

I have their details – what next?

This is where you get to control the conversation and the journey to your door. With a prospect’s phone number and email address, you can now inform, encourage and nurture the prospect – taking them from interest to consideration through to action.

In most instances, email will be your best means of doing so, however, depending on where the prospect is in the buying cycle, a phone call can be the most effective tool. Consider the example given previously of using a competition to collect information and giving away $1000 of hardwood to be used on a deck or timber floor. Don’t expect a substantial number of entrants but those that do are at the consideration or action phase and therefore very valuable.

You now have their details. To move those that did not win to the action or purchase phase you could choose to send an email announcing the winner and offering those that entered a discount should they buy before a certain date. You could follow that up with a reminder email of the impending offer date and perhaps a catalogue of hardwood types. You could then ring each prospect that has engaged with your email by opening the hardwood catalogue and attempt to close them over the phone. How much more powerful is that as opposed to waiting for them to reengage?

In conclusion

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to control the conversation! If the purpose of your print advert is to direct prospects to your website, then invest in a landing page, create something of value to give away, and capture your prospects details. Now the job is about to really start as you nurture them from prospect to customer. Good luck!

For more information on landing pages, see our article What are landing pages and why should I use them?