Marketing Series Teaches Local Businesses How to Capture and Keep Clients, Long-term

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ - Winning loyal customers is one of the toughest challenges that a business owner may face. It was out with the old and in with the new – inbound marketing tactics, on Monday, July 17, as guest speaker Walter Pardo offered some practical solutions during the latest installment of the TAPinto Marketing Series, held at Delicious Heights in Berkeley Heights.

To an intimate room full of fellow business owners and marketing professionals, the multi-business owner posed this question, "What is your marketing platform to attract, convert, close and delight your prospects of customers?"

Pardo, who is also the managing editor of TAPinto Basking Ridge, explained how to navigate through the four Essential Phases of a Good Sales Funnel, which includes traffic source, lead capture, lead development and lead conversion. From a marketing perspective, a good leader should ask the following questions, "How many clients do we have in our funnel? How to keep track of that, and what is our plan?

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"The Funnel is the pathway from attraction to conversion that prospects take to becoming satisfied clients," he explained. "TAP can help everybody understand the first two areas of that funnel because lead development is crucial to the overall strength of moving down that funnel."

Pardo went on to explain that "80 percent of all sales are made on the fifth to 12th contact, but people will usually stop calling after the second or third call.

Blogs, feature stories, social media publishing, press releases, etc., are the obvious marketing attractions to drive traffic to a website. But, how do you capture the lead? With a little bit of patience, "survey of clients is key," Pardo said. 

Having the traffic and having someone do a call to action (register to attend an event, sign up for a webinar, etc.) to a landing page document will lead them to the next step through the funnel, which is to engage and educate. And the initial goal is to educate somebody, not to sell them anything.

"You have to have an exchange for an exchange," he pointed out.

Other topics at the networking breakfast included search engine optimization (SEO) and how to categorize customers in order to figure out their specific needs. Learning about "customer centric marketing" was a favorite for those who attended this week's session.

Cathy Balsamo of Autumn Lake Healthcare at Berkeley Heights thought the workshop was "wonderful." The nursing home offers inpatient, outpatient and long-term care services for those in need. Figuring out the marketing tools to use, and how to question potential clients will come in handy for her when working with new patients and their families.

"It was so informative, learning how to figure people out, and how you would know who's this, who's that, and what personality," she said.

Agency Principal John Hawk of the John Hawk Agency was already familiar with the "Emotional Intelligence" marketing strategy. He runs the Allstate New Jersey Insurance Company on South Passaic Avenue in Chatham.

"I find this really helpful, especially when you're hiring people. People are wired to do certain things, and once you figure out what they're wired to do, you can put them in the right job. If you put someone in a sales job and they're not that type of person, then it will never happen," he said.

Bobbie Peer, Owner and Publisher of TAPinto sites for Berkeley Heights, Mountainside and New Providence said, "We're the platform that draws in the people."

"A perfect example of successful inbound marketing is between our marketing partnership with Delicious Heights," said Peer. "We meet with them regularly to decide on their next 'call to action.' We plan a calendar of events to custom promote -- keeping their message fresh to attract our readers attention. The 'call to action' tells our reader to click to learn about specific topics or to register for an event. This marketing process works."

To learn more about using TAPinto as your platform for inbound marketing, contact bpeer@tapinto.net or call (908)230-5760.

Source: Marketing Series Teaches Local Businesses How to Capture and Keep Clients, Long-term