Does Your Marketing Train Need a Caboose?

The caboose is the last car on a train, and other than the engine is the second most important car on a train. So how does this tie into your marketing?

The engine of your marketing is whatever you are doing to promote your business. Your promotion gets you noticed, creates interest, and drives people to your website who want to know more about you.

The caboose for your marketing is the follow-up of the interested people who visited your website.

In today’s digital age, most people making major purchases will start their journey online. They search, they shop, and they compare—before deciding.

Your challenge lies in the fact that, once people go online, you face intense competition, and following up with visitors to your website has been nearly impossible—until now.

 To succeed in this competitive environment, your marketing strategy needs to be like a well-oiled train complete with an engine pulling you forward and a caboose following up.

The Three types of prospects you have today

• Hot Prospects: These are the people who call your office. They are ready to buy and represent .05% to maybe 1.5% of the total number of responses you get.

• The Tire Kickers: these are the people who fill out a form and request information. They may call and will seem aloof if you talk to them. They have an interest but are not ready to have a sales conversation. They represent 1% to maybe 2% of the responses you will get from advertising. Clever follow-up with good offers will move them up to buyers. Most businesses give up on tire kickers ceding the business to their competition.

• The Searchers: may be 2 to 6 months or more out from buying. These are the people who go to you and your competitor’s website for information. They usually do not fill out a form but do have a level of interest. They read reviews, ask friends their opinions, and are generally just shopping around. Searchers make up 7% to 95% of the response to your advertising. Searchers represent a lot of potential income for your business. They are very easy to lose because lack of follow-up.

A follow-up strategy that develops and moves the Tire Kickers and Searchers up the scale to Hot Prospects is what you need to get more business in the door.

How To Turn Tire Kickers into Buyers

1. Creating Interest – The Engine of Your Marketing

The first step is to grab the attention of people who haven’t even started shopping yet. This is your outbound marketing and it attracts the attention of people who potentially would need your product or service and people who are already shopping.

This means using tools like direct mail, social media ads, display advertising, or email campaigns to plant the seed of interest.

2. Reach Active Shoppers – The Cargo Cars

Once people are in the market and actively comparing options, you need to make sure your name is in the hat. This involves optimizing your presence where shoppers are looking—Google search results, local directories, and targeted online ads. Having a strong, clear message is crucial here, as shoppers are inundated with choices.

3. Visitor Match & Mail is the Marketing Caboose – Following Up With Website Visitors

Here’s the caboose—and it’s where many businesses drop the ball. You have invested money to create interest and drive traffic now you must have a follow-up component to your marketing.

Your website traffic consists of your Tire Kickers and Searchers. People who tire kick and search are the most susceptible to respond to a coupon AKA “a really good offer“.

Visitor Match & Mail allows you to put a coupon directly in the hands of people shopping right now.

Why it works? Visitor Match & Mail works because people are most receptive to an offer/coupon when they are shopping. VMM puts your coupon in their hands, right when they are most receptive.

Visitor Match & Mail is the last component of your marketing train.

Can it stand alone by itself? Yes, it can but is limited by the traffic to your website. The more traffic on your site, the more qualified people, the better it works.

If you are looking to increase interested prospects visiting your website and calling your business, our LeadRX program is the solution. It seamlessly integrates a targeted direct mail campaign with online advertising across platforms like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Gmail, all designed to drive traffic and help grow your business.

All Aboard for Marketing Success

To succeed, your marketing train must be complete with an engine and a caboose. Give us a call, we can help you do this.