Creating Marketing Personas: Boost Your Traffic More Than 300% Knowing Your Ideal Client

Get to know your customers.

A phrase that means so much, but yet very few companies use it fully.

This post is specifically addressed to “Mary”, “David” or “Zao”.

All these people are “marketing personas”, working and living in the USA, Europe and Asia. Their names are fictional and may represent your ideal client.

These people could be your customers. For example, David could be working as a Marketing Manager for a manufacturing company in Germany. Zao may be working as a Comms Manager for Acme Steelworks in China, and similarly, Mary could be a Marketing Executive for a US-based online retailer.

All these fictional characters are part of what we call, personas. You may have heard them by other terms, like avatars, buying personas or ideal clients. The names don’t really matter.

What matters is that to find, attract, convert and qualify these people, you need to personify your ideal client(s).

Building marketing personas for the audience you address can help improve the way you solve challenges for your customers. The process of creating personas is well worth the time.

Here is a blueprint and beginner’s guide to getting started.

Starting With The Basics: Creating A Persona Sheet & What It Must Contain

As with every “war” plan, everything should start with pen and paper. So, all you have to do is jot down all the information that you think a persona may “need” to be created.

However, before we continue, there is a question going on in your mind, and that is “but wait! I have more than one buyer! Would that apply to me?“

To which I respond, yes, that would apply to you.

If so, how many of these buying personas do you need to create?

What I always recommend is that, in order not to waste your time in creating several personas that may have different characteristics, sum up everything into three to five personas the most (unless your marketing department can waste their time in creating more than five, which is totally fine). Over the years, I have found that this number is just the right size to represent your buyer’s characteristics and at the same time, be as specific as possible.

Start with basic information. Ideally, what you need to know is who the person is, what they care about, and how you think you must “speak” to them. Here is a list of what you should include in your marketing persona template:

Persona Name, i.e. Jennifer Higgins

Job title

  • Provide information about the ideal company you would like them to work in (size, type, etc.)
  • Details about their role

Demographics

  • Age
  • Gender
  • What is their salary and how much do they take home?
  • Where are they located? Is it a big city? A suburban area? At the countryside?
  • Education
  • Family

Goals and challenges

  • What are their primary goals? What is they are trying to achieve within the scope of their role? Remember, your business exists to make your ideal client’s job easier.
  • Secondary goal
  • How you help achieve these goals
  • Primary challenge
  • Secondary challenge
  • How you help solve these problems

Values / fears

  • Primary values
  • Common objections during the sales process

In addition, you should write what your core marketing message must be that encompasses all the above. And that is the hard part.

Elevator pitch: Last but not least, when you approach them, what do you say that is memorable, stands out and makes an impression, leaving your competition that simply says “we are the leading blah, blah, blah”

If the above is unclear or overwhelming, no worries, we have examples below. For the moment, please keep reading.

Step 2: What additional persona information can you think of?

As Dan Kennedy points out, all businesses are the same. However, deep down, you and I agree that each business appeals to different buyers, that have different characteristics. In my 20 years in marketing, I never came across creating the same personas for different businesses in the same industry, so take my word when I say that personas can vary from business to business and industry to industry.

With that in mind, you might consider adding some additional, more specific bits of information that you may know or suspect is appealing or used by your personas.

  • Hobbies/interests
  • Where do they get their news from
  • Blogs they read
  • Influencers they follow

Step 3: Obtain the information for creating your persona

Having said the above, I assume that you created your sheet of paper with all these titles and you have possibly added a little info there. What about the rest? Where do you get all the information you need to “formulate” a persona? There are too many sources where you can get vital information for your audience, maybe too many to count –  these range from data logged in your site statistics to even talking with real-life prospects or customers.

Let’s explore three for now (the most important ones):

A. Start by analysing your website statistics

Your nr. one source of free, unbiased marketing information is, and probably will always be, Google Analytics. Log in to your dashboard and from there:

  • Scroll over to the audience insight tab
  • You will see subcategories where you can gather interests, locations, demographics and anything else you may find relevant to your research.

B. Continue with social media research
Social media provides an excellent resource for what exactly your audience thinks, speaks about and feels. Buffer, the popular social media management tool, has a very extensive post on how to use social media to understand buyers’ conversations.

Therefore, you can also use social media listening to find your potential customers asking questions in real-time.

For example, this is a screenshot from our dashboard, monitoring conversations all around the web (including Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube, Reddit, Blogs and News sites) for Vitafoods Europe 2019:

And this is how mentions are forming during the month:

C. The obvious: Ask your audience questions.
No one knows better about what your customer wants than your customers themselves. To understand your audience better, there are three ways: pick up the phone, and talk to them, create a quiz to find out what they need.

A quiz is one of the cheapest, most-qualifying methods for learning more about your audience. If you do not know what to ask, try these questions that will help you start:

  • What’s important to them in their current role?
  • What would they like to change?
  • Who do they turn to for advice or information?
  • How do they make decisions? Who else is involved?
  • Do they assign any values when they obtain the necessary results?

Unfortunately, this is a very large subject to go into detail and there are a lot of moving pieces to elaborate on. However, if you are stuck or unsure, simply connect with me on LinkedIn and I would be happy to answer any questions you have.

Step 4: Suppress your inner self by challenging creating personas!

While making personas, you may go into whole new trouble identifying, qualifying and connecting with people – investing time that you may not have. At some point, either your inner self, or someone else from your team may question the entire process, and you start wondering if all this trouble may produce something tangible to help your business go forward.

Well,  It might seem like fluff, but details like this do serve an important purpose:

  • First, creating personas will force you to go deeply into your audience’s shoes. You will start experiencing customers and prospects differently and you will begin to understand the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of your customers.
  • Second, by going through all this trouble, you will unearth tactical opportunities for your product or business that you may never have paid attention to before. See these opportunities as a way to improve your customers’ lives. If you know what Jane cares about, and your product or service solves what she cares about, then you just discovered ways to provide solutions for Jane.

Putting it all together: Examples of marketing personas

As mentioned above, marketing personas will vary from company to company. There will, of course, be similarities that run throughout all personas. Hubspot, the online CRM company, has gathered lots of amazing examples in one place where companies have shared one of their own marketing personas. Buyer Persona is also a platform where you can see examples and also create marketing personas.

Takeaways

Marketing personas will help you identify and connect with your ideal clients, enabling you to better solve their problems. When you solve your client’s problems, you are the go-to person and no one can take that away from you – your competition is irrelevant.

One thing I haven’t mentioned so far is that creating personas is, as with everything with marketing, tough 🙂 So, if you have a team and co-workers, make sure that they are on board and get involved at every aspect of the creation process; each member team will bring a different perspective and different information to the table.

Once you have your personas ready, it’s easier to communicate your marketing message and craft different elevator pitches for the sale, marketing and hiring teams.

Have you tried creating marketing personas? What elements of your persona template have been particularly helpful?

Case Study: How We Used A Quiz Funnel to Increase A Supplement Brand’s Email List By 8856% in ONE year (at just £0.10 per lead)

When David contacted Centis he was in a bad place. “I have no idea how to increase my sales. I have tried some ads on my own, and then I hired an agency. It flopped within 3 months”, he said.

Normally, when we hear that a brand owner fires an agency in a short time means only two things:

  • The agency is REALLY bad at their work (amateurs)
  • Or the client is really impatient and tries to dictate how the agency is going to do its job.

After a few hours and hundreds of qualifying questions later, we concluded that the agency he hired was a single guy in his 20s, claiming to create “millions of dollars in revenue in just a few months for my clients”.

Anyway.

The Problem:

His website was launched in 2010 and selling a range of vitamins. Think VitaminShoppe, but smaller, obviously.

We tested the website for conversions, and we didn’t find any particular problems in the way that people transacted, so we decided to look a bit deeper.

Here are the problems we found:

His website did not have:

  • Upsells
  • Downsells
  • Bundles
  • Subscriptions
  • Loyalty club
  • Rewards club
  • Affiliate system

So essentially the website was selling private label vitamins, but you could only purchase once with no further incentives to increase the frequency of the sale or the size of the order. Also the owner, in his frustration, was constantly pushing discounts to influencers in an effort to sell his stock, and he got messages like “when will you have a discount for this product?” which is generally a bad thing to train your customers on discounts, instead of value.

First Things First: Creating The Backend

After spending some time in the eCommerce space (we are fast approaching 17 years now) some things come naturally 🙂

The first thing we changed was to increase the Average Order Value per transaction.

Bundles:

We took all his 54 products and created new SKUs that included bundles of 3, 6 and 12, with discounts ranging from 15% for the 3-bundle, 20% for the 6 bundles and 35% for the 12 bundles. The discounts were created on the hard costs of the business, not just a random number that we threw at him. We displayed these bundles directly on each product listing.

Upsells & Downsells:

The second thing we did was to create upsells. Because of the sheer amount of product SKUs that were created after the bundles, we decided to take things a bit slower here. So we took ONLY his ten best-selling SKUs and created a sequence of upsells and downsells that were triggered only if a single SKU was purchased (and if the user completely ignored the discounts for the bundles).

But here is what we did:

The first upsell was simply a repeat of the first bundle – the 3-month supply for 15% off. Now, because 15% off is not very appealing, we further discounted the 3-month bundle at 25% and we made sure this was understood by the user.

If the user rejected it, he would have seen a down-sell, which was a complimentary product. For example, if he was buying Vitamin C, we would have offered him a Probiotic as well as it boosts Vitamin C’s beneficial effects.

If he rejected that as well, then we would present him the thank you page with an offer to subscribe and save, at 20%.

The second thing we did is to increase the frequency of the sale.

Subscriptions:

This was super easy, all we had to do is install a plugin that used any product we selected and transform it into as subscription. We just added a 20% off if the user selected to buy per month and save and we were ready.

And guess what? Repeat sales skyrocketed. It was a bit slow at first (only three customers opted for a subscription basis), but then we promoted heavily on his 1,000-people mailing list, added popups that advertised the savings and also did a remarketing campaign that sold the concept of “Subscribe and Save”.

Results: 453 new repeat subscribers within the first three months, spending as much as £45 per month each, on average = an extra £2,385 in his pocket per month, with no extra effort.

How we increased his brand’s email list by 8856% and did so at an average of £0.10 per lead, using a quiz

Ok, let’s get down to the brass tacks. After finishing off the backend, we started preparing the front end.

The main problem we saw is that the market was extremely saturated with vitamins. People left and right started private labelling vitamins and selling them on their own websites or on Amazon. Blinded by the easy profit they heard from others, the “me-too” movement brought an influx of competitors and cut-throat prices.

Demand increases ad costs.

But there is a way.

Enter quiz funnels.

Quiz marketing is the best way to entertain, educate and identify what users want while prescribing a solution for their specific needs.

Done right, quizzes help brands generate lots of data – very valuable, easy-to-leverage data that can support sales efforts tremendously.

It would be crazy for you not to implement AT LEAST one basic quiz in your marketing.

Here are four of the top reasons why you need to be considering quiz marketing:

✅ Quiz is perfect for any business. In this article, we wrote about a case study on how we helped a German supplements manufacturer get qualified leads (retailers) using one of our quizzes

✅ Quizzes help you stand out head and shoulders above competitors

✅ They’re the perfect weapon for any sales-driven businesses

✅ Quizzes load your prospects up with value unfound elsewhere

There are numerous ways to decide what to do on a quiz:

  1. Decide if you want to go after best-selling items
  2. Decide if you want to clear up stock
  3. Or simply go with the flow (called trends, dummy) and just select a theme – i.e. go after the skin market (very popular in 2022).

In our particular case, this brand owner decided to go after the hair market.

The Email List:

David was using Klaviyo, a software that we are extremely familiar with. He was using the workflows recommended by the software, and he was sending one newsletter per month advertising new deals only – no value whatsoever.

He didn’t have a popup, for newsletter registrations, only a footer signup which at the time we checked it it only registered 100 people.

His list size was just 1,034 people, mostly from his one-time customers. Our goal was to increase that list to 100k in one year.

The Quiz Process:

Competition Analysis:

First, we investigated the trends. What were the best-selling vitamin brands for hair? We compiled a list of competitors with names, websites, products they sold, and social media accounts.

Then we started work on the messaging. We printed their product listing, their Facebook, Google Search, and retargeting ads and we subscribed to their newsletters. Did they have quizzes as well (thankfully, at that point they didn’t)?

Then we used an excel sheet to identify patterns in their messages. Sometimes this is a waste of time, as young brand owners who cannot afford to hire a copywriter simply copy the most “successful” (or what they think successful is) brands so this results in identical phrases, which is super frustrating.

We used Quora, Facebook Groups, and Reddit to find out what people are asking to formulate questions. Also, we printed the FAQs of most competitors that resonated.

We then used all the above to construct the quiz title and the questions, and alter a bit the product pages and the ads, based on the newfound messaging.

The Quiz Questions:

Whilst I can’t provide screenshots due to an NDA, we used questions that nailed a problem.

Some of the questions were:

  • How often do you wash your hair?
  • Do you use conditioners? If so, which products? Please be as detailed as possible. In fact, this question alone allowed us to target big brands’ audiences and present our supplements to them.
  • Is your hair thinning? If so since when did you notice the problem?
  • Have you taken any hair supplements before? This question tells us that the quiz taker has taken supplements and either she is not happy or she wants to find something better or both.

The questions we use are structured in such a way to address the pain points of most people with hair issues.

We normally do not include more than 9 questions, and we try as much as possible to mix and match the creative assets.

Here is a screenshot from a recent quiz using vivid imagery and a slider, than a typical multiple choice answer:

And here is an image answer, to make things more interesting from an older quiz that still runs since 2021:

Email Sequences:

As soon as we tested the quiz and the owner was happy, we started writing the emails that would fire when someone fill the quiz.

These included:

  • Send Immediately: A thank you for taking the quiz
  • Day 1: About our brand
  • Day 2: How to use the product
  • Day 3: Here is our best content so far
  • Day 6: Customers said
  • Day 8: An offer for you
  • Day 9: How Janice changed her life
  • Day 11: Less than a day for the offer
  • Day 12: Last chance
  • End of sequence

These were sent when the user has taken the quiz, and irrespectively if they bought anything – because the results were for Biotin and the upsells were a Vitamin D and others where are in the offer on Day 8, we offered a hair care kit!

So it all made sense to the quiz taker.

The ads:

Ah, the ads. Story of my life. The endless options. The millions of pathways. It makes your head explode with what you can or you can’t do.

Not for us 🙂

You see, we had our fair share of failures in the past. And what REALLY set us apart is that we NEVER charged our clients for our mistakes. We had (and still have) a dummy website where we offered a virtual product that we sold – and then refunded – using hundreds of split test ads, audience testing and experiments. What worked for us, we transferred to the clients.

That’s why up to 2021, we had NO client leaving. COVID-19 changed things, by pushing things out of control.

Ok, I am ranting now. Back to the ads:

So, to make your dream come true and get your dream leads at around €0.10 – €0.50 per lead you need to run ads on the quiz page.

The process is :

Facebook Ads > Quiz Landing Page> Then retarget anyone who doesn’t fill it out or doesn’t purchase.

Put in custom audiences for anyone who purchased (you would do that anyway, wouldn’t you?)

So the ad must be a bit playful and must urge the user to find more (wouldn’t this be the objective of every ad?)

But in the case of quizzes, there are certain elements to take into consideration. First, you do not aim for lead generation. You aim for either awareness or engagement. Not conversions. Not traffic.

These two ensure that you get the best leads at the lowest possible cost.

So you have a nice asset that attracts the eye and thoughtful copy (text for Europeans and the rest of the world) that causes curiosity, promises to solve a problem and provides a possible solution.

Unfortunately, I am not allowed to present any ads from our clients here so you just have to settle with some examples I found elsewhere (I DID some digging):

This is a great example from Care/of:

It cleverly uses social proof and testimonials from a client who was initially skeptic but then decided to try and now she is flying to the moon 🙂

This is a totally different one from Strolleria, a company selling strollers. As with Care/of they also run a product recommendation quiz:

See? You do not have to complicate things – messaging must be simple, to the point and cause curiosity by promising to solve a problem.

Results:

So, we ran two sets of ads:

An ad (AD1) that we split tested and sold the concept of the quiz, sending traffic directly to the quiz

And an ad (AD2)that we also split tested and sent traffic to a 1500-word article we have written. We placed inline the text banners that were linked to the quiz and then we waited.

Monthly budget: 850 GBP

First WeekTraffic:Registrations:
AD110.389 Unique visits345
AD29,876 unique visits353
Total CPL:1.20
Second WeekTraffic:Registrations:
AD 2:25,765550
AD2:25,456486
Total CPL:0.82

As you can see, CPL dropped as we let the ad run. Also, we didn’t see much change in costs when we sent traffic to the article. However, the conversion (people taking the quiz was slower.

You have the option of not having an audience and letting Facebook determine it. Or you can select the audience that best fits your brand. Bear in mind though that if you select the audience it needs to be of a large size, or you will run out of leads, or worse, get ad fatigue and this means changing the ad more frequently.

Bottom line:

We run ads for this quiz for one year:

Total spend: £9,600 (approx. £800 per month)

Total leads: 89.563

Previous list size: 1,034

Percentage Increase: 8856%

Monthly CPL: between £0.10 – £0.50. The only time it exceeded £0.80 was when we did some serious changes to the ad and we had to run it again.

Conclusion:

If you are frustrated with your ads, if they do not convert as much as they should, chances are that it is not your fault (or your ad guy’s fault). To overcome this problem, try quizzes. They have the unique ability to entertain, educate, and uncover what your customers want – and at the end, your customers will tell you what you want to sell them.

If you want to give it a try, connect with us to discuss your requirements or visit this page to learn more and signup.

How We Took A German Supplements Manufacturer From 10 Leads to 30,000 In One Year, Using Quizzes

It was December 2019 when a German nutraceuticals manufacturer sent us an email to meet.

Turns out, they didn’t get many inquiries as before – they blamed the economy, the market and the growing competition.

They produced a range of vitamins, from simple Vitamin D to special formulations. They had all the equipment in place, all the ingredients, the certifications and the employees and formulators to make anyone’s dream a reality.

What they didn’t have, as customers.

“If we do not do something within the next six months, we will be shutting down,” said to me the owner, a middle-aged German biotech engineer.

Centis had the solution.

The content was not going to make it, not at their time frame, and they tried ads before and failed. 

The owner was desperate and wanted to try something new.

“I might have just the solution for you”, I said.

“Sure, I am open to any suggestions” he replied.

“Your solution is… quizzes”, I responded, with a calm, but firm voice. And I shut up waiting for an angry response.

“What? Quizzes? These are for kids! We do not sell kids’ entertainment here. Do you understand what we do? Have you seen our website?” he responded angrily, obviously irritated with my response.

“I have. And your solution is putting up a quiz and driving traffic to me. Here, let me explain what I mean…”

I explained to him that quizzes are the ultimate lead generation tools. I showed him how, with the use of a quiz, he could have hundreds of interested retailers taking the quiz, and then find what they wanted to buy.

He was sold. 

Here is how we took them from 10 leads to 30,000 leads within a year.

Goals:

The first goal was to generate brand awareness across the European retailer market, with a focus on brick & mortar stores and big chains. 

The second goal would be to incentivise leads to fill out the quiz and then have them book an online appointment with their sales team.

Here is how we did it.

First, we analysed what their current customers wanted when they first came to them.

This part is crucial, as we identified patterns in their buying behaviour.

What we did is that we ghost-wrote an email which then their sales team sent out to all their customers, with the hopes (and a bit of an incentive) to get some feedback.

The email we ghost wrote for the manufacturer to sent to their clients to get feedback

We started getting replies, so we identified a pattern. Most people were indeed from the retail space, some were buyers of large chains in the UK, Germany, Belgium and so on.

And all of them wanted private labels. Only two wanted a custom formulation.

Armed with this information we started formulating the quiz. Due to NDA, which is still in effect and the fact we didn’t know that we would use this as a case study, we will post some questions we used below instead of screenshots (that we are not allowed to take).

Key Takeway:

Before anything, make sure you understand your buyer.  Think about your audience before you create your quiz. This manufacturer knew nearly nothing about their buyers – except of their orders, so a preliminary questionaire helped us to understand who their ideal audience was.


The Quiz:

The quiz (and every quiz) starts with the name of the participant, so as to be more personalised.

Some of the questions were:

  • When it comes to selecting a supplement manufacturer what is the single most important thing you are looking for?
  1. A wide choice of supplements
  2. Low cost 
  3. Reliability
  4. Quick fulfilment
  5. Quality above all
  • Are you looking to private label off-the-shelf formulations or create custom ones?
  1. Private label
  2. Custom formulations
  • How would you define support from your manufacturer?
  1. To be available when I pick up the phone
  2. To reply to my emails within hours, not days
  3. To solve any problems that arise during the fulfilment
  4. To keep me up to date with the process of my order
  5. Other (please be as detailed as possible).

After the quiz questions were approved, we loaded them up to our quiz platform and embedded them into their website.

We then used Mailchimp to connect the quiz takers with email cadences and educated their sales team on how to use an online calendar.

The email workflows were:

The “Thank you for taking the quiz workflow” – upon filling up their name and address and hit “Take Me to My Results”. This was made of six emails that:

  • Thanking the buyer for taking the quiz
  • Indoctrinating them in the brand
  • Introducing them to their products
  • Showing them customer testimonials of other successful buyers
  • Surveying them to learn more about them and essentially at the end of the survey, they would be presented with a calendar

The “Thank you for booking an appointment” workflow:

  • Anyone who filled the calender was automatically ejected from the first sequence and they were sent:
  • A “Thank you for booking an appointment” and instructions on how to be prepared for the meeting.
  • An email that indoctrinated to the brand and the types of vitamins they had.

How we achieved the 30,000 leads in one year

The quiz was just the pathway. The real challenge was to find, identify, and send traffic via Facebook.

But wait, why Facebook? Customers who buy B2B do not buy on Facebook!!

Yes, and no.

Yes, most B2B buyers do not use Facebook to buy stuff for their business. They use Google Search most of all.

However, you forget that B2B buyers are humans, like you and me. They have families, they have kids, and guess what? They use Facebook as any other human being. Plus Facebook had the lowest cost per click of any other medium we knew.

So the bored buyer at Boots might check her Facebook while at work. And guess what? She would see our quiz!

To make things easier, we wrote an article that outlined the 10 best ways to create private label vitamins from a german manufacturer. Then we installed an inline banner across the article.

Customers would be intrigued to see an article that addressed one of their pain points (identified in the first step above) and then they would read the article.

We then created two campaigns, each with its own split test:

  1. One was directing people directly to the quiz page
  2. The other was directing people to the article.

Whilst we didn’t see much difference in ad cost when we directed people to the article, we decided to change the objective of the Article campaign and turn it into brand awareness.

The reason was that it took longer for people to click on the banner and enter the quiz. Some abandoned the article, and some clicked the banner and left.

ROI:

  • 80,251 unique visits within the year that were all retargeted
  • 29,373 leads in their database (approx. 2,500 leads per month entering their database – there were store owners, B2B chain buyers, Amazon sellers and eCommerce sellers)
  • 2,576 appointments booked (around 7 per day, for a team of 5 people)
  • 1,800 became customers over the course of 12 months (a 6% lead to customer conversion. This had nothing to do with the quiz, as they had to book an appointment and then the sales team had to make an offer)
  • 800 Euros spent per month targeting the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain France and Switzerland – a total investment of 9,600 Euros within the year
  • Average CPL (Cost Per Lead): €0.34 (the first week was €1.50 which was frightening, – but not that frightening with their previous results with Google Search where they paid €15.00 per lead)

Centis Launches #BeThere Hashtag, Because, Why Not

We are totally fans of Karate Kid.

This is officially our first “press release” – ever. Since we launched back in 2017, I do not remember writing any press release about Centis, what we do, why we do it (and who the f$%ck should care).

This time, though, things not only changed but went from 60 to 150 in just a matter of days.

If you are a Karate Kid fan, you will know the above scene already (and the subsequent scene where Daniel kicks a few Ice Hockey athletes (If I am not mistaken, it was ice hockey).

I totally agree with Mr Miyagi – when facing a life-threatening situation, the best line of defence is “no be there”.

So while I was sitting on my porch sipping whiskey and throwing corks to a barrel to pass the time (of course I didn’t. I was busting my a#$%^s off working) I had a realisation.

You should Be There.

The small business owners, the startups, the professionals – they all have to be there. In from of their customers. Have a presence. Be there ( said that already).

According to several sources, including Statista and the U.S. Census Bureau, less than 64% of small businesses have a website. At least in the USA, where everything is monitored closely, people are quitting their jobs and starting new businesses at an alarming rate.

In 2020 alone more businesses were started than in the last 3 prior years combined.

What’s more, because of the gig economy more than one-third of Americans received a benefit last year or basically income outside normal wages.

That’s 3 times the number in the ’80s when just 11% of people owned businesses.

Think about it, every Uber driver is a business owner, every Airbnb host is a business owner, every barber, hairdresser, massage therapist and freelance web designer is a business owner.

In other words, at 36% more than 1 out of 3 people in America are now business owners.  
New industries are being created overnight, out of thin air almost on a daily basis and most of these new business owners are inexperienced and have NO website, no web presence.

So Centis was redesigned from the ground up to be able to support the people that need to show their skills online.

They need to #bethere. You need to be there.

Contrary to Mr Myiagi famous quote, you need to be there for people to find you.

Going forward all our content will have the #bethere hashtag, which we own, and should you need to use it you will need to pay us royalties.

Just joking.

But, if you are providing services or thinking of starting a business and do not have a website – for example you are on these people (just a sample):

  • A lawyer (seriously now?)
  • A real estate agent
  • A plumber
  • A yoga instructor
  • Someone who just lost his job at HSBC and is looking to offer financial auditing to businesses
  • A woman who quit her job because she was pregnant and now is using her skill in photography

you could greatly be benefitted from having a world-class, professional website created just for you, with lead capture forms to get people’s info, a done-for-you monthly newsletter, Lite CRM and Google analytics – all for just €129/mo.

If this hasn’t persuaded you then your best bet is to sign up for our monthly newsletter (hey, check the footer! ):-)

7 Landing Page Techniques That Convert Visitors into Customers.

When you’re starting a new website, blog, or other online endeavor, you need to find ways to bring in traffic and convert those visitors into paying customers. That’s where landing pages come in! There are many different techniques that can help build a successful landing page.

But first, what is a landing page?

Well, landing pages are webpages that target a specific goal and where you direct all(or most) traffic to. I’s where a visitor, a prospect or even a client “lands” in order to show him more information. Whether it be gathering email addresses for your newsletter list or asking for contact information so you can do some research on your customer’s needs, landing pages are the perfect way to funnel visitors into converting. Follow these seven techniques to convert more visitors into customers!

Give visitors a clear call to action

A clear call to action is one of the most important elements in landing page design. When looking at any webpage, people are going to want a specific action they can take—whether it be signing up for your newsletter or placing an order.

Make sure that each button on your landing page not only looks enticing, but also has a clear call to action that’s easy to understand and use. Your target audience will thank you for it!

Here’s an example of a good call to action: “Learn more about our services.” That’s simple enough for anyone, even those who don’t speak English as their first language.

Create a sense of urgency

If you’re going to have someone read your landing page, they need to feel as if they need what you’re offering.

One way you can create a sense of urgency is by giving visitors a call-to-action (CTA). A CTA is an action that prompts the visitor to take specific actions on your site. For example, “Sign up for our newsletter” or “Sign up for our email list”.

To make sure people are compelled to act, make it easy for them! You want their experience with your website to be as simple and seamless as possible. If you can’t do that, don’t worry; there are plenty of tools out there that can help you build a successful landing page that’s easy to navigate. Some of these tools include Unbounce and Clickfunnels.

Provide social proof

If you have been following any marketing blogs, you have likely heard the term “social proof.” Social proof is a psychological phenomenon that psychologically convinces people to make decisions based on what other people are doing. The basic principle is that when facing a decision that requires substantial effort or risk, people are more likely to follow the actions of others.

One way to use social proof for your landing page is by providing testimonials from customers or past clients who have had a good experience using your product or service. If you provide these testimonials in an attractive and easy-to-read format, it will be easier for visitors to trust your landing page and convert.

If you’re struggling with how to build compelling customer testimonials, check out our blog post on ‘6 Ways To Write Better Testimonials.’

Allow visitors to get what they want

A landing page should allow visitors to get what they want. That might mean showing them a demo of your product, getting them to sign up for your newsletter list, or asking for contact information so you can call or email them later.

It’s important to know the goal of your landing page before you build it. Knowing what you want to accomplish will help you figure out how best to present that information and convert visitors into customers.

Once you have an idea about what your goals are, it’s time to look at how best to convert visitors into customers by using these seven techniques!

Make sure your landing page is relevant. If people land on your page but don’t know why they’re there or aren’t sure what they’ll get when they leave, that means the content isn’t specific enough and the goal of the landing page isn’t clear enough. It won’t be easy for visitors to convert with a weak landing page when a strong one exists nearby.

Tell people exactly what they’re going to get

Regardless of what your landing page is for, it needs to be able to clearly communicate the benefits they’ll receive as a result of your website. The best way to do this is by clearly outlining what they will get in return for their investment.

When you first create your landing page, it’s important that visitors understand exactly what they are getting out of the partnership with you. Whether it be information about products or services, exclusive discounts, or the opportunity to win a prize, make sure that potential customers know exactly what they will get.

Telling people how much time and effort you put into creating a quality product or service will also help them feel confident about investing in your business. When someone invests in something that offers value and brings tangible results, they might be more inclined to invest in future endeavours from you as well!

Ask for something of equal or lesser value in return

When it comes to landing pages, one of the best ways to get visitors to convert is by asking for something in return.

One technique that many businesses use is offering a free eBook or other file with purchase. This can help get people excited about your product and encourage them to buy from you.

Another strategy is offering an exclusive coupon code for first-time visitors. This will not only help you build more brand awareness but will also make your website stand out from potential competitors for those visitors who might have come across your site before and are looking for a deal.

Offer a free trial

Offering a free trial is an effective way to entice potential customers.

Available trials can range from one day to unlimited time. Some companies offer a free trial so they can reach out to their target audience, while others offer trials as a way of getting social proof (after all, what do you get if you don’t try it?). Either way, offering a trial is a smart move for the company and its bottom line.

Offering a trial is also an effective way for the company to test its marketing strategy before investing more resources in it. If the campaign doesn’t work, the company has lost nothing!

However, if you’re going to offer your visitors something for free, be sure that they will actually find value in what you’re offering them. Make sure that they know that your product delivers on everything it promises.

Ask visitors for their email address or other contact information

The first step to getting visitors to convert is asking them for their email address. The benefits of landing pages are that they can collect these leads, then follow up with a more personal touch. Whether it’s a video or a letter, you can use the contact methods gathered from your landing page to create a more personalized experience and keep potential customers engaged!

This technique is particularly effective when you have something special to offer. For example, if you’re selling concert tickets or hosting a workshop, you might ask people to provide their email address in order to receive updates about the event. In this way, your landing page becomes an entry point for people who aren’t able to get the information elsewhere.

If you want people to take immediate action on your landing page, it would be beneficial for them to provide their email address so that you can send them additional information about what they’ve subscribed for. This not only helps build trust with your visitors but also lets them know what they need to do next!

Another benefit of collecting email addresses is that it allows your marketing team or company CEO access to these leads’ contact info. If someone has given you their email address through your website form, they’ve

Include testimonials from your customers

This is a classic technique that is often used by businesses, and it’s one of the best ways to convert visitors into customers.

Testimonials are a great way to show off your customer’s satisfaction with your product or service. They can also help build trust with potential customers who have concerns about doing business with you because they know others have had positive experiences.

In addition to testimonials, encourage people to leave their email address on the landing page so you can contact them directly. This will help make the transition from landing page visitor to customer much smoother!

Make it easy on the eyes.

When designing your landing page, make sure that it’s a good experience for the visitor. Make sure that it’s easy for them to find what they need and navigate through the page with ease.

Many times, a new website or blog has difficulty attracting visitors, because the design is difficult to read and navigate. That’s why having an effective landing page design is important.

If you have a lot of text on your landing page, use font styles like large serif fonts and sans-serif fonts to help break up your content. This will make it easier for people to understand what you are saying! The same goes for images — if you have a lot of small images near one another on your page, use a large image at the top or bottom of the page that people can scroll down to see.

Creating an attractive landing page makes it easier for visitors to take action and convert into customers!