Get Consultation Calls For Your Agency
When you run a service-based business, it can always be a grind to get more prospects scheduling consultation calls.
After all, in many cases, it’s a numbers game.
Get more people into your prospect list, and see if there’s a way your agency can demonstrate enough value to get them interested in taking the next step.
But how do you get more of those who would be interested in working with you to actually raise their hand? And then, take it a step further to actually schedule a call and see what you offer.
This is exactly what I’m going to show you how to do today.
Step 1: Create a targeted on-site call to action
Like all great funnels, the action always starts at the top.
To kick things off, we like to use a targeted on-site call to action. This allows us to both qualify and actually disqualify prospects at the same time. The last thing you want to do is get a bunch of people going through your funnel who aren’t the right person in the first place.
Two great ways to pull this off include timed/scroll length opt-ins as well as an exit intent opt-in.
[Quite Note – I’m going to dive into both here in just a moment, but I know that people are going to ask what tool we’re using in these examples. It’s an app called ConvertBox, which has proven to be a great on-site opt-in tool.]
Timed/Scroll Length
Old-school opt-in boxes hit you smack in the middle of the screen. But we live in a different world these days and many prospects are looking for a different approach.
The great thing about this newer kind of opt-in (ConvertBox calls it a “slide-in”), is that it feels very conversational. So much so, that the default shade of blue is very similar to that of Facebook messenger.
When I helped craft this funnel for Nick Jordan over at Logic Inbound, I made sure to include a picture of him as well as his name and business title. It makes the visitor’s brain think “messenger”, and then work out that it’s really a lead magnet.
In this particular scenario, we used a timed slide-in that has proven to be pretty effective. However, you may want to play around with triggering it after the visitor scrolls a certain amount of hits a set number of page views.
Exit Intent
If your front end engagement based opt-in doesn’t do the trick, it’s worth being more aggressive when people go to leave. After all, you don’t have a lot to lose if it looks like they are going to leave anyway.
This is basically a last ditch effort to get their attention.
As you can see from this example, we used a full screen take over for our exit intent.
This only fires when ConvertBox detects that the visitor is attempting to leave the page and hasn’t opted-in to the other offer you may have already shown them.
What Your Opt-Ins Should Say
Even if you plaster every corner of your site with opt-in boxes, if your offer isn’t right it won’t do what you want it to.
In this case, I was trying to convince visitors who were interested in getting more traffic to their website.
This copy not only qualified those who were interested but the nature of a call and what was going to happen works well to disqualify those who are just tire kickers and looking for their next PDF fix.
Headline:
Want more traffic? Claim your obligation free 30-minute consultation.
What you’re trying to accomplish:
By hitting opening up with the question “Want more traffic?”, we’re setting the visitor in a YES mode right away. Few business owners would tell you that they want less traffic and exposure for their business. And, funny enough, even if the core need isn’t traffic (it’s usually conversion rates/offer), the visitor THINKS the problem is traffic.
Sometimes it’s not about correcting them on the up-front, it’s meeting them where they think their needs are. Then, after starting a dialogue you can give them personalized advice and demonstrate authority.
Following that up with “Claim your…” implies that there is something of value ready and available just for them. Sometimes the fear of missing out on value is stronger than the pain of doing nothing. I included “obligation free” to let them know they aren’t on the hook for anything.
Lastly, I gave an explicit time commitment so they know exactly what they are signing up for if they continue. Knowing that they would be spending just 30 minutes of their time to receive enormous value.
Sub-Headline:
“In this quick, actionable call we’ll cover…”
What you’re trying to accomplish:
Since you have precious few milliseconds to grab your visitors attention, you want them to know their time will be respected, well spent and then get very specific about what’s in it for THEM. No one ever cares about what’s in it for you, so it’s important to make your marketing all about the prospect
Bullet Points:
– what makes you uniquely positioned in your industry
– what is currently working, and what can be improved
– your growth goals over the next 6, 12, and 18 months
– things you can do NOW for more traffic
What you’re trying to accomplish:
Bullet points are a great way for prospects to check off in their minds things that they believe are important, or to alert them to things they may have not considered important but now do. A good example of this is the bullet point about identifying growth goals over the next 6, 12 and 18 months.
If you asked 100 business owners, I’d be willing to bet that the majority of them are reacting instead of planning. Asking them what their goals are on various timelines makes them realize “Oh crap, that sounds like a good idea… I should be doing that”.
This effectively agitates a problem they may not even remember they have. And then your call can turn right around and help ease that pain and offer an attainable solution.
Scarcity call to action:
“Schedule now though, space is limited”.
What you’re trying to accomplish:
Let’s be honest with each other for a minute. How much priority do you give a webinar signup page if it also says that there will be a replay available? Now, even if you give it the priority… do you actually end up watching that replay?
Scarcity is a big motivator for doing something RIGHT NOW.
Now, it’s important to make sure you’re using scarcity ethically. Don’t add a bunch of false scarcity for the sake of adding it just because “it works”. Instead, find a way to leverage real scarcity in a way to achieves your goals.
In this case, 1-to-1 conversations have a real maximum amount of availability. After all, we all have the same 24 hours in each day to accomplish whatever we end up getting done.
When the slots are full, they are full.
And in a certain respect, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When things are limited, they tend to fill up and sell out faster. It might as well get those who are prone to take action, to actually do so.
Step 2: Push those leads to a call scheduling application
When setting up a lead capture funnel, I’m a huge fan of making the success page immediately actionable.
Sometimes that means going from opt-in to a tripwire sales page or a webinar registration page.
In this case, since our one true objective is to get leads on a call… I would dump the opt-in directly onto the call scheduling page.
There are several great calendar scheduling apps out there. One we’ve used, and others seem to like is Calendly.
The basic premise is simple. It can look at your calendar for available slots, and the prospect can match that against their calendar.
After opting-in to the on-site locations, we redirected prospects directly to the scheduling page.
Which looks something like this:
But what happens what you don’t get consultation calls scheduled right away?
It’s easy for people to get distracted, take another phone call or literally any one of a million other things.
So how do you make sure you get consultation calls actually scheduled?
Put together a savvy followup sequence to keep nudging prospects to do the action you want, and stop that sequence when they finally complete the action or it becomes clear they are no longer interested.
Step 3: Execute a savvy followup sequence
Ever heard the saying “The fortune is in the followup”?
That’s never been truer than it is today.
When you get intent from someone who is interested, it’s critically important that you have a compelling (but not annoying) followup sequence to help guide the stragglers across the finish line.
You might be shocked at how easy it is to set this up, and how few steps it’s going to take you to get consultation calls flowing in like Niagra falls.
Tagging Your Prospects
The first step of any quality follow-up is to properly tag your prospects and customers so you can tell who is where in your campaign, make their status glanceable and make it easy to stack profit maximizing offers.
In this campaign, we kept things simple.
Just 3 simple tags are the key to getting consultation calls in the most effective way possible.
Tag #1: “Traffic Analytics Website Opt-In”
This one is pretty straightforward and self-explanatory. When we first add someone to the sequence, we tagged them so we could quickly identify who was added tot he list from the on-site call to action.
This can help tell a story later on, and give you added context as to how and why someone is on your list.
Tag #2: “Booked Call Time via Calendly”
Not all tags are just for tracking. Some tags are also used for firing off an automation and/or goals as well as tracking the state of your prospect. Goals are an awesome way to end a sequence once a criterion has been met.
For example, in Campaign Refinery, you can have a goal be met with ANY or ALL tags are on a contact record.
In this scenario, we’re only looking for one tag so it doesn’t matter either way.
Here’s what it looks like in our setup:
Tag #3: “Traffic Opt-In No Call”
Now here’s something really clever you can do to maximize your profit from each and every lead.
After you send your last attempt to try and get your consultation call scheduled, you do a delay timer of 7 days or so. Then after that timer, you apply an engagement tracking tag to identify those who didn’t convert.
This is SO powerful because you can simply set up another automation to kick-off your next related pitch.
Just because someone doesn’t do the first thing you want them to do, doesn’t mean they will never buy something else from you. This is an incredible way to boost the value of every lead you add to your list.
This is how we added the timer to the end of the follow up:
Creating Your Follow-up
[NOTE – Want the copy we used on these emails? Scroll down to “Steal This Campaign In a Few Clicks” to get your own copy of the emails we used.]
We send a simple 4 email series after initial opt-in at specific intervals.
Email #1
Delay 20 minutes, release immediately
Subject line: “Get more traffic in 30 minutes”
We wait 20 minutes after the initial opt-in to hit them with their first reminder. This was long enough for them to easily (even slowly) get through the consultation call form. So if they hadn’t completed it within 20 minutes, we send them this reminder to show them that it’s a minimal time commitment for the outcome they desire.
Email #2
Delay 1 day, release at 8 am
Subject: “Don’t want more traffic?”
Most of the greatest sales pitches ever make sure to agitate a prospects pain point, then show them that you have the exact solution they’re looking for. With such a strong intent of filling out the form in the first place, simply asking them if they don’t want more traffic should be enough to elicit a response.
The bottom line is that every business owner with a website wants more traffic, and phrasing it this way makes it sound like they owe you a response. In this case, getting ANY kind of response is key.
Email #3
Delay 1 day, release at 10 am
Subject: “Do you know your 6-month goals?”
One thing I realized when putting together this campaign was that many business owners don’t actually know their goals for any kind of set timeline. That’s because most business owners don’t do a great job of planning, and instead spend most of their energy and focus in “reaction mode”.
In past conversations with business owners, if you ask them what their specific 3, 6 or 12-month goals are it’s like a lightbulb goes off. For some, it’s the first time they’ve even realized that they’ve been reacting instead of planning.
I wanted to stimulate this same response in the follow-up, as I knew I was getting in person. Plus, it was one of the main talking points that Nick Jordan, CMO of Logic Inbound said he (wisely) covers in every call.
Email #4
Delay 3 days, release at 9 am
Subject: “Something go wrong?”
I love this angle, which I typically use for when people skip optional up-sells or abandon a shopping cart. The idea that “the only reason you didn’t complete the action, is that something must’ve broken”. It allows the prospect to feel like they have the benefit of the doubt for not following through with their request and letting them know that you’re aware.
This can be a fun, light-hearted angle that sits well with prospects and most importantly till gets consultation calls scheduled for your agency.
Automating The Goal w/Zapier
In order to make your goal automation be actually automated when you get prospects to schedule a consultation call – then you need to have a link between your calendar app of choice and your marketing automation tool.
Sometimes this is an option natively, but using the power of Zapier you blow the doors wide open on the number of apps you can mix and match to automate your goals.
In this particular setup, we suggest you set up a “Zap” between Calendly and Campaign Refinery
[NOTE – Calendly requires you to be on a paid account to use the Zapier integration. But doing so also removes the branding and makes a good app a whole lot better.]
Here’s how we set up our Calednly and Campaign Refinery integration via Zapier.
Setting Up The Campaign Stack
The above process is effective at getting consultation calls scheduled, even by those who miss the first opportunity to get that call scheduled in the first place.
Inevitably, though, some will never complete the action you want them to do.
So how do you continue to get as much value as possible from leads who showed interested but didn’t follow through?
This is where you can execute a super effective “Campaign Stack”.
Since we’re using Campaign Refinery, this is pretty simple.
Just set a delay timer to wait for as long as you see fit (we usually do something around 7 days) and then have it apply a trigger tag to the contact.
Setting The Non-Converting Trigger Tag
The nice part about how this is set up, is that if your prospect completes your main goal they won’t be hanging out in this sequence which would give them the tag.
However, if they don’t convert into a consultation call for 7 days after the last email in your sequence then they will get tagged. Which is exactly what you want to happen.
In order for this to be automated into whatever your next offer is, you can configure another automation to fire when a particular tag is added to a contact record.
Setting The Trigger Tag Automation
Pick the same tag you’re applying to the contact record at the end of the initial sequence, then pick the sequence for your next offer. If your offer sequence is related to a completely different campaign, then set up the automation under that campaign since we limit the sequences that show up to the campaign you’re in.
Doing it this way just helps keep things a lot cleaner to sift through, otherwise, you’d be going through a potentially massive list of sequences from all campaigns across your entire account.
Steal This Campaign In a Few Clicks
So, are you ready to deploy this campaign for yourself to get more consultation calls?
Great! Doing so can be quicker and easier than you think. But if it takes you longer than you think, the best part of marketing automation is that it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Setting this up once, and you’ll get consultation calls effectively forever.
Pretty cool, right?
If you want to run the exact campaign we just laid out for you here, then you have two options.
Option #1: Clone Into Your Campaign Refinery Account
One of the many benefits we provide for Campaign Refinery customers is the ability to copy an entire campaign from our library of proven campaigns into your personal account in a few clicks.
Start by making sure you have access to Campaign Refinery by going here.
Then, simply navigate to “Campaigns”, click on “Campaign Library” and filter down to “Application” campaigns.
This campaign is called “Agency Call Scheduling”.
Click the copy button, and the entire campaign including the email copy, forms and automation rules will be instantly cloned into your account. All you need to do now is edit the names of the tags to match your company and the emails to be aligned with what will actually happen on the call.
Connect your calendar account and then drop the form on your site.
This will radically speed up the time it will take you to get this campaign running and actually producing results for you.
Option #2: Download Our PDF and Configure Yourself
Even though we’ve worked really hard to make Campaign Refinery a compelling marketing automation platform that maximizes your results, we know different people are tied to different tools.
But just because we haven’t been able to earn your business yet on Campaign Refinery doesn’t mean you’re left out in the cold. So we’ve put together a simple PDF that has the email copy we created for this exact campaign.
Just click here and tell us where to email you the PDF of this campaign.
The PDF version includes all emails and tells you what delay timers we used, plus some suggested things to try for other timer options if your tool supports a more granular approach.
However, the PDF download can’t:
- Automatically create your forms for you
- Generate your tags for segmentation and triggers
- Create your automation rules in a single click
We’re excited to see how many agencies and consultants use this campaign to get more consultation calls scheduled from their existing (or paid) website traffic.
If you’re interested in more campaigns like this, we encourage you to check out our free Facebook group called “Marketing Automation” where we regularly share campaigns as well as tips and best practices.