3 quick steps to turn website visitors into actionable prospects.

Imagine that you're walking along, running errands, when you notice a new store has opened in your neighborhood. You decide to take a closer look, to see if anything catches your eye. Once inside, you walk around looking at the products for sale. You're interested in a few things, but there's nobody around to ask for help. You have one final look around and leave with a sigh - ''Ah well, another time then.''

This exact scenario happens online. Your potential customer has a need and lands on your website, but once he begins browsing, he needs some help and finds that there's nobody around to assist him. Without much to do, he eventually leaves.

We're sure a cold shoulder isn't what you'd like to give your website visitors, but this is exactly what happens. So how can you make your guests feel more welcome and, if possible, make sure they come back for more?

1. Follow the cookie crumbs.

Start by figuring out who your visitors actually are and how they come to your website. Was it through an AdWords campaign? Did they find you through a Google search? Did they hear about you through an offline ad? Knowing this information is vital to offering personalized customer service. Be it a direct visit, an organic search, or a URL follow-up from your ad campaigns, Zoho SalesIQ will identify the source the visitor was redirected from.

2. Targeted assistance

Once you know where these visitors come from, you can personalize things further by segmenting them based on their interests. Zoho SalesIQ allows you to arrange your visitors in concentric rings based on various criteria, like which page they first landed on, which pages they spend the most time on, and what their page navigation pattern is, among others. You can then use these metrics to score them accordingly. This helps you prioritize your customers and give immediate attention to those who need it the most.

3. Drop in to say hello 

Now that you know your visitor, the next thing to do is to follow it up with action. You can start by greeting them with a personalized message, which Zoho SalesIQ can help you with. Let's say that the visitor clicked on an AdWords campaign offering a 40% discount on your products. Once they reach your website, you can configure Zoho SalesIQ with a contextual greeting. For example, something like this:

So, what if the user replies to your greeting message and you aren’t there at your computer to handle the request? Just install the SalesIQ mobile app on your iPhone or Android phone. You'll now get notifications about visitor messages, visits, and any of the other options available on your computer.

Once you engage with a customer on live chat, SalesIQ allows you to automatically add them as a lead in your CRM. This will help you identify them the next time they visit your website.

Did you know? 79% of customers prefer live chat to traditional support channels, because they don't have to wait (Ecoconsultancy)

Bonus tip: What about returning visitors?

Starbucks often offers free samples when you pass by their stores. This is to both demonstrate the quality of their product and entice you to come back later, this time to spend money. Like StarBucks, in order to keep your customers coming back for more, you need to give them an incentive. This could be anything of potential value to a customer - a free ebook, a free one-on-one consultation, research papers, white papers, and so on.

With Zoho Campaigns, you can set up customised website signup forms for ebook downloads, subscriptions to newsletters, invites to consultations, and more. Make them stand out by changing background colors to suit your website, experiment with different calls to action and add images. Once your users fill out these forms, they will automatically be added as leads to your CRM.

These tips are a sure-fire way to bring your potential leads closer to your business, and ultimately help you enjoy a better relationship with them.

Have more points to add to our list? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Our next blog post will cover the most effective ways to convert a lead to a customer. Stay tuned!

Check out Zoho CRM Plus, our end-to-end customer engagement suite for sales, marketing and support teams. Zoho CRM Plus includes enterprise versions of Zoho SalesIQ and Zoho CRM. It allows you to do everything you can from attracting leads to converting them into customers, and from managing your social media profiles to providing top-notch customer support. Sign up here for a free 30-day trial.