Tag: get leads

  • Pawn Leads CRM: Transforming Client Acquisition & Engagement

    Pawn Leads CRM: Transforming Client Acquisition & Engagement

    In the rapidly evolving landscape of business, client relationship management (CRM) tools have become indispensable for organizations seeking to streamline processes and enhance client engagement. Pawn Leads, a CRM tailored for the pawn industry, is a powerful solution that helps manage customer relationships, but also acts as a robust foundation for client acquisition, nurturing, and revenue growth. In this blog, we will explore the added dimensions of niche lists and customer tagging within Pawn Leads, highlighting how these features contribute to effective client acquisition and retention strategies. Additionally, we will explore innovative approaches such as text messaging, email campaigns, promotions, giveaways, and loyalty clubs, emphasizing the importance of targeting specific niches, such as luxury handbags, gold, silver, designer watches, and tools, to enhance customer engagement.

    Client Aquistion

    The Foundation of Successful Client Acquisition 

    Pawn Leads goes beyond traditional CRM functionalities by allowing businesses to create niche lists, enabling a more targeted approach to client acquisition. This feature empowers businesses to categorize customers based on their preferences, allowing tailored interactions and a personalized approach. For a pawn shop dealing with various items, such as luxury handbags, gold, silver, designer watches, and tools, the ability to segment customers based on their preferences is invaluable.

    Niche Lists: Tailoring Your Approach for Success:

    Creating niche lists within Pawn Leads is a strategic move that enhances the efficiency of client acquisition efforts. For instance, if a customer has shown interest in luxury handbags, tagging them accordingly in the system ensures they receive information and promotions related to this specific niche. These niche lists serve as a targeted database, allowing businesses to craft more relevant and appealing communications to specific customer segments.

    Customer Tagging: Precision in Targeting:

    Pawn Leads takes client management a step further with the introduction of customer tagging. This feature enables businesses to tag customers based on specific criteria, such as their preferred product categories or past purchasing behavior. For instance, if a customer frequently buys designer watches, tagging them accordingly ensures they receive updates, promotions, and recommendations related to this specific product category.c

    Client Acquisition 

    Text Messaging: A Direct Line to Niche Engagement for Client Acquisition 

    Incorporating niche lists and customer tagging into text messaging campaigns through Pawn Leads allows businesses to establish a direct line of communication to customers interested in specific products. This personalized approach fosters a sense of exclusivity, strengthening the bond between the business and its clientele. Send targeted messages about new arrivals, exclusive offers, or expert insights related to luxury handbags, gold, silver, designer watches, or tools ensures the content is not only relevant, but also more likely to capture the customer’s attention.

    Email Campaigns: Precision Marketing for Niche Audiences:

    Pawn Leads enhances the precision of email marketing campaigns by incorporating niche lists and customer tagging. Whether it’s showcasing the latest additions to the luxury handbag collection or offering exclusive discounts on designer watches, Pawn Leads enables businesses to tailor their emails for maximum impact and engagement. Crafting compelling messages becomes even more effective when businesses can segment their audience based on specific product interests.

    Client Acquisition

    Promotions: Tailored Offers for Targeted Results to Increase Client Acquisition:

    Utilizing niche lists and customer tagging in promotions further refines marketing efforts. By offering specialized promotions based on customer interests, businesses can capture the attention of specific segments within their client base. Whether it’s a discount on gold transactions or a limited-time offer on tools, Pawn Leads allows businesses to create promotions that resonate with their audience, ultimately driving conversions and increasing customer satisfaction.

    Loyalty Clubs: Nurturing Niche Communities:

    The concept of loyalty clubs becomes even more potent when combined with niche lists and customer tagging. Members of the luxury handbag club, for example, can enjoy personalized perks and early access to exclusive releases, enhancing their experience and loyalty to the brand. By creating exclusive clubs tailored to specific product categories, businesses can foster a sense of community among customers who share similar interests.

    Increasing Revenues through Targeted Marketing:

    The integration of niche lists and customer tagging in Pawn Leads contributes significantly to revenue growth by ensuring that marketing efforts are highly targeted and relevant. Businesses can analyze the preferences and behaviors of specific customer segments, allowing for more effective marketing strategies. Whether it’s promoting high-end designer watches to a select group or offering special incentives for gold transactions, Pawn Leads empowers businesses to maximize their revenue potential by catering to the unique preferences of their clientele.

    Pawn Leads CRM stands at the forefront of client relationship management by offering a comprehensive solution that goes beyond conventional CRM functionalities. With the introduction of niche lists and customer tagging, businesses in the pawn industry can elevate their client acquisition and retention strategies to new heights. This advanced approach, coupled with innovative techniques like text messaging, email campaigns, promotions, giveaways, and loyalty clubs, ensures that businesses not only connect with their clients on a personal level, but also target specific niches to enhance customer engagement and drive revenue growth. Embrace the power of Pawn Leads to transform your client relationships, target niche markets effectively, and position your business for sustained success in the competitive pawn industry.

  • Search Engine Optimization – Is it Necessary?

    Search Engine Optimization – Is it Necessary?

    Search Engine Optimization – Is it Necessary?

    Do you sit in your living room after dinner and search the internet to get answers to various questions? What is gold selling for today? When is the best time to plant my garden? Who has the best car loan rates near me? What is really happening between Russia and Ukraine?

    Maybe you have downtime at work, and you need to research where to get the best laptop for an affordable price to replace the ones currently being used.

    It is estimated that each person processes three to four searches each day.
    Google processes approximately 63,000 search queries every second. That translates into 5 billion, yes billion, searches per day or about 2 trillion global searches per year.

    Knowing this, your business must rank in the top three results if you want to be found amongst the menagerie of search results. Why? It’s one of the ways you gain new customers.

    Years ago, you would compete with other businesses by running ads on the radio or television. Although these are still viable ways to gain attention and bring new customers into your business, there is no denying that people search the internet to discover what is available to them.

    Without an eye-catching business website with good content or a landing page that uses keywords effectively to encourage customers to look through the website and eventually visit your business, you are missing potential customers.

    A user or person searching on the internet is a possible lead, and a lead is a qualified lead if they engage. A qualified lead converts to a paying customer who can become a lifelong loyal customer.

    Yes, search engine optimization is a must!

    What is SEO?

    Search engine optimization, SEO is the process of describing, characterizing, and giving an item relevance so that the search engines can find your content quickly and list it in the search results.

    As a growing business, you must have an SEO strategy as part of your business strategy. Most business owners are so busy running the day-to-day operations of their business it is difficult for them to find time to look at their local search ranking so they can put plans in place to improve their search results. Without improving search results, your chance of losing leads because your business isn’t visible.

    An Experiment

    Take a minute and put your business name in the search bar. Do you come up in the top listings? How about asking a question like, “Where to sell gold near me?” Does your listing rank in the first few that come up?

    How do you get started with improving your business strategy to include SEO Optimization?

    Google my business which is Google “Your” Business! If you don’t show up, then leads don’t know you’re available to meet their needs for products and services.

    First, audit your google my business profile.

    Google my business is a free tool provided by Google that gives you as a business owner an opportunity to include details, phones, location, services, and products under your free business profile. Creating a free profile will increase yourvisibility across Google services. Information from your Google Business Profile may appear in Google Search, Google Maps, and Google Shopping. If you are trying to increase your visibility, Google my business is essential.

    Start with the google my business dashboard. This is a one-stop-shop to effectively help you use your google my business account.

    When you set up your google my business account, you need to use your actual business name in your business listing.

    Sometimes businesses serve customers in a specific location or designated service area, and by having a complete business profile, your prospective customers can find you. 

    Verified businesses on Google my business are twice as likely to be considered reputable.

    Google my business will have you verify your account by submitting a code that is mailed to your business address. The more complete and accurate information is in your Google My Business account, the more likely it will show up in local searches.

    Second, update any information on your Google my business listing and keep it up.

    A physical address is essential so that prospective customers know where they can go locally to find what they are looking for. When you add your business address, you might be asked to position a marker for your location on a map.

    To check if your address is correct, you can go to Google My Business and the business dashboard. You can then click the menu option and click share or embed map.

    Keep the hours you are open up to date on goggle my business.

    If the business hours change, update your listing. Don’t forget to add hours for holidays and events. A busy business owner often overlooks this, and you may have forgotten this as well. Nothing is more frustrating than going to a business thinking they are open because of the information contained on the business listing to find that the company is closed.

    These small steps give customers confidence in your business listing.

    Part of Google my business is google reviews.

    When customers are in your store, they give you a review when they leave. You cannot turn off reviews on your google my business page.

    Remember, google reviews show that your business is legit.

    Manage your reviews often. This takes time but will also help you keep an eye on who’s saying what about your products and services.

    You can’t decide which reviews to share, but you can make sure you respond to good and bad reviews. Prospective customers read business reviews to understand how other people described a particular business listing. They can differentiate between a lead becoming a paying customer or going somewhere else.

    Add photos to your google my business listing

    Every google my business listing needs to have a business description describing their product and services. A clear photo, snippets from Google Maps, and a Google Street View work wonders in informing your leads what to expect when they arrive at your business for the first time. These small details add confidence and reassure that business listings are approachable.

     

    Business Categories

    When setting up or updating your Google my business account, makes sure you apply keyword strategy when selecting a business category so you get the best results. Don’t be a stuffer and put too many keywords in your listing because this hurts your search results. The content you include needs to be helpful.

    There are 2,395 business categories, so review them and make sure you capture your customer’s correct classification. Be specific! You can choose up to ten for your listing, with one primary category, to show off what your business does.

    How does Google my business determine what businesses show up in local searches?

    Local results are determined by relevance, distance, and prominence when someone searches in your area for a similar business. These three factors help google my business match a user’s search to the best search results.

    Relevant searches

    This refers to how well a local business profile matches what a user is searching for. A complete listing with helpful, informative content is vital because this is one of the factors google my business uses to understand your business to match it with relevant searches.

    Remember, the basic foundation of a search is to ask a question and get an answer.

    Google matches relevant answers to questions asked, so the information you provide tells google my business you are a legitimate local business, and you have the answers

    Distance

    The person searching may or may not put a specific location in their search. Distance considers how far each potential search result is from the location term used in a search. If a location isn’t exact, my business will use the information it has like a place on our phone or use the rough location the internet provider has to help calculate distance.

    29% of consumers search for local businesses at least weekly.

    Many users will place the name of the location they are searching for in the search bar. These local searches will return three Google Maps results, also known as the local 3-pack.

    Google reports that 46% of all searches have local intent meaning that potential customers in your business area need what your business has to offer.

    Prominence

    How well known is your business? Local search results are likely higher if Google knows your business from links, articles, and directories.

    Google review count and review score factor into local search ranking. More positive reviews could improve your local ranking. Remember to ask each paying customer to do a review before they leave your store. It works!

    Google algorithms might decide that a business that’s farther away from your location is more likely to have what you’re looking for than a closer business and therefore rank it higher in local results. Algorithms change often and contribute to where your google search results rank.

    The Need for Speed.

    Your business listing needs to load quickly. Load time is essential because nothing is more frustrating for the user if your webpage or business listing loads slowly. If your web page takes a long time to load, your search ranking will be negatively affected. Google doesn’t like to wait, so a website that takes longer than .4 seconds to load will adversely affect your rankings.

    Faster loading pages are essential to people searching because the experience is more satisfying, and users don’t like to wait. A business’s visibility is paramount, so the load time is essential. Page speed is probably the purest SEO factor. By addressing loading times, your can positively impact your rankings.

    The speed that a page loads at is affected by the hosting server, bandwidth, and web page design. Location, device, and browser type can also have an impact. There are performance tools to test your website. Google has google pagespeed insights that may help you understand yours.

    Google My Business Messaging

    Add google my business messaging to the mix so customers can get in touch with you in real-time. This creates options for customers to ask questions via text from your business listing engages potential customers. Google My Business Messaging is a free messenger tool designed to be used from your google business profile so you can interact from your computer or phone.

    SEO Analytics

    Google My Business Analytics

    As part of your business account, google my business has analytics. Analytics is the data on your users and future customers finding your business on a google search. Besides, insights also provide information about how your prospects find you on Google maps. Google Analytics will help you as a business owner keep track of all your content that receives views and shares from future customers and users. By knowing this data, you can enhance the top viewed content like blogs that appeal to users to use these blogs effectively to generate more views.

    A Marketing Strategy that Includes SEO Optimization Can Be a Daunting Task, But Does It?

    To help ensure that your customers know who your business is and what products and services you provide, having a business listing through google my business creates awareness and awareness leads to search rankings, and search rankings lead to the volume that leads to higher rankings on and on and on.

    Maintaining your google my business profile, online channels such as social media accounts, blogs, websites, speed, and google ads can be exhausting. As a busy business owner dealing with overhead costs, personnel issues, customer satisfaction, and business goals having a marketing team can help. There just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to do it all and do it well.

    As a business owner, google tools provide avenues to increase visibility. You no longer have to depend on a customer hearing about your physical location by word of mouth or a poster in your store window.

    But even with all the google my business tools like Google Ads and Google Analytics, you may need a team to help you keep up. If done correctly, Google my business is the ultimate search referrer, and updates are regularly done to ensure people find your business. As you run the day-to-day tasks of running your operation, a marketing team will add to your success.

    pawn leads full logo

    Pawn Leads

    Pawn Leads is an automated customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed and tested by Sam Reading, an owner of pawnshops in Idaho, and Lex Case, a small business owner. Focused on supporting the owners of pawnshops and small businesses, the owners of Pawn Leads want to offer businesses a CRM that is user-friendly along with a team of experts who could help drive business leads and ultimately profit.

    Through support and the services provided by Pawn Leads, businesses have an opportunity to understand and improve their SEO services, google ads, and Facebook and social media presence.

    What is a CRM, and why would it save time?

    Pawnshop and business owners don’t typically pay marketers to assist them with achieving their business goals. Sometimes it is a matter of overhead, and other times it is because the value of paying someone for what you as a business owner can do yourself just doesn’t make sense. The bottom line in today’s online marketplace is that digital marketing takes time and can be complicated.

    With each person using google search, bing search, and other search engines each day to find the products and services, pawnshops and business owners need a marketing strategy that includes SEO is a must.

    Business owners are busy running the day-to-day tasks of a business, and there is seldom enough time to sit down as part of the routine of doing business to audit their google my business listing, run google ads, and write and post blogs.

    As a business owner, you know that these things are necessary to show up in google search rankings, but other emergent issues take precedence. Having a dedicated automated marketing platform like Pawn Leads will help business owners reach their business goals without impeding on an owner’s valuable time.

    Digital Marketing Connects Users and Businesses

    Digital marketing connects businesses with their customers when they are online on google. Through google my business, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, and text messaging, it does so. It is effective in all industries for brand awareness.

    Users searching for information to their questions now expect and rely on information provided by websites through searching.

    Digital marketing is defined by numerous digital tactics and channels to connect with customers. Digital marketing supports a business’s goals.

    If your company is business-to-consumer (B2C), the goal of your digital marketing is to attract people to your website and engage through an accelerated journey from the moment a searcher lands on your website to the time they convert to a paying customer.

    Call to action buttons helps potential customers engage and want to be involved in your business.

    A Scenario

    It’s late at night after a long day running your small business. You know you have an effective business listing because several first-time customers have recently come into your store. You completed the steps to set up your Google business profile, including your business information, business locations, business address, business website, cover photo, and all other information you thought necessary for customers to find you.

    You go on to bed.

    A future customer is up late after her kids go to bed because she is interested in selling her gold bullion. She puts in the search bar, “Who buys gold near me?” She’s hopeful she can find a reputable business through her discovery searches. She sees your business listing name in the local search rankings and decides to explore your website and landing page.

    Unfortunately, you don’t have a form or lead magnet to draw her in. She doesn’t engage. There is no quality customer engagement. Your potential customer moves on to another business in the local search rankings.

    Customer lost!

    You get up the next day and get ready for work. You sit down and look at your business account. You take some time to look over your google my business account and switch the time your store is open because of an upcoming holiday. It appears that your Google business listing is up to date. You realize that the primary and secondary categories aren’t updated, and you don’t have the time to do so. Because the phone rings and you need to get to the store.

    You feel overwhelmed. You know something has to be done, but you lack time.

    Researching different marketing firms, you check in with a friend at another pawnshop, and they refer you to Pawn Leads. You look at their website and decide to complete the form for a seven-day trial, and you set up some time to talk to the owners.

    In your consultation meeting, review your business goals and look over your google my business account. You get some feedback on what might help improve your rankings and interpret the google analytics. The ideas make sense, but there aren’t enough hours in your day.

    The Pawn Leads team and you develop a plan for your website, landing pages, your google my business account, social media marketing, and how to use the business messaging feature to increase engagement with your customers.

    Direct searches show that people are searching for your services and products. The issue seems that your website lacks a call to action buttons. The Pawn Leads team talks about adding a contact form to your webpage, so contact information is automatically gathered and stored for future marketing. Jordan, Pawn Leads SEO expert, reviews your SEO and makes some suggestions.

    Automated Text Campaigns

    The Pawn Lead team explains that in the future automated two-way text messaging will engage customers as conversations are saved reviewed, and prospective customers can be contacted to invite them to engage. Through text campaigns, customers can receive notice of other sales, programs, and incentives that may save them money in the future.

    These campaigns are set up through Pawn Leads, and there are several templates to choose from so they can be altered to meet your needs.

    This is part of the marketing-supported through Pawn Leads to meet your business goals.

    The team at Pawn Leads knows that knowing and understanding performance marketing, trends, social media marketing, how two-way texting benefits businesses, data analytics, how to use artificial intelligence to engage like chat buttons, and how to plant lead magnets for action so users can engage. A CMO Survey from February 2021 stated that marketers agree that digital marketing is a pillar to a business’ success. “A 32.7% increase in contribution from digital marketing to company performance was reported over the last year.”

    The Plan

    To begin the Pawn Leads journey for your business Jordan, an SEO expert, will work on SEO optimization and optimize your google business profile to give you an idea of how much more attractive and engaging an optimized google business profile is. You agree to send him some clear pictures he can use to improve your presentation on business posts, and if someone visits your business location, the photos represent your store.

    During a review of your google my business account, he noticed that the primary and secondary categories don’t reflect your product and services, so he will fix these along with a few other adjustments to optimize google.

    Review your website for improvement.

    He has set aside some time to review your website and its content to ensure keywords are used to bring users to your site when discovery searches are completed.

    He uses a keyword strategy that helps your business account rank. He noticed your load time is relatively slow and will work with you on speed.

    The result is Pawn Leads helps business owners manage their marketing, two-way texting, and converting leads into paying long-term customers, and Jordan is your dedicated rep. who will do this.

    Jordan sends you the link to Pawn Brokers Helping Pawn Brokers, and the Pawn Leads Community page on Facebook so that you can consult with many businesses doing the same thing for ideas and suggestions. The wrap-around services offered by Pawn Lead will improve your local SEO and search representation bringing future customers in.

  • Lead Generation Strategies In Marketing

    Lead Generation Strategies In Marketing

    Lead Generation Strategies In Marketing

    The History of Marketing

    Marketing dates back to ancient China and India when merchants communicated details about their goods for trading. Salespeople started with trying to present goods in a certain way for trading. During the Industrial Revolution, when purchasing goods began to be easier for consumers than trying to make products themselves, marketing approaches changed rapidly as innovations in both science and technology blossomed.

    As mass-production influenced how products were made, industries had to develop avenues to get the word out to consumers about the details of the commodities available; by doing, so companies hoped to steer customers towards their business instead of their competitors.

    In the 1940s, the competition was intense and marketing strategies needed to become more effective as an essential part of every business. Developing a brand and then marketing it to be a name brand would contribute to its long-term success or failure.

    By 1960 the market for many industries was laden with the competition. Drawing in customers so they would buy a particular companies products was essential if a business was going to survive and, more importantly, become a leader in their industry.

    Marketing Becomes a Profession

    Marketing became a profession in itself to persuade consumers that the goods and services provided by one company were better than those of another company. Marketing management became an essential part of a business’s success. Presidents of companies involved the marketing team in strategic planning meetings in crafty ways to communicate information about products or services to consumers.

    Slogans, labels, and brand jingles were all used to help consumers remember what a company had to offer. For example, Oscar Mayer’s “I Wish I Was an Oscar Mayer Weiner.” There is no denying that everyone knows this one and the company and product or service it refers to.

    Branding – Improved Loyalty Built on Reputation

    In the 1990s, the marketing industry became focused on branding as a process of giving meaning and worth to a business’s products or services. This is accomplished through creating a brand and image in the consumers’ minds so that when that customer wants a specific product, they are loyal to the company branding that product. Companies have to follow through and ensure their products are high quality and deliver what they promise. Branding became focused on awareness and reputation.

    Marketing and the Web

    There is no denying the evolution of the web, the development of websites, and the ability for consumers to search and discover information about companies and their products via the net contributed to branding and loyalty within consumer groups. In the 1990s, companies had text-based websites that provided essential information about their products.

    Marketing is Complex and Now Focuses on Lead Generation Strategies

    Over the past 20-25 years, companies have expanded how they use the web and search engines to market. Marketing is now more than sharing information and trying to illustrate unique qualities. Marketing strategies are complex and need to engage each potential customer in a meaningful way not to lose that customer—customers want to be connected and feel a part of the business they frequent. Knowing how to use the various tools, apps, platforms, and approaches available today will make a huge difference in bringing customers in and converting them to loyal customers.

    “The History Of Marketing: From Trade to Tech” is an excellent article about how marketing has changed and will continue to evolve.

    In today’s business environment, lead generation strategies are essential for businesses to grow and build profits. Lead generation and improving lead quality means having a plan that includes a way to attract interested prospects (leads) and convert them into paying customers by getting them to take action through lead magnets; by doing so, the business owner knows an involved target customer is potentially a long term customer.

    Target Audiences

    To increase leads, a company needs first to understand its target audience and who they reach. The audience is those prospects interested in a company’s particular products or services. If a business is selling winter clothing, but the audience they are targeting lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where it is mainly warm year-round, the product and target audience doesn’t align.

    However, suppose that same company defines its audience as those living in cold climates and who need to stay warm. In that case, the potential buyers will be increasingly interested in the company’s brand and product.

    Attracting customers that are the right customers saves both time and money.

    Some leads are not qualified leads. In other words, lead qualification involves the prospect’s fit and how much engagement they took by their action towards getting involved with a business’ product.

    Action completed by the right customer can take different forms. Did they give contact details showing they want some involvement with the product? Maybe they clicked on the get a free demo button and filled out a form indicating they wanted to be a part of the business’ contact database.

    Once given an opportunity to engage, a target audience will take action and become a qualified lead, or they will avoid activity and not follow through.

    Customer Engagement in Marketing

    Successful Lead Generation Strategies

    Effective marketers may use lead magnets to get potential customers to become new leads. This works well when generating leads. Lead magnets are incentive-based, like sending out an email marketing campaign with a one-time discount for becoming a first-time purchaser or by getting the potential customer to fill out a form with their contact information to be a part of a lead capture database that can be drawn on at a later time when soliciting business for a particular product or service.

    As part of the lead capture process, sales team members can gather relevant contact information from new visitors. With a well-thought-out lead capture system, a company now has the necessary information to target these prospects with incentives, information, and nurturing to build a long-term customer.

    Based on the information gathered through the lead capture process, the business owner and sales team can work together to determine what steps need to be taken to convert these potential customers into long-term customers.

    By working the information gathered through lead capture, lead segmentation can help segment leads based on a lead’s interests, needs, jobs, and hobbies, which the marketing team can then use to generate niche lists. Niche lists are helpful because they attract potential customers that are qualified prospects that the sales teams can convert to paying customers.

    A Few Lead Generation Tools

    Chatbot Conversations

    As an excellent tool for building conversation and rapport with prospects, chatbots are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They are an automatic extension of your marketing team and sales team—chatbots help nurture potential leads by providing information and setting up future meetings.

    As a lead generation tool, Chatbots can be designed to represent the personality of the sales team, which will help attract prospects because they can get answers to their question immediately. People don’t like to wait for the answers they want, and Chatbots are a quick and easy way to engage qualified leads.

    Pop-ups that include Chatbots are helpful for leads and existing customers because they provide support. They can point leads to resources, products, current sale pages and guide leads into sales pipelines to create strong relationships with qualified customers. Hence, they invest in a business’s product. Chatbots can work with qualified leads as presale leads by having the customer fill out a form and engage. As part of sales tactics to convert sales leads, sales reps can follow through and close deals.

    Blog Posts, Press Releases, Newsletters

    Find a way to keep prospects connected to a brand and/or business. People want to be connected and feel like they are a part of the businesses they use. Writing press releases and blogs nurture prospects.

    Press Releases are articles about a newsworthy company. Maybe a business decides to launch a new brand or line of product, and press Releases keep potential consumers informed as part of a comprehensive marketing plan.

    Blog posts can be informative and entertaining. They talk about the product or service a company wants to promote, or they might talk about the success stories of a particular brand. Blog posts have valuable content that leads want to read.

    Blogs are an inbound marketing effort that engages with an audience by connecting them with helpful content. Blogs speak to a qualified lead in a way a banner ad or other ad can’t.

    Newsletters can be fun to attract more leads by talking about a company and its brand. They need to be action-packed and have a must-read message.

    Exclusive Content

    Exclusive content will help generate leads. When a business includes free tools as part of its brand, potential leads become high-quality leads who evolve into engaged customers because they want the “freebie.”

    Attracting quality leads is easy when a company has a future customer searching for a particular item on its website. They guide the customer to fill out a lead capture form to get a free resource. A free resource includes topics about a company’s brand, an e-book, a guide, a worksheet, or something similar with relevant content.

    By the lead filling out the form with their information, they get a resource in return, and then the sales team can then focus on turning these customers into engaged customers.

    Create an Event

    Lead generation strategies are not just limited to online activities. Businesses can host an event either online or in person. Creating a webinar, a conference, or a meet-up to get people involved will draw relevant customers into the business. Gathering contact information through event registration on all prospects can build a business’s lead capture efforts. Events are an excellent way to meet customers and answer questions face to face within the target market.

    Offers, Coupons, Discounts

    Converting prospects is the key to practical lead generation efforts. Offering a special offer, coupon, or a discount to high-quality leads is a great lead magnet tactic. Because the prospects are interested in a business’s products and services, offering a coupon or discount as a lead magnet encourages the lead to take action and get involved with the company. An involved lead is a qualified lead who will easily convert to a long-term customer.

    Offers, coupons, and discounts campaigns can be accomplished through text messages, email marketing efforts, and call to action buttons located on landing pages. Using engagement tools like offers and coupons will improve lead quality because having leads take action to get something will engage prospects and build brand loyalty.

    Optimize Your Website

    Website visitors have to find things easily on a business website if they stick around. Designing call to action buttons that drive site visitors toward a coupon or discount code will more than likely be remembered by your leads.

    A homepage with a call to action button drives prospects to your product or service.

    Creating landing pages for a blog post that has lead magnets at the end will increase actions taken by qualified prospects.

    Use lead generation pop-ups that offer free tools, resources, and relevant content, so there is a consistent flow of new leads into the business. By filling out a form with information, these new leads obtained through website visitors who found some action they wanted to take will become a part of a contact database that sales reps can use to nurture these relationships. Through digital marketing and practical marketing campaign tools, leads become long-term customers.

    Create an events page so that leads can get involved then optimize these pages for SEO.

    Social Media Marketing

    Paying for social ads is a lead generation strategy. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest all have powerful targeting options that show paid ads to a target customer group that will most likely be interested in a particular brand or product. Social media marketing will target prospects at a micro or macro level. Posting ads, summary blogs, and sales contribute to social media marketing and potentially bring in opportunities.

    Target Keywords

    Prospective customers will search websites as website visitors. To attract interested prospects and drive them towards landing pages and lead magnets, a website containing both long tail and short tail keywords will bring more qualified visitors. Target keywords should include brand names and product names website visitors are trying to find.

    Businesses that use the target keywords on landing pages, individual blog post pages, and social media have the best results.

    Search engine optimization brings leads to a business because it improves the visibility and exposure to web pages, landing pages, and articles that leads need to find if they will get involved. The more visible a dedicated landing page is, the more interest and traffic it will generate from potential leads.

    Digital Marketing

    Dedicated Landing Page

    One of the most effective lead generation strategies is to have landing pages built to convert website visitors into leads and paying customers. A call to action bottom directing the website visitor to a dedicated landing page will give the visitor a specific offer or discount. By doing so, visitors can be converted into qualified leads and eventual customers.

    Email Marketing

    As part of the process to start generating leads, emails can send out jokes stories, leveraging success stories and exciting facts to target customer groups can create personal touchpoints that will get prospects to get involved. An involved lead is a qualified lead and an eventual long-term customer. Having a consistent flow of high-end quality leads will feed a business’s success, improving through email marketing.

    Retargeting

    Retargeting is a marketing tactic that the business owner through the sales team uses to reconnect with prospects that didn’t convert to engaged customers during the first contact. Retargeting allows businesses to reengage with future customers who may need more nurturing and information on the company and the brand a few times before they convert into long-term customers. The lead generation process has to have a plan for retargeting to catch leads, so they don’t fall through the crack if they didn’t engage during the first contact.

    Pawn Leads Logo

    Lead Generation Strategies Are Easier With an Automated CRM Platform

    Pawn Leads is an automated marketing platform designed for the pawn industry.

    Are you a pawnshop that needs to consider lead generation strategies to improve your bottom line?

    An automated CRM platform is necessary to convert leads into long-term customers. Lead generation costs less and is more efficient with an automated marketing system that streamlines repetitive manual tasks. Pawnshop owners and managers are busy people with limited time to consistently follow up on all prospects. With automated CRM platforms, routine tasks are completed regularly, and leads feel connected with your pawnshop.

    There are different automated platforms available, with a few free versions.

    Pawn Leads is unique as an automated CRM platform because a pawnshop owner designed it for pawnshop owners.

    Understanding the unique challenges pawnshop owners face when they are fine-tuning their lead generation efforts, the Pawn Leads lead generation tools are user-friendly and designed to meet the needs of pawnshop business owners.

    From Optimizing Webpages to Writing Blogs

    Pawn Leads has the experts and tools necessary for attracting prospects through optimizing web pages, building landing pages, creating lead magnets that work, building funnel pages and campaigns, tracking all inbound leads and conversations, writing automatic text campaigns, managing social media platforms, and advertisement like Facebook and Google ads. Pawn Leads understands how to use content marketing through press releases and blog posts to encourage quality leads to convert to paying clients.

    Access to Lead Magnets and Templates

    As a Pawn Leads client, you will have access to the same lead magnets we encourage you to produce for your quality leads. Pawn Leads has a chatbot to answer your initial questions and set up a follow-up call. By filling out a contact form, you have access to free guides, free learning tools, and resources necessary to help you understand how the automated marketing platform can make things more effective and efficient as you embark on a new lead generation campaign strategy.

    Pawn Leads

    Free Trial

    By signing up for a free trial, you can practice using the automated system and talk with a Pawn Leads expert so you understand how the service can improve your ability to convert quality leads into long-term customers. Lead generation strategies must be a part of all businesses today, including pawnshops. The templates available through an automated platform are designed with pawnshops in mind and have responses unique for pawnshops.

    Analytics and Monthly Reviews

    Lead generation strategies include analytics, seeing if lead magnets are working, and conversion rates. Once a month, meetings with your Pawn Lead expert will help you understand how to use your Facebook page to leverage it to bring in leads, how your webpage is performing, and how google ads are generating sales through sales qualified leads.

    Pawnshop products and services are unique, and Pawn Leads, and we break down the sales lead gen process to help guide you as an owner so you understand the tips and tricks so you can use the platform to your advantage and generate leads efficiently and effectively.

    It Works!

    With Pawn Leads in place, you will have content marketing in place; your pawn shop can begin using lead magnets and lead capture to start nurturing quality leads so they can visit effective landing pages designed to optimize lead generation rates and create an overall better-performing inbound marketing strategy. With help from Pawn Leads experts to understand lead scoring is a methodology used to rank prospects against a scale representing the perceived value each lead represents to your pawnshop, which will help you determine which leads and tools to prioritize for successful conversions.

    Success Stories

    Parker Pawn and Jewelry discovered their Press Release written by Pawn Leads was picked up and distributed in their local newspaper BizFayetteville leading to an increase in prospects coming into their stores and becoming quality leads.

    R&J Jewelry and Loan increased their website visitors because of press releases and blogs. Posting blog posts to your website raises business leads through site visitors engaging and discovering your pawnshop is where they want to do business.

    Idaho Pawn and Gold posted a blog post about Rolex and luxury watches. A new watch came into the store because of the blog and was sold for a considerable profit.

    Building your pawnshops online community through “noise” that gets visitors to engage directly with your business and understand your product brand is an essential marketing approach for lead generation strategies and will improve lead quality, making it easier to convert leads to paying clients.

    Content marketing catches prospects’ interest and helps to get them started in a sales funnel that will offer your sales teams an opportunity to appraise and buy or loan on luxury items. Without the “noise” created by lead generation strategies, you are competing with other businesses in your area that provide similar services. Idaho Pawn and Gold buys and sells gold and silver. They have automatic text messaging, email marketing, press releases, and blogs set up by Pawn Leads. They have customers fill out contact details when they visit their store and website. They offer free guides and explain how to “opt-in” to niche lists as part of their lead capture, and it works! They market to quality leads on their niche lists and attract potential customers through word of mouth and “noise.” They use lead generation strategies to draw in curious people and then get them to engage by taking action. They recently posted a blog about luxury handbags, which resulted in five or more bags regularly coming into the store.

    Pawn Leads automated CRM platform as a lead generation tool WORKS!

  • A  B  C – Always Be Closing

    A B C – Always Be Closing

    A B C – Always Be Closing

    A Little About the Author

    Sam Reading is the owner of two thriving Pawn Shops in Idaho. He is a family man. He makes each day a day to help other pawnshop owners through support by sharing his business, Pawn Leads, an automation platform designed explicitly for pawnshop owners, and through looking for solutions to help build the pawn industry to its most significant potential.

    The only limit to our realization of fulfilled goals of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new one.

    There has been a ton of chatter about margins on bullion and precious metals. Gold is coming into pawnshops and going out at an all-time high. Customers continue to seek the highest price they can for their gold and silver. As a pawnshop, you want top dollar for gold melt. Invest your time and energy into earning more money through the concept of “Always Be Closing” this is the ABC of pawnshops.

    Pawnbrokers wonder what to offer and have questions about the return on investments they have made buying gold. Some people say 60%, some 90%, some 98% over spot, and the answers differ vastly.

    What is the best premium to charge? Is there a right or wrong answer?

    The truth and foundation to any good business are to remember that no one knows another person’s company better than the business owner. Every business owner needs to figure out what works for them.

    As the business owner of your pawnshop, you know your customers better than anyone. You know the essential elements of each lead that comes into your store and assist your team in closing the deal. Your company’s success depends on your unique knowledge and the model you have to achieve results.

    There is a different answer for every operation, and you know what yours is.

    Stop Listening to Others

    The bottom line is to stop listening to the advice you receive from all the other pawn shops out there and figure out what works best for your business. Do you know your competitors, the ability contained in your team members, what model will work to make you successful, what pricing works for your customers, how about the personal needs of your team and your clients? All these things are unique to your business.

    When you take a minute and look at your bank account, the revenue is left after paying overhead. What operating costs does your accounting firm regularly pay to keep your doors open? You understand very well that no one knows your business like you.

    Other Pawnbrokers As Support

    When others take the time to give you advice, they are doing so out of support and concern that you receive valuable information that will help your business thrive. The missing piece is they don’t know their business model, but they don’t know yours. They understand how to increase gross profit in their stores but don’t have an in-depth understanding of your investors, your buyers, the services you offer, how you implement these, and how you achieve day-to-day success.

    Although other pawnshops may have similar characteristics, no other pawnshop is just like yours. You know the bottom line about your avatar, your customers. You understand the elements of your community. You know how to identify quality leads and potential customers. You know what negotiations work within your pawnshop and what negotiation process doesn’t work. You know how your sales team performs and what motivates them to close deals. You know how your team will aim to please you through an agreement made with a customer sent over by your competition and how they know what disappoints you.

    Believing in a nice margin is motivating, and we strive to do it. All pawnshop owners want to sell large retail volumes and raise their pawn balance. How this is done is the key. Is what you are doing moving forward each day, taking you towards your goals. Pawn loans equal income. Remember that every deal has its place during the negotiated agreement—profitability matters within your threshold.

    Have you considered that several smaller margin deals that close with minor effort and negotiations with the customer will add up to the same as a huge deal that closes and takes an excessive amount of time and effort on your sales team’s part as well as yours? Sometimes it is simply impractical or effective to focus on huge profits when a series of smaller margins add up quickly and raise your bottom line.

    Let’s consider a pie cut into many small pieces, all equivalent to 1/16 of the pie compared to a pie cut into large half slices. The result is the pie is still the same size no matter how you cut it. The key is understanding if your store and the sales team have supported two half slices or 16 smaller slices. Which makes sense for your operational process and to your investors?

    Some Key Takeaways To Consider:

    Turn More Transactions

    Every transaction is money in the bank, and instead, it is large or small; by closing a deal, you make some profit. Working with each customer to meet their needs and search for ways to get them involved in your business is a win-win. Customers want to be a part of a pawn group when they need it. Your clients will return again and again and become lifetimers if they feel the essential elements of the service you offer are honest and transparent.

    Instead, the customer is selling items or buying them; they want to be involved and know your services meet their needs. Customers need to know that when they bring an item in for a collateral loan, the negotiation process will be apparent to all parties involved and that your team will work together for the best possible outcome.

    Review Ratings

    Do you ask for reviews from your clients when they leave? Reviews ratings are a great way to see how your store is doing within the context of the community you live. How do you measure up against your competitors? Reviews ratings are like a report card and tell businesses what their clients think about them.

    Profit More Per Transaction

    Each transaction is a business agreement that involves revenue. If you pay too high for a luxury item, you will not be able to sell it later at a reasonable rate so you can make a profit. If you loan too much on an item of value, you may not be able to recoup your cost should the customer default on the loan terms.

    Successful business practices involve knowing and understanding how each transaction contributes to your bottom line.

    Sales are significant, but understanding how the deal is essential and what works best for your business is critical.

    Pricing strategies are essential, but understanding how prices affect your business and what works best for your business is a must. What is the best alternative to get the most out of each transaction based on your business characteristics?

    So much of the input another shop gives is based on their operating system, what works for their area of service, and how their buyers respond to what they have on their sales floor. Another huge contributing factor to their perspective is how much money they have on hand to lend as a collateral loan or how much their investors are willing to chip in. If you don’t have the same characteristics, it is essential to remember what works for them may not work for your store.

    Work On Your Overhead

    One way to impact your business’s bottom line is to look at overhead. Are there areas of unexplained costs? Is there an example of cost savings involving supplies or other fixed costs you can reduce to increase the revenue left? Part of wealth management is knowing your costs, fixed costs, and the expense you experience by doing business.

    The ideas and figures you come up with will be different for your business compared to someone else’s. No one knows your pawnshop company as you do, so remember to consider the wise words of other business owners but rely on your finance knowledge. Take the time to meet with your bookkeeper and go over your accounting to identify areas that interest you as a savings area.

    An Example of a Skilled Negotiator

    The underlying premise:

    Look for reasons to say Yes and close a deal.

    Letting a deal walk with profit on the table from a customer you want to do business with lets money walk out the door.

    As a pawnshop owner, I believe that the value of pawnshop services is wrapped up in a nice margin. I’ve been called out for making 1ok on a deal on more than one occasion when I should have paid more to the customer, and I have also been called out for making less. I believe that every deal has its place during the art of a skilled negotiation process—profitability matters within your threshold. I’ve done deals on 100k+ in bullion with as little as $800 margin at the time. Because it made sense, and I was aware of other issues that needed to be addressed and were more important than just the money I was hoping to make.

    Good wealth management starts with understanding how to coordinate all the moving parts of your business financial portfolio and situation into a comprehensive plan. This is much like negotiating within your financial situation, so you know how to and where to include tax savings, how to have investments, and when to leverage outside money to help close a big deal.

    The pay at the end of the day is dependent on your ability and effectiveness with wealth management.

    Profits start by knowing your own business, your team, your competitors, your clients, your process, your buyers, your sellers, your community, your investors, the market price on retail items, your negotiation skills, the value of a deal lost as well as the value of a deal closed, how one party can impact your business by a positive review as well as be detrimental with a poor review, and lastly know your strategies to find solutions if something isn’t working.

    Why because I know my pawnshop business, and I know what works and hasn’t for me.

    Cost Per Transaction vs. Profit Per Transaction an Example In My Shop

    It is near too impossible to be a leader in a community with crazy margins all the time. No doubt like I have done, you have considered in your strategies how to achieve your business goals pricing objectives best, whether you want to achieve maximum short-term or long-term profits, achieve market stabilization, or increase market share.

    For me, team member time value is probably more important to me than the profit percentage on the dollar. Reducing the “cost per transaction” and increasing the “profit per transaction” is what comes down to in my company. This is similar to inventory turn.

    If we have 2 500 transactions a month or $10,000, how much are my labor costs, and how much is my fixed overhead per transaction? How can I increase the margin per transaction over the total amount of transactions to net more at the end of the month?

    Here’s something to consider. Let’s compare one $20k transaction that my business makes $250 on (1.2% margin) with a deal worth $100 that I make $30 on (30% margin).

    As I said before, every deal every day has a place. Are you so cash-flush you need to have more out on the street through a collateral loan? Are you cash tight and need to turn more?

    Is your focus on customer satisfaction and building relationship compared to your competition which focuses on profits? Have you set the goal for your business this year to hold the market share of all gold, silver, and precious metals transactions? Maybe as courses by topic this year for your sales teams is to provide each of them with education on negotiation, good negotiated agreement examples, and how to use the negotiating process to their advantage.

    One party isn’t better than another. What’s the saying by CS Lewis, “Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.”

    Working Together

    Working together as pawnshop owners to help each other negotiate different solutions to meet individual strategies and goals is very helpful. But keep in mind that the other party sees things from their perspective and their business example, which may differ from yours. Pawnshop ownership isn’t set in stone, and one party isn’t infallible while the other is. Problem-solving and considering suggestions will lead to a broader understanding of options. How you choose to apply the tips will lead to your successful business adventures. Key takeaways from the information your provided will help you in moving forward to achieve those dreams you have for your shop.

  • Lead Generation – Customer Lifetime Value

    Lead Generation – Customer Lifetime Value

    Lead Generation – Customer Lifetime Value

    Pawn Leads A Legacy Worth Living Up To!

    Marketing today is about lead generation strategies, promotional programs, customer base and retention, and customer lifetime value.

    By 2025 customer lifetime value (CLV) will be the leading key performance indicator (KPI) the growing business sector will strive to understand and put into place.

    The underlying premise is it costs less to retain a customer base than to create a new one.

    Did you know that it takes about 25% less to keep a customer than to find, build, and establish a new one? In the past, acquiring a new customer was seen as costing five times more than retaining an existing customer.

    However, according to Forbes, customer lifetime value is the key to creating long-term profits.

    Creating new customers is essential for all businesses but retaining customers is critical for long-term profit. Existing customers want to purchase product or service items from your company because they trust you.

    You don’t have to spend the time and energy on them to help them understand what brand you have to offer. They already have existing brand loyalty with you.

    Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%. The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70% while selling to a new customer is 5-20%.

    Defined CLV is the total worth of your business throughout the relationship you have with your customer.

    Knowing how to calculate this value contributes to effectively planning for customer lifetime value (CLV).

    To calculate CLV, you need to know how to calculate the average purchase value and then multiply that number by the average number of purchases to determine the customer value. Now that you know the average customer lifespan, you can multiply that by customer value to determine the customer lifetime value (CLV).

    Pawnshops are no different than any other business. Owners desire to provide a service to their community while making a reasonable profit for the product or service they offer.

    Strategically owning and managing a pawnshop business effectively leads to profits, and all companies have to cover costs to remain in business. One strategy is to know your customer base; This is essential if your business will boom.

    Another essential business strategy is to understand that customers desire to feel a part of the business they do business with.

    Maintaining and involving your customers in your business is how you will enhance relationships and keep customers coming back. People want to be a part of something. How can you set up your lead magnets and content marketing to help promote involvement from your customers?

    A returning customer is like money in the bank, and your connection with them will ensure they think of your business first when they need the product or service you have to offer.

    Marketing Team Efforts

    Know Your Avatar

    Your team’s initial efforts in marketing are to initially attract potential customers and let communities know about your business. Sales leads, lead magnets, branding, digital advertising, and setting up a lead generation campaign are all ways to draw clients in. Leads for your business focused on the target audience in your area are a must. Do you know your target audience? The target audience is your avatar.

    An avatar is a profile of perfect buying potential customers.

    Knowing what the customers look like, enjoy, their habits, what they do for fun, what challenges they may have, what excites them, and any other facts you can gather about them will help your team reach them. Are you in an area where luxury handbags and diamond jewelry are highly sought after? Maybe you are in a place where gently used tools are needed for construction projects.

    It is not only about prospective customers; it is about knowing those customers, and by knowing them, you can attract prospects who will buy or shop at your business. Knowing them well helps you promote collateral loans and turn first-time visitors into high-quality leads for your business.

    For example, if you are marketing to a community in Los Angeles, California, your approach will differ from marketing to Santa Fe, New Mexico. All community members may require pawn loans, same-day cash, gold, silver, and luxury items, but the approach to getting the word out about your service and product will differ. If you are a new business or are branching out and want to focus on different luxury items, your marketing strategies will be paramount in generating leads for your business.

    Investment

    Investment is defined as the action or process of investing money for profit or material result but is it?

    According to Yigal Adato on page 76 in his book Pawn Profit Pillars, he writes that he learned from his coach that “Make money, hold money, and grow money.” You have to make money to pay your bills; you have to hold money for emergencies. You gotta grow money and not just keep it. For me, cash isn’t just cash; You can deposit “cash” into your marriage by communicating more effectively and going on date nights. You’re depositing “cash” into the lives of your children when you can leave the store early or take an additional day off to spend time with them. And finally, every dollar put back into our communities is another step towards building something greater together – a legacy worth living up to!”

    Is an investment just money, cash, or profit? When you stop and think about investing, think a little further. Is knowing your potential customers an investment? By understanding the profile of the people who will shop in your store, you can fund retail items that your customers will purchase for fun and enjoyment; you can invest in solutions to solve their challenges. Without knowing your customers’ profiles, you can’t invest your time and efforts wisely to build lifetime customers.

    Marketing Team as an Investment

    Marketing teams are essential to a business’s success. These teams are necessary to build awareness about your services, brand, products, and how you meet your customer’s needs. Your sales team will work with your marketing department to help search engine optimization and generate quality leads for your business. The whole purpose of these teams is to develop marketing channels to get your product or service out to customers for them to purchase. Additionally, marketing teams generate “noise” and awareness that you may have just what they need should an unmet need arise.

    Four Main Marketing Channels

    Knowing the main channels will help you develop your strategies; direct selling, selling through intermediaries or groups and individuals who make it possible for customers to have access to your products, dual distribution of simultaneously getting out what you are selling through two or more channels, and reverse channels where the customer seeks you the business and your company’s product or service.

    Isn’t it awesome when a customer seeks your business because they heard or saw from what they wrote in the search engines that you were the one-stop-shop offering to buy, loan, and sell scrap gold or luxury handbags? Instead of going to another shop, they reached out to your business. Your team’s job is to keep them through excellent customer service.

    Closing Deals in Marketing

    Customer Service as an Investment

    Attracting prospects and eventually turning them into paying customers starts with engagement. People are social creatures who want comfortable engaging interaction. Attracting prospective leads is just the start of increasing profits and building those lifetime customers. Through quality, transparent, honest communication, potential leads are converted into long-term customers. When first-time potential customers, known as new leads, come into your store, they are eager to be a part of your business.

    How are you using their customer profile, and what do you already know to convert them to paying customers? Does your team begin by greeting them by name? Does your sales team offer to show them around the store? Does the lead pawnbroker ask what exciting item they are searching for or what challenges they may have that need a solution, a solution you may have?

    Do your return customers ask for a team member by name? Does that team member welcome them with open arms, and is the member ready to promote all you have to offer them?

    How does your team follow up on potential leads who call and ask for a quote? Do they call them back? Does your team ask for online reviews when someone comes into your store? Does anyone do a call after the customer leaves to ensure they were satisfied with their experience at your store? All of these small things added together sum up to return life-long customers.

    Knowing the ideal customer who comes into your store and all of their nuances will quickly turn into a quality lead and become a lifetime customer who will only lead to your success. Sales teams need to know how to invest their time and energy into a direct engagement that helps the ideal customer feel like they are a part of your business and your product or service is something they must have.

    As a pawnshop business owner, you must take the time to set goals for your sales teams and train these team members so every qualified lead results in future customers and long-term retention.

    Customer service makes the difference in someone returning to your business or not. It will either solidify the lead into a buying customer or set up a roadblock so that lead never returns.

    Sales Teams as an Investment

    The people on your sales team will lead to an increase in high-quality leads or a decrease in high-quality leads. Although they aren’t a free tool, they directly connect the new customer and the returning customer. Your sales team is a unique lead capture mechanism, and with training and support, they will be able to turn looky-Lous and first-time customers into customers who eventually purchase from you or secure a short-term loan. How the potential leads that come into your business are interacted with, assisted, given advice to, and have their needs, wants, and desires met will impact your business directly.

    Customer service is just that “service.”

    It takes good customer service to earn the trust of a potential customer. Overlooking its importance can be detrimental to your business.

    It only takes one bad interaction to result in poor goggle reviews, the spreading of substandard services, or the unpleasant image of your product or service being shared across the web. Customers and most leads who visit your store expect service, not just everyday service but exceptional service.

    Service is defined as an act of helpful activity.

    The business owner will impact potential clients by effectively training their sales team in quality customer service. Teaching your team about customer services begins with your team knowing the strategies and goals you have for your company, your company’s product, or your service. Your team needs to understand your plans for the pawnshop and how to meet those through good customer interaction.

    The strategies and goals should teach ways to provide customers with the best service experience possible. How will your team deal with customers, those who are good and those who are bad? How will your team become experts about your product or service? A boss invested in their team’s long-term success will help build their teams’ knowledge on products and services and keep them updated as things change.

    How will the communication between upper management and the sales team be accomplished so team members stay updated on changing products and services? By investing in your teams’ customer service skills, you are investing in your pawnshop business and helping customers turn into lifetime customers.

    Online Customer Service

    Because there is currently a vast digital marketplace, online customer service is also a necessary training investment. With health concerns in public, gas prices soaring to new levels, and people working from home, eCommerce is growing. Many pawnshops have eCommerce store options. It would be best to educate your team members on working with online questions and requests, so the customer feels confident that you are the business they need. Because customers can post reviews, complaints, and comments on social media pages, news travels fast.

    Keeping a close eye on what is being said on social media like your Facebook page is of paramount importance so you can address issues promptly.

    Training team members to handle complaints with “kid gloves” yet effectively. Remember to teach your team to tackle complaints head-on and take extra effort to keep the customer happy. This approach will help build trust and eventually result in more leads for your business.

    An Automated Software Platform Investment

    Owning and managing a business is time-consuming, and understanding how to leverage your time and talent is vital to ensure your business is profitable. Selecting and utilizing an automated software platform will help you automate your marketing and sales engagements so you can generate leads, focus on your lead generation strategy,  follow up on prospective customers, close more deals, and accurately measure marketing success.

    Today, several automated marketing platforms are available for businesses to purchase and use to increase lead generation.

    When selecting the right automated system for your business, it is essential to consider these seven things:

    First user interface design

    How user-friendly, simple, or overwhelming is the platform’s user interface? User interface design or user interface engineering is used to designing user interfaces for various machines, software, and mobile devices. These tools can be easy, and they can be difficult. How is the design, and does it maximize usability? Is the platform one that speaks to your customers and your team?

    Features and Integrations

    With so many platforms to choose from, make sure you are shopping for one that maximizes its usability and has customer support, learning resources, userbase reviews, set-up, easy onboarding, and features and native integrations that suit your needs. Don’t settle!

    Will the Platform Fit Your Skills?

    If you need a platform that automates marketing campaigns and interacts with social media platforms, ask the questions to ensure the platform will do these easily. If you or your team are spending hours trying to figure out how to post for sale items in your eCommerce store, you aren’t spending time with customers building relationships.

    Suppose you have customers come into your store, and you want to follow up with them regularly. In that case, you want to make sure that the platform you chose has quality lead generation tools, tools to promote funnels and opt-in campaigns, text messaging, and learning tools that will help you use the platform to its fullest capability.

    Niche LIsts

    Let’s Talk Pawn Shop Platforms

    There are several platforms available for pawn shops to consider, and there are pros and cons for all of them.

    According to Sam Reading, the co-owner of Pawn Leads, “point of sale and marketing platforms lack often lack technical advisors and implementors needed to automate things with a focus on customizability.” Pawn Leads brings state-of-the-art software to the Pawn Industry by having a development team and the necessary resources to bring integrations and customizability needed to generate improved quality leads to each pawnshop.

    Sam, who owns two thriving pawnshops, understands that each has its own unique set of needs and customer profile, its avatar. By working with a platform designed and used by a pawnshop owner, you will be assured that the Pawn Leads platform is designed to fit your rhythm and operational process, and Pawn Leads is an excellent choice.

    Sam guarantees as a Pawn Leads customer, you will have quality direct engagement with him as the owner or an expert team member to discuss your prospective leads, to understand your business leads, how as a paying customer you will benefit from the platform, and how you can be assured that the buying process for the platform is quick and easy.

    Customer Retention

    Focused primarily on Pawn Shops in the USA, Pawn Leads offers our Pawn Leads CRM system (2-way texting, reviews, email marketing, blog post writing and SEO services, landing pages, etc.), website builds, progressive mobile websites that add to your current site, web hosting, and custom development as needed/required. We also offer Google Ads and dedicated marketing support (flyer creating, holiday marketing, etc.) to enhance your marketing efforts.

    Understanding that traffic to your website is essential to attract potential customers, Sam and his team will start with reviewing your website with you and providing consultation about how Pawn Leads can work best for your company.

    Pawn Leads is the most affordable rate in the industry at $97 Monthly! We want to assist pawnshops by web Hosting, Site Speed Enhancements, and Quick Website Launches.

    You will understand your specific lead scoring through monthly individual marketing meetings with your Pawn Leads representative if you are on dedicated services. Lead scoring is a method to rank customer prospects against a scale representing each lead’s perceived value to your pawnshop. This, along with monthly reports and analytics, will give you a proper understanding of how you are performing regarding google ads, Facebook ads, blog posts, and press release ranking. These tools designed with your pawnshop in mind will help plan for future activity to help generate leads and grow your business.

    By working closely with you and the managers of your pawnshop, a landing page can be designed to place an opt-in form so customers can opt into different niche campaigns. This is important when converting qualified leads into paying clients and increasing website visitor traffic to bring in clients to your shop.

    A paying customer will select your store over someone else’s through a well-designed sales funnel. Sam and his co-partner Lex are experts in generating leads and will help you by giving you a few tips to add new leads and new business to your company.

    In the end, every owner wants every customer coming through their door or visiting the online business to purchase something or use their service eventually.

    Pawn Leads has a support team and training modules for its paying clients. All training modules included with Pawn Leads are free tools to help you use the automated platform to your advantage. Understanding how to use the platform you have invested in is essential if you offer a lead magnet to generate leads. Trial subscriptions, samples, an opt-in form, an email marketing campaign, a blog post, and text campaigns are all a part of digital marketing and advertising. Knowing how to use these tools to your business’ advantage is paramount for business growth and increased profits.

    Lead Generation Strategies

    Sam and his team at Pawn Leads will tell you that one of the most effective lead generation strategies is to set up landing pages to convert website traffic into quality leads and customers. A call to action (CTA) to a dedicated landing page is often overlooked.

    A call to action is the action that gets customers involved. Remember back at the beginning of the article when we talked about customers wanting to feel like they are a part of your business and ensuring that you aim to understand and improve your customer lifetime value?

    Getting customers involved in “buy it now” or “opt-in,” or any other message that compels a client to take action is a great way to turn those leads into a paying customer.

    Now treat that customer with excellent customer service, including getting involved in conversations with them, including them on a targeted list of a niche they are interested in, sending a thank you for stopping by text, all improve their experience with you and consequently turns them into a lifetime customer. They will come to you when they need a gold ring, luxury watch, or pawn loan.

    Some Ways to Generate Leads

    • Birthday campaigns
    • Thank you for visiting text messages or asking if their needs were met
    • Develop niche lists to invite clients to join
    • Make follow up calls
    • Send cold emails
    • Send an email story blast
    • Set up a live chat widget on your website
    • Send out holiday campaigns with a call to action buttons
    • Ask for reviews
    • Use SEO to increase traffic
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    Sam Reading, the owner of Pawn Leads, believes that pawnshops have been held back by the lack of integrations available to larger platforms. By keeping an open mind, and API available, Pawn Leads partners and develops on top of the best software available to catapult the busy pawn store owners into the next age of eCommerce presence meshed with brick and mortar operations.

    With pawnshops having a fixed location and the community they serve, most pawn shops have also developed an online business presence. Pawn Leads has the expertise and tools to design digital marketing with your pawnshop to improve lead quality, convert leads, reduce the time you spend on mundane routine tasks that have to be done to keep your clients connected with the ultimate goal of increasing profit and increasing the lifetime value of each customer.

    Being a family man, Sam knows firsthand that was owning and managing his two pawnshops is time-consuming. He understands how to leverage time and talent to ensure his business is profitable. He selected and utilized Pawn Leads automated software platform in his stores before making it available nationwide. He is vested in assisting any pawnshop owner in automating marketing and sales engagements. His team of experts works directly with owners, managers, and sales personnel to understand how every interaction is a foundation for a lifetime customer. Sam will talk with pawnshop owners to identify and set up a lead generation strategy and provide feedback through monthly reporting so changes can be made to ensure your shop can close more deals with less effort.

    Yigal Adato, the author of Pawn Profit Pillars, talks about investment. Sam knows you can invest in more things in a business than just money, cash, or profit. He’s taken his investment perspective and focused on investing in people, his team, and his family. Using Pawn Leads, he invests in people, letting them know about his business, how to save money on items they want to purchase, and how to borrow money in times of need. He invests in his marriage, children, and family by decreasing his time at the shop doing the necessary mundane things because the Pawn Leads system is fully automated. He invests in his community and pawnshops by working with each store to build something more significant than what was available before.

    In Yigal’s words, “a legacy worth living up to!”