A quality marketing report can make or break a relationship with a client.

Due to the varying timetables of how long it can take to get results, you need meaningful metrics to make an impact. Clients need to be able to understand those metrics in a way that makes sense and promotes further action.

Let's define what a marketing report is, how often you should present one, and the six most important things you need to include.

What is a Digital Marketing Report?

A digital marketing report is a collection of data that illustrates how your marketing efforts are helping a business achieve its goals.

You can generate and present marketing reports weekly, monthly, quarterly, or any other period that fits the agenda. Many marketers will present different marketing reports for different timetables that focus on short-term or long-term goals respectively.

What’s included in a marketing report can fluctuate depending on you and your client’s unique goals. Therefore, any report might include:

• Website analytics
• Social media analytics
• PPC campaign metrics
• Email marketing data
• Any other data that demonstrates where you are concerning the objective

However, if you utilize any marketing reporting tools, you’re likely to find yourself overwhelmed with data. Even though certain channels might provide a wealth of metrics, it does not mean you need to include everything.

Doing so will often confuse your client and obfuscate the hard work that your team accomplishes within a given period.

Though sorting through the data can be challenging, it's much easier if you understand your objectives. For the most part, however, there are the six most essential things that virtually every marketing report should include.

Let's get into it.

1. Your Objectives (with Supporting Research)

Before you begin taking any course of action, you always start by defining your goals and objectives.

Likewise, your client needs a reminder of what the goals are for the period. This will ensure that any following data will make sense and be understood in the context of those objectives.

You must always clearly define your objectives and avoid making any vague, unclear promises. Examples of poorly-defined goals might be:

• Get more followers
• Make more sales

While we can understand the overall idea of those points, it’s fairly difficult to define something so broad. Instead, we can give our clients a better sense of progress by precisely describing what we are attempting to achieve:

• Increase monthly website traffic to X amount by X month
• Improve organic rankings by X amount
• Reach X number of conversions on a specific social media platform

The platforms we use will provide in-depth metrics that communicate these finer points. In most cases, those numbers show the true journey of progress while ultimately serving grander goals like gaining more followers or generating more revenue.

Furthermore, you should attempt to support your objectives by providing research that supports those actions. As an example, marketers understand that LinkedIn is a powerful platform for B2B businesses. If you're trying to help your B2B client build traction on LinkedIn, you can include data that supports why this objective benefits them.

A quick and excellent way of generating excellent research data is through the use of DashClicks' very own InstaReports software.

Marketing reporting tools like these can instantly retrieve live data about a business in seconds. This self-contained report focuses on website data, social media, online reviews, SEO, and paid ads performance. You can use that data to highlight pain points and back your active objectives in those respective areas.

Once your client understands what you're working toward, they're ready to listen to review the next items.

2. Monthly Website Metrics

A business's SEO data is essential for every marketing report. Improving website rankings improves organic performance, meaning lower monthly spending.

In other words, your marketing team should always be working to improve the client's SEO and website performance.

There are numerous free tools for tracking metrics for any domain. The most popular is Google Analytics, which encompasses everything you could ever need to know about a web page or the entire site.

However, GA provides an immense amount of data, not all of which is necessary to illustrate your points to your client. Here are a few key metrics you’ll want to highlight:

• Daily, weekly, monthly website traffic
• Number of unique visits
• Traffic by source (how are visitors finding the site?)
• Page clicks
• Average session duration
• SEO page rankings

You'll want to spend more or less time on specific points depending on the goals for that reporting period.

If the goal is to simply boost brand awareness and traffic, highlighting unique visits as well as their origin is helpful. Highlighting areas of strong performance is what a client wants to see and will make a positive impression.

However, a great marketer won't shy away from the negatives. If you notice a trend in poor numbers for specific pages, make it known. This is an opportunity for growth and improvement, which serves to help the client's overall goals.

Including both positives and negatives also helps the client stay involved and proactive regarding their success. It also inspires their confidence in you when you are actively looking to improve instead of resting on your laurels.

Finally, we would be remiss not to highlight that tools like Google Analytics allow you to create custom conversions for the website. These will allow you to better track progress toward specific goals you have regarding the user experience. Not only does it drive your efforts, but it better communicates what you're accomplishing in the marketing report.

3. Performance Metrics by Campaign

Your digital marketing efforts will extend across many channels in addition to the website.

Examples of these channels might include:

• Email marketing campaigns
• Social media
• PPC campaigns
• Blogs

The marketing tools you’re using for any of these channels will also provide their built-in analytics tracking. Similar to Google Analytics, you’ll want to pull relevant data from the platforms you’re using to run campaigns.

A. Email Marketing Metrics to Include

Email marketing reporting is fairly straightforward and should highlight your reach and conversion rates. Data points to include are:

• Number of emails sent
• Number of emails successfully delivered
• CTR (clickthrough rate)
• Subscriber data
• CVR (conversion rate)

It helps the client to know not only that emails are going out to real contacts, but that those emails are being read by the recipient.

When users open those emails, subscribe to the listing, or convert, it’s transparent that your marketing efforts work. Likewise, a low CTR or a spike in unsubscribers could indicate that the campaign needs some attention.

B. Social Media Metrics to Include

If one of your core goals is to boost brand awareness on social, you’ll want to include some data in your report. This is also applicable if you’re running paid social ads or relying on your following to boost numbers in other areas.

Some key metrics you might include are:

• Follower counts
• Engagement rates
• Shares
• Ad or promoted post CTR
• Audience demographics

More followers, impressions, and engagement means that your social media content is making an impact. Likewise, shared content means an extended reach at zero additional cost to you or the client.

Additional insights about your audience on social media might motivate new campaign ideas depending on your findings.

C. Paid Ad Metrics

This is a necessity if you’re currently running any type of paid ad campaign on search or social media. Paying for clicks doesn’t come cheap, so you need to show your client that their money is being spent wisely.

Essential metrics to include are:

• Cost-per-click
• Conversions & conversion rate
• Cost-per-conversion
• CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions)
• CTR
• Total spend
• ROI / ROAS (return on investment, return on ad spend)

You'll want to highlight similar data for each platform that features a paid ad campaign for your client. Comparing and contrasting performance on different platforms can sometimes highlight where the client's money is best spent.

Something else to consider is highlighting ad creatives that are performing well. It's not uncommon to have creative differences between parties over what they want versus what gets results. Showing off the specific ads with the data leaves both parties with a better understanding of where to go moving forward.

Also, underperforming on other platforms is not always cause to pull all ads. Instead, you can use negatively trending data to promote new ad campaign ideas for the next period with your client's final approval.

You can quickly and seamlessly track all of this data for each platform within the DashClicks Analytics app. Users can integrate platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, CallRail, and others at no cost. You can even track keyword rankings and other vital SEO data at the same time for all of your reporting needs.

4. Leads and Customers

Marketing data from the previous areas is important. It shows that your content is reaching new audiences and connections are happening.

However, many of these metrics can amount to little more than vanity if you're not capturing quality leads. Those leads then need to convert into customers.

In other words, your client is going to want to see the bottom line from all of the previously reported data. You can do this by highlighting:

• Qualified leads by channel (where are we capturing leads?)
• Marketing qualified leads (leads that show engagement and interest)
• Sales qualified leads (leads show motivation to spend)
• Cost-per-action (money spent for each action taken by a customer throughout the marketing process)
• Cost-per-acquisition
• Customer lifetime value (money spent by customer versus the cost to acquire)

Your marketing channels will provide you with the necessary, but these data points will likely require a bit of basic math on your part.

For example, calculating a particular cost-per-action would mean comparing your total expenses versus the number of conversions. A low CPA will indicate that you are reaching engaged customers at a lower cost. A high CPA could indicate that you need to better qualify customers or simplify the process of getting a customer from awareness to checkout.

We recommend placing this data toward the end of your report for two reasons. First, the prior data provides the necessary context for your lead and customer data. Second, your lead data acts as an effective summary of all of your efforts within each marketing channel.

5. A Full Marketing Report Analysis (In Layman's Terms)

All of your reported metrics now need an easy-to-understand breakdown. Your expertise is a big part of what they're paying you for, so now's the time to educate.

Though your client may be able to extrapolate their ideas from the numbers, they still want you to pull it all together and complete the story.

For this reason, your summary and analysis should:

• Explain positive results and highlight continued strategies
• Get ahead of negative snapshots and address the circumstances
• Propose new strategies or ideas to sustain or improve results
• Highlight exceptional achievements

Adding the final color to your marketing picture will better help nonmarketers understand the ebb and flow of the industry. Without your informed explanations, you leave clients to draw their conclusions, which can end up problematic even when there’s no cause for concern.

Likewise, a willingness to confidently address shortcomings outright can replace frustrations with new confidence. As with any customer service, letting the client know you're aware and engaged can alleviate short-term concerns.

Just be sure that your team communicates a plan to address existing issues so that you don't find yourself reporting poor results each period.

6. Future Plans and Strategies

Now that you've had your opportunity to tell the story, the client will be wondering one thing: what's next?

A solid marketing report should conclude with a clear outline of planned strategies and actions between now and the next reporting period.

Those strategies will now be informed by all of the data presented previously in the report. However, as a precaution, make sure to call back to key reporting points to keep your analytics fresh in the client's mind.

With this, the client has an idea of what to look forward to within the coming days and weeks. They're informed and empowered to connect with you if they have questions or concerns about any of your marketing efforts.

Your plans should also reiterate existing goals or propose new ones based on what fits the bill. That way, you can point back to data from the previous month and easily demonstrate progress from period to period.

How to Determine If It Belongs in a Marketing Report?

Before we conclude, we'll leave you with a few pointers that can help sort through marketing data. By asking yourself these key questions, you'll be able to eliminate irrelevant data that fails to serve your report.

A. Does the Data Explain Our Progress Towards Marketing Goals?

As discussed above, platforms like Google Analytics or Facebook Ads provide a wealth of information.

This data provides value, but only if it tells you something about your immediate goals.

For example, if you're attempting to increase website traffic by X percent for the month, stats like individual page rankings are not necessarily relevant to the topic.

Throwing in these additional facts will likely distract from the important conversation. However, a metric like bounce rate may be relevant if the website experiences a period of unusually high bounces. You may sometimes need to use your discretion and ask if this data is of immediate importance to the task at hand.

B. Is the Data Easy to Understand?

In this article, we've used a strong amount of marketing vernacular that you're like familiar with. However, the same is often not true for those that operate outside of the industry.

You want to ensure that your report contains basic vocabulary that's easy for all parties to understand. When taking the data from your analytics platform, restructure it in a way that speaks to the common person.

C. Does the Client Need to Know This?

This final point can be tricky if done improperly.

Even expert marketers will experience a rise and fall within certain metrics. Because we have expertise and insights into trends, we know when a red arrow is a cause for concern.

The same is not always true for the client and seeing negative trends will generally be a cause for alarm. Seeing numbers pointing down can end up dominating the report, even when much of your news is largely positive.

For this reason, think carefully about whether or not certain numbers need to be acknowledged or highlighted in the report.

Note that this is not an opportunity to evade talking about genuinely poor performance. Use your judgment to tell the difference and use your expertise to keep your client's concerns at ease.

Use This As a Template for Your Marketing Reports

Marketers will virtually always want these six categories somewhere within their weekly or monthly digital marketing reports.

However, remember that these ideas serve as a general template. The exact metrics you want to include will depend upon:

• The types of marketing channels being used
• What types of campaigns you’re running
• The client’s immediate marketing goals

Nevertheless, these categories will consistently point you toward the correct numbers that directly address progress. It’s then up to you to provide context for your analytics so that your client can understand where you stand even without insider marketing knowledge.

Your marketing efforts run on the client's budget, so you owe it to them to ensure they're educated. However, you have the power to tell a clear and cohesive story that they won't be able to discover themselves. Use that opportunity to show your strengths, plan new strategies, and omit obfuscatory data.

Remember, you can improve your reporting process right here at DashClicks by taking advantage of our free marketing and reporting software. Signing up for an account is completely free and you can integrate your third-party accounts at any time.

Demonstrate growth, highlight revenue increases, and get to the bottom line. This keeps clients happy and keeps them returning to your team for marketing services every month.

Welcome to episode eight of Whiteboard Wednesday. In this episode, Chad Kodary, CEO of DashClicks, discusses creating an efficient live chat at scale.

For absolute beginners, live chat appears like a tiny little bubble either on your website's bottom right or bottom left. When you click on it, you open up a live chat where your team answers questions in the back end. The team in the backend also handles all the incoming tickets.

Benefits of Using Live Chat Software

Live chat is known to increase conversion, speed up sales funnel, improve service quality & customer experience on the website, and reduce response time.

Different software tools enable live chat on websites, such as Intercom, Zendesk, HubSpot, LiveChat, etc. But, in this session, we will explain how to offer excellent customer service and create a live chat experience that helps your business scale.

We'll also discuss how to create an experience so that your customers get immediate help and never leave the live chat session empty-handed.

So, today, we will Whiteboard some cool tips & tricks, and tactics that you can implement to create an efficient live chat system.

We at DashClicks use Intercom for our live chat. So, we'll share our experience while using and improving our live chat system - Intercom. To create a better live chat experience and scale this, you should create triggers.

How to Use a Live Chat Software?

The best way to generate inbound leads is by using live chat triggers.

A. Use Triggers

So, when a visitor (call him Bobby, the painter) comes to our website and spends more than 10 seconds, it is a trigger for our website DashClicks.com, and a live chat option would pop up with a greeting message flashing on it. You can either use an old greeting or ask a question here. The idea is to start a conversation with this visitor.

Source: Ep. 8 ā 04:45

You can ask ice breaker questions such as:

• Are you interested in XYZ?
• Hey, what type of industry are you in?
• Hey, what service are you looking for?

You can also set triggers on certain pages. For example, if a specific page that a visitor is on is for a marketing agency and talks about SEO services, you can set a trigger based on how long they’ve been on your website and the page they’re on.

If somebody spends more than 10 seconds on a specific page, such as an SEO service page, you can ask them, “Hey! Are you looking for SEO services?”

‘Yes‘ or ‘no‘? It sets the ground to initiate a conversation.

2. Segment the Conversations

Segment the live inbound conversations that you’re having. Like the IVR, when people open up a live chat, they might have different queries and purposes. So, people may have questions regarding sales, billing or invoices, tech support, etc., when they call software companies. These can be the three major categories people go to live chat for.

Source: Ep. 8 ā 08:28

So, when they visit the website, and the little live chat bubble appears, you can use routing. The bots in the live chat software use questions to initiate the trigger and decide the right team to which you can transfer the chat.

Separate buckets are created in the back end to transmit the conversation to the concerned teams. For example, the questions about invoices and billing are transferred to the accounts team, those about technical glitches to the tech support team, and so on.

How to Handle Random or Vague Questions?

Sometimes, people ask general random questions that don't fall into any category. Or maybe the bot is not able to understand their question correctly. Such queries are assigned to a support person in the backend, who probes a little deeper to decide where the query should be routed.

Such queries are generally routed to any of these three categories based on the nature of the questions. This process works very well here at DashClicks where we receive hundreds of tickets every day. We have set up this bucket system with Intercom, the live chat software.

With the bucket system in place, these queries are segmented and sent to the right inboxes. We automatically make routing rules for every inbox and round-robin the tickets to the specific reps.

Pro Tip: If you receive less than ten tickets a day, you don't need this strategy.

How to Scale the Live Chat System?

To scale the live chat system, you need to know the following metrics.

1. Time Taken to Answer

This metric indicates the time taken by the rep to answer the live chat ticket since the time they open the live chat while visiting your website. At DashClicks, our target is to keep it under one minute. It's crucial because nobody wants to wait for more than a minute to get their queries answered, and if it happens, they are very likely to bounce off to another alternative.

Source: Ep. 8 ā 12:10

2. Time to Close

It relates to the time taken by the reps to close the ticket. But, it's tricky as in the case of tech support, the representatives may take days or even weeks to close the tickets. Sometimes, there is a billing issue where the reps have to look into the records. If it's a tech support issue, the agents might need assistance from the development team. We don't average out the time taken to close the tickets as we usually respond, and provide answers quickly, to most of the queries. Calculating the average time taken to close the tokens will only increase the standard handling time.

3. Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a crucial metric, and you should strive to achieve a 90% or above customer satisfaction ratio. Intercom, the live chat software that we use, sends an email to the customers asking them for the customer service ratings. Apart from giving a rating between one to five, customers may also leave a review for the service reps. At DashClicks, we review these ratings every week and ensure that ratings don't fall below 90%.

There are many other metrics too, but these are the three major ones that decide the efficiency of your live chat support.

Final Words

To sum up, the following helps you make sure that you have an efficient live chat system set up:

1. Triggers going out to start conversations
2. Segmented departments for each type of ticket
3. A plan to route to round-robin efficiently so that reps can get equal distribution across tickets
4. Making sure that these metrics are maintained:
5. A good response time, ideally less than a minute
6. A good average time to close a ticket considering both the speed and quality of support
7. Above 90% customer satisfaction ratings

I hope this blog post was helpful in guiding you about scaling your live chat department. Start implementing it right away, and tell us your experience in the comments below.

To read the next blog post based on our weekly Whiteboard Wednesday sessions on YouTube, keep following this space.

Have a fantastic day!

Paid search is the most common go-to strategy for brands looking to grow online.

The problem is that without proper knowledge and experience, you’ll quickly find yourself pumping funds into PPC campaigns unnecessarily. The reason for those inflated costs might not be because of direct competition, nor is it because others are playing fair.

Sometimes aggression is necessary with a paid search strategy, but it’s defense that wins championships in top spot marketing.

Below, we’ll highlight one of the essential keys to defending the top position on Google search that you’re not currently using in your digital marketing strategies.

What is Paid Search Monitoring?

Paid search monitoring is the process of actively observing user bidding behaviors on terms trademarked by or related to your brand.

While one might assume that only your company would have a reason to bid on branded keywords, particularly aggressive competitors have other ideas. They’re poised to benefit from bidding on your terms by actively harming your marketing efforts.

A branded keyword refers to any term or phrase that describes your company and/or trademarked products and services. For example, “iPhone” is a branded keyword that belongs to Apple.

While general keywords related to the industry are fair game, there are strict rules to protect your brand from search sabotage when it comes to branded keywords. However, your team needs to have an active role in catching these violations before they have a chance to cause real damage.

Why Do Competitors Bid on Branded Keywords?

There are several reasons why a third party might actively bid on your branded keywords. These reasons include:

• Actively driving up your cost-per-click by active bidding
• Harming your UX by directing your users to unrelated content
• Stealing clicks to sabotage your marketing efforts

In other words, it’s irrelevant whether or not a bad actor wins the top spot for your branded keywords. If they succeed in increasing your monthly paid search costs, the work is already done.

However, it’s very important to understand that not all trademark infringement is intentional or hostile.

If you work with partners that actively resell on your behalf, it’s very easy for that partner to hurt your paid search efforts. The same goes for any companies that actively utilize an affiliate program to extend their marketing reach.

When one of your affiliates or partners is unaware of the rules and regulations, it becomes easy to steal clicks by using your brand’s IP in their paid ads. This results in the same negative effects, causing you to lose clicks and negatively impacting your UX.

What are the Rules for Branded Keywords in PPC Ad Campaigns?

Google dictates its advertising policies regarding trademarks in search ads here

There are a few key passages to take note of when preparing your new paid search monitoring strategy.

A. Google May Restrict the Use of Trademarks in Ad Text

To actively combat the misuse of branded keywords, Google reserves the right to restrict or remove PPC ads that utilize your trademarked terms anywhere within the ad. This includes the title, the body, images, meta descriptions, and anywhere else you could provide such a term.

B. Google Does Allow Authorized Advertisers to Use Trademarks

Google will allow other parties to utilize branded keywords if you, the trademark owner, authorize a partner or affiliate as an advertiser.

Your resellers and affiliates may use branded keywords provided that:

• The ad and/or landing page is dedicated to selling products or services related to your branded keyword
• The ad and/or landing page provides accurate information regarding the items related to the trademark

C. Google Does Not Allow Use of Trademark for Competitive Purposes

Last, but not least, this rule protects your brand from aggressive competitors.

A competing brand may not utilize your branded keywords in the title of an ad or the text to direct traffic to a competing product or service. This is the most likely scenario that occurs any time a bad actor intentionally bids on and uses your terms to create a harmful effect.

However, it is critical to note that no rules are preventing a user from simply bidding on keywords.

So long as the competitor is not violating the rule of actively using the term in the ad, they may attempt to bid on and rank for these keywords at any time.

While you can get rid of ads that violate this policy by filing an official complaint, you’ll need to get your hands dirty when it comes to honest competition. Otherwise, competitors can still dominate search results for your terms so long as their paid search strategy outperforms yours.

Image Source

How Can I Monitor Paid Search Effectively?

Now that you have official documentation regarding Google’s paid search policies on your side, you can start to actively monitor your trademarked terms.

You essentially have two options when it comes to addressing a legitimate trademark violation.

The first is to ensure that your paid search team actively monitors essential keyword bidding and traffic regularly. It will be easy to identify unusual bidding activities. You can then review who is using the term and how it is being used within the paid advertisement or website.

If you notice a violation, you can contact the webmaster directly. Inform that in an official way that they violate trademark use and Google’s advertising policies. In some cases, letting the third party know that you’re actively monitoring and protecting your brand can be enough to deter this behavior.

Alternatively, you can submit a complaint to Google directly, especially if the other party does not comply. Because this is such a common issue, Google warns that it may take time to review all submissions due to the high volume of complaints.

For this reason, it may be in your best interest to actively contact the other party in the meantime to expedite results.

Use Automated Tools to Monitor Paid Search

Despite our best efforts, some bad actors are just crafty enough to sneak by your paid search team’s active perception.

Because cheating the system is so effective, Google’s policies aren’t enough to deter all parties. Some will simply adapt and begin running ads to your trademarked terms in other locations or during unusual hours. This is a common tactic advertisers use to slip past your defensive strategies.

For this reason, relying solely on manual monitoring is generally not enough in 2022. You need automated solutions that can actively check the web for infringement. Sites like Adthena or BrandVerity promise to quickly detect infringement from competitors and partners alike.

Research your options to see what’s best for your brand or agency.

Create a Guideline Manual for Partners and Affiliates

Finally, every brand that relies on partners, resellers, or affiliates must create a definitive guideline book for advertising.

These guidelines should dictate:

• Policies enforced by search engines & paid ad platforms
• Rules & regulations unique to your brand & partnership programs

In this booklet, you’ll want to clearly define the acceptable use cases of trademark terms in partner advertising. It also helps to provide examples of what is not acceptable and explain how and why such actions can harm your company.

Furthermore, you should clearly define the possible repercussions for violations, whether it be termination of the partnership or additional legal action. Then, ensure that all partners or affiliates willfully sign this agreement before proceeding.

In most cases, trademark infringements from partners are unintentional and the result of misunderstanding the rules. If you do have any bad actors in your ranks, enforcing these guidelines will go a long way in ensuring they steer clear of actively harming your paid search strategy or brand reputation.

Defend the Top Position on Google Search

Your trademarked terms are your most valuable. Not only do they belong to your brand exclusively, but they’re also the most direct path for users to find your products and make a purchase.

Competitors know this and may actively attack those branded keywords to make advertising more expensive and actively hurt your average customer’s experience. Both can provide significant setbacks for your paid search strategy and lower your overall rankings.

Get intimate with Google’s advertising policies and make sure that your paid search team dedicates part of the week to actively monitoring third-party activity. It’s important to clamp down on violations quickly before they have an opportunity to hurt your ROI or domain authority.

Everyone wants the top spot. But, don’t forget that reaching number one means that you must actively defend yourself to stay there. Stay true to your strategy when it’s working, protect your trademarks, and keep reminding customers why you deserve to have the top position on Google search.

Just the idea of generating SEO reports may cause many to shudder. Yes, most digital marketers would agree that generating reports is not only time-consuming, it’s tedious. The truth is, you could do it within a few seconds using a white label automation software. What’s more, these reports are engaging, exhaustive, and beautiful.

White label SEO reports provide your clients with complete SEO analysis complete with insights into traffic and rankings of your website. People love them because they help them in decision-making. These colorful reports fetch data directly from the dashboard and present it in an easy-to-understand manner using the metrics crucial for decision making.

So, you can very well use it for prospecting and impressing your clients. Wish to leverage white-label reports to boost conversion, save time and increase productivity?

This article will discuss the advantages of and how you can set up white-label SEO reports.

This article covers the following topics:

1. What is a white label report?
2. What are automated SEO reports?
3. What are the benefits of automated SEO reporting?
4. How to choose an automated SEO reporting tool?
5. How to create automated white-label SEO reports for your clients?

What is a White-Label SEO Report?

White-Label SEO reports are standard reports downloaded from a tool like InstaReports. They are different because you won’t find any traces of the software that created them. Instead, the reports carry your branding and logo.

White-Label SEO reporting tools save you enormous time by fetching data from various sources and arranging it in aptly presented graphics and charts. For many agencies, they are a life-saver as they would otherwise spend countless person-hours to generate such reports.

What are Automated SEO Reports?

Most agencies send SEO reports periodically to their clients. A lot of time and effort is required to generate such reports. On top of that, some of their most productive employees are assigned this tedious manual task, hurting their productivity badly.

Automation software comes as a blessing to help you in this. Automation tools such as DashClicks InstaReports can send reports automatically regularly. No hustle is required from your side.

Set up the most crucial metrics you want on your report, add the recipient’s name, and set the frequency, i.e., weekly, fortnightly, or monthly.

InstaReports will gather your data and present it in a professional graphics-rich SEO report.

It saves you from:

• Scheduling reports repeatedly
• Errors while sending those reports, i.e., address and date mismatch, etc.

What are the Benefits of Automated SEO Reporting?

Here are the significant benefits of using automated SEO reporting -

1. It Allows You to Invest Your Time in Planning and Other Strategic Activities

Ready-to-go reports save you time, money, and productive hours of experts. It frees you to devote your resources and attention to other crucial tasks such as planning campaign activities, content creation, measurement, and supervision.

2. It Allows You to Delegate Monotonous and Boring Jobs to Machines

Most agency owners love delegating monotonous and boring routines to advanced software and tools. And it has become a trend now.

3. It Saves You Enormous Time and Money

Every minute is precious for digital marketing strategists and executives, and you shouldn't waste that on meager tasks such as preparing reports and sending them to different clients.

The number of tasks you handle per day also increases with the business growth. You can automate certain specific tasks, but you can't automate all.

4. It Helps You Get Insights Into Your Business

Sometimes, the daily grind prevents you from analyzing the growth and rankings of your agency. With automated reporting, you can fetch your website's SEO reports and share it with your team, so they can fix the issues well within time and prevent loss of traffic and revenue.

Since it takes no time, you can add it to your weekly tasks to keep your SEO team informed about the latest developments.

Most agency owners know that they should involve their team members in their website's performance and overall business growth. A little effort in this direction will pay you recurringly.

How to Choose an Automated SEO Reporting Tool?

With increasing competition in the market, it's natural to ask how to choose an automated SEO reporting tool.

Here are a few things you should keep in mind.

1. Don't Get Impressed by Their Marketing

Loud marketing doesn't mean that you are getting the best deal. Know your basics and assess how the software can help you deal with your specific issues and add value to your business. It should help you in your client retention.

2. Your Software Should Be Easy to Set Up

If it requires more time and hassle to set up, then it defeats the very purpose it's created for. DashClicks' InstaReports is easy to set up and offers many features that will stun you.

3. It Should Help You in Prospecting

Your automated SEO reporting tool should help you in prospecting. It's one innovative use of the tool that we recommend to our users. The beautiful reports presented by the tool can instantly be created and used to impress your prospects. This approach helps you get an appointment quickly. Here is the entire modus operandi of prospecting with InstaReports you can try for excellent results.

4. It Should Help You Structure Your Sales Process

Your SEO reporting tool should help you structure your entire sales process. The following video explains what each sales process step is meant to accomplish. It also explains how to structure your closing call. Learn what to say to your prospects and how to ask for money.

5. It Should Offer Real-Time Data

Since your reporting software is all about analytics, it must provide updated and fresh data. It should search, collect, and analyze the information in real-time. Since the reports are used for decision-making, it may affect the quality of strategic decisions if you don't get updated data.

6. It Should Allow Customization

Your reporting software should allow customization according to clients' specific needs. InstaReports is the best SEO reporting tool in the market as it enables you to choose the metrics according to your clients' needs and set different report-sharing frequencies. You can decide how often the reports are sent in a month and when. You can choose to send weekly, fortnightly, monthly or bi-monthly reports from its frequency settings.

7. It Should Allow Keywords Segmentation

At times, you need to track thousands of keywords for different clients, and you also want your reports to be neat and clean at the same time. So, if your reporting tool offers keyword segmentation, you can easily separate branded keywords from popular ranking keywords. You can also combine keyword groups. It allows you to customize your reports' setup to get the required insights.

8. It Should Also Provide Insights About On-Page or Technical SEO

Your reporting tool should provide in-depth information about on-page SEO, also known as technical SEO. On-Page SEO is a crucial factor in ranking, and you can't ignore it, especially if you have a large website with multiple pages.

9. It Should Provide Progress Reports

The ultimate purpose of an SEO report is to provide a bird’s-eye view of the progress made. It should also figure out the milestones to achieve. Most users need the following information points in the reports:

• Overview of position/ranking changes
• Search volume and potential of the keywords
• Traffic brought by different keywords
• Distribution of positions across the website

To provide stunning SEO reports, your reporting software should use state-of-the-art technology and be glitch-free. Still, it can't be ideal for all kinds of customers as many use their tools for branded SEO reports. However, agencies should have access to a tool that offers impressive features, works in real-time, and provides insightful reports for quick decision-making.

DashClicks' InstaReports, for example, comes very close. Apart from monitoring the performance of your website, it also provides you with the action steps required to fix those issues.

Furthermore, you can use it for business purposes as it offers precise reports in seconds.

It's not a standalone software, as it works on the DashClicks white-label platform and is powered by DashClicks' ecosystem comprising many other applications.

How to Create Automated White-Label SEO Reports for Your Clients Using InstaReports?

InstaReports uses the contact information available in your Contacts app to generate standard SEO reports. You can use it to sell your services.

InstaReports will automatically analyze a user's website performance when you feed the necessary information to it. It also provides a list of errors in your website and the optimizations you need to perform.

To access the InstaReports app, go to the app drawer in the top right corner of the DashClicks white-label dashboard>>Click on InstaReports>>Go to Templates.

The default page contains eight unique templates. However, only one is currently available, titled “Digital Overview.”

It provides a complete overview of the client’s online presence.

It includes the following:

• Social media presence
• Directory listings
• Business reviews
• Google ads and Facebook ads
• Website health SEO

A specific score is assigned to each metric. Click on “Preview” to see the demo report. Navigate further and see what it looks like.

Now hover over and click “Build.”

The second tab in the InstaReports app is “My InstaReports.” It includes the table of InstaReports your team builds. If a report is pending from your side, the table will appear empty.

For more details, click this video link.

Final Thoughts

Reporting is a necessary evil for many, but it shouldn't be taxing and time-consuming. We hope this article explains why it's so crucial to use automated SEO reports and how to use these reports for prospecting, evaluating website performance, and decision making. We also explained how to use these SEO reporting tools and the main factors that will propel you to use automated reports from now on. Let's hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Selling digital marketing and SEO services can be challenging for a newbie agency. Increasing competition, lack of trust, and price wars are some reasons. So, why don't you develop an irresistible offer that people can't reject so quickly?

Digital marketing starts with the creation of a professional website. Agencies should sell websites to their clients as part of their SEO and digital marketing package. Sometimes, the website's look, design, and user interface can be a game-changerāa good website matters when you start web-marketing your business. After all, things that are well begun are already half done.

This article will explain how you can instantly create a professional-grade niche-based website of 50-60 pages using the InstaSites tool and resell it for free to your prospects.

What is the "InstaSites" Tool?

A brilliant marketing idea is to create a content-ready website for prospecting purposes. When a client sees a pretty-looking yet professional website that can engage and convert visitors and has the potential to rank high on search engines, they are impressed. But creating professional websites in bulk for prospecting purposes is easier said than done. If you have the experience of getting a website designed by designers and developers, you must be familiar with the back and forth involved with the process. It involves multiple rejections and endless rounds of feedback to even get one website up and running.

DashClicks came up with a beautiful solution to this problem. We combined the power of software with strategy, and a lethal prospecting tool was born, namely InstaSites. With InstaSites, you can create multiple websites with a single click and show them to your prospects. All you need to do is choose a template based on your client's specific niche and enter the essential details. You can create multiple functional websites this way.

DashClicks Platform is created explicitly for agency owners who want to scale their business. Apart from that, you can also use the platform to use important agency tools and client reporting tools, gain education, and access a single dashboard to monitor campaigns.

This article will explain how you can build and sell professional websites that can be created instantly and used for prospecting.

InstaSites was developed as an instant website creation tool almost three years ago. The idea was to create something that nobody has produced so far.

Creating an Irresistible Offer

Cold calling is the best way of prospecting, but are you doing the same thing everybody else is doing? Most agencies offer a free consultation, website analysis, and reporting, so what else are you bringing to the table? How can you win the deal if you don't differentiate yourselves from others?

How to Create a Website with InstaSites?

The tool's free version offers three insight belts per month and a single site builder. So, you can fill out the given form, and the software will create a professional website for you. It will remain in the tool's internal storage until you buy it and make it live.

You can choose from different templates meant for specific industries. We have dedicated web developers to develop these templates and content writers to add well-researched, quality content to them. If you select the insights plan, you can buy the website by paying a one-time fee of just $97 and a monthly fee of $25 for hosting. You also get access to the drag and drop platform. Once you do this, your client gets added to the dashboard automatically.

As far as conversion rate is concerned, SMS and email marketing both are effective, but SMS is far more effective as it has more chances of being seen.

DashClicks also allows you to send a link for the newly-created website to your clients through email or SMS, whichever is your preferred way of communication.

DashClicks' website builder "InstaSites" is different from the GoDaddy site-builder that most business owners use. It offers niche-based templates developed individually by our developers, so the websites don't look similar. It has relevant sections for each niche. For example, a residential painting website will include every single residential painting service such as roof painting, interior painting, and exterior painting docks, etc.

So, apart from access to the drag and drop web builder, your clients also get access to an actual dashboard, which is entirely white-labeled for your agency. Now, they can edit the site whenever they want. Along with that, your client also gets access to the CRM, where they will be able to review and get new leads.

How to Resell a Website Created with InstaSites?

The best way to sell digital marketing or SEO services is to create an irresistible offer. DashClicks has come up with a sales strategy for agencies that is ten times more effective than traditional sales strategies. In this, you resell a professional-grade website created with InstaSites for free and turn your prospects smoothly into your customers. Afterward, you can upsell your SEO and digital marketing services to your existing clients, which is more straightforward than selling your services to a stranger.

1. Making an Irresistible Offer

We have already explained how you can create a 50-60 page website using the InstaSites tool. The next step is to approach your prospects.

2. The Perfect Script for Your First Sales Call

How about approaching your clients saying,

"Hey! I have scanned your business and took the last couple of weeks to build a niche-based custom website as I felt that your current website was not serving the purpose. When you run paid ads, visitors come to your old website and may get turned off. My team and I have spent the last few weeks building a custom website designed specifically to attract and convert visitors to your business. I think you'd like it. Here is the quick link for you to view it. I can share the link via email, SMS, or instant messaging so that you can check it right away."

Your prospect is more likely to say "yes" if you approach them that way. Most people will be tempted to see how the new custom and responsive website looks. What's more, you've written the entire content, created graphics, and made a 40-50 page website for them. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Why would someone do that and spend so much time and resources on it? That is, unless they're already serious about working with you!

This helps your prospects trust you from the get-go, and is one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from others. Now, think about taking it to the next level.

3. Take It to the Next Level and 10X Your Results

Build a call center, call your prospects, share the newly created website you've designed explicitly for them, and fix an appointment.

This approach breaks the barriers of cold calling in which the prospect has no idea who you are and why you have called them. It happens in the absence of the trust factor. It increases the rejection rate and makes sales one of the most challenging jobs in the world.

4. Building Trust

Notice the difference in approach here. You're not begging for someone's precious time or attention. Instead, you have already spent time on their website and business and worked hard to build trust. All they need to do now is simply take a look at the website. This way, you break that crucial barrier of trust and help the relationship grow further.

Imagine calling someone, offering them a product with immense value, something they can clearly see. And the best part, you don't ask for their credit card first.

The Secret Formula to Get 100 Sales Appointments a Day

Do some simple math to check how practical this approach is. Let's consider you make about 100 or 150 calls a day. Out of these, only 50 answered the phone. Out of these 50 people, only 30% gave you an appointment. You will do good if you have just 15 confirmed appointments every single day. It can be a game-changer.

Now, if you have ten telemarketing executives in your call center, the total appointments booked per day can easily exceed 150. Even if these numbers fluctuate a bit, you'll end up getting at least 100 appointments every day.

How to Subscribe to InstaSites?

To subscribe to InstaSites, sign in to your DashClicks account and click on agency>>Main Menu>>Agency Tools>>Insights.

Now you'll reach the subscriptions page.

One option is to offer the website for free and then package it with other marketing services. DashClicks usually charges $4K-5K for a 50-page website.

Step By Step Formula to Sell Your Digital Marketing Services

Here are the steps to sell your digital marketing services, beginning from offering InstaSites.

1. Create professional websites using InstaSites for your target audience, and then:
2. Set up a call center
3. Ask your sales rep to offer custom websites free of charge to your prospects
4. Send preview links for the websites to the prospects
5. After three days, call up again to know their feedback about the preview
6. Ask their permission to activate the site if they are happy with the preview
7. After one week, call them again to know their feedback on the website, and:
8. Offer local listings on some major listing networks
9. Get these services fulfilled through DashClicks’ white label fulfillment center
10. After two weeks offer SEO or Google Ads services and get them fulfilled through DashClicks.
11. After six weeks offer social media account management and posting services and get them fulfilled through DashClicks.

When you offer an InstaSite to a client, it’s not complete in all respects. You can assure the client that you will complete it and add the desired content since you’ve already built it.

You can also add that you can help them with the SEO and Google Ads for their business and drive traffic to their brand new website that you are offering them for free. “Do you think it would be cool?” Most people will respond in the affirmation.

One week after you have shared the link to their dream website, you can call them again, introduce yourself, and say that you had activated an excellent website for them a week ago; and that you just wanted to know if they liked the website. Add that you wanted some feedback for your team. You have worked hard on the design and got it up so fast, so it looks better than your prospect's existing website.

Furthermore, you're offering a 60-page website for just $200, whereas they usually pay around 4K dollars for such a website. That's awesome! You can say that since you are calling from the customer service department, you also took a look at the web marketing of your website, and you can help them a bit with traffic and online marketing as well.

You can inform them that they aren't receiving enough traffic. Your prospect's Google Maps listings are insufficient, and they are not posting on social media consistently. If they want to increase the traffic to their website, you can sign them in for an ongoing promotion, where you'll create 70 crucial local listings on some major listing networks for just $199. These listing networks include some fantastic networks such as Google Business listing and Yelp, etc. Tell them that you will send a list of networks after the call.

Pro Tip: Don't be too aggressive, especially in the beginning. Be strategic with your offerings, fees, and outreach.

People make the mistake of offering everything in the beginning for several thousand dollars and, as a result, lose most of the prospects. Offer value but most importantly, approach gradually and slowlyā in bits.

After three weeks, you can call again. We are assuming that they have already activated the website and availed of the local listing services at this stage. Ask them for their feedback so you can share it with your team. When you hear about the positive feedback for your exemplary services, you can move to the next level.

Congratulate your clients and wish them more success. Also, add that they are not consistently posting on their social media channels, and you can provide this service for a reasonable cost. Tell them that social media is an excellent source of leads and brand building, and they shouldn't ignore that. You can also inform them that their website is not ranking for the popular keywords in their niche and that you also provide quality SEO services to them. As you're running a promotion these days, they can get a decent discount on these services.

Again you can price your SEO services @$99 a month, and that's a promotional price. You'll not win the contracts frequently if you offer the combined services at $10K per month. Selling twenty websites at $199 per month is always better than selling one website for $10K a year. So, aim for volumes and add them in a sequence. Avoid overselling. Keep it realistic and repeatable.

If you charge $49 per month for a website and sell 20 such websites, your monthly earnings will be $980.

When you pay the fees for white-label dashboards, you consistently earn a handsome income. Moreover, you don't savagely charge thousands of dollars from a single customer. Besides that, you earn recurring revenue.

Furthermore, DashClicks doesn't charge any setup fee from the agencies, so you can keep that in your pocket.

When you sell SEO services, don't charge a setup fee of $99. Instead, set a reasonable price of $99 per month because you can justify that.

After two months, when your client's website starts ranking for specific keywords, you can offer your PPC services as well.

The idea is to offer a website to interest your prospects, and let DashClicks do all the hard work. It's that simple.

Sales Call Script for Call Center Executives

Here is a sample sales call script for your reference.

"Hey Sam, how are you doing? My name is XYZ. I'm calling from ABC digital marketing agency, and I would like to tell you that I was going through your website. I see that your website design is outdated, and it has content that is not optimized for search engines. As a result, the website is not performing well in Google. So, I discussed it with my web development team and built a brand new website for you. It may sound crazy since I'm making a random call, but we are passionate about working with you.

So, I took the time to find the critical issues with your website and created a professional-grade website relevant to your niche that contains optimized content to rank better on search engines. I'm looking for similar businesses in this area to work with as I have expertise in this niche. I would love to send you the link to the website specifically created for you. This link contains the preview. If you are interested, I can activate that for you. So, may I know your email address, or if you want, I can also send you the preview link via SMS.

I'll send you the link through an email and a text message, which will include my contact information at the bottom. All you need to do is fill out a form and enter your industry. So, would it be okay if I send you this link?ā€¯

If your prospect is busy and can't check their email right away, reschedule and call at some other time. Keep on sending notifications to remind them that you are willing to talk to them.

Conclusion

As an agency owner, you can access the InstaSites and DashClicks dashboard and start marketing your services today. It's a proven plan. Create and offer professional-grade websites for free. If the client likes it, tell them about the additional digital marketing services you provide. You can easily start getting more clients and make more money from your existing services this way.

The DashClicks dashboard also allows you to send custom emails for your outreach efforts. By doing all this, DashClicks makes your life easier as an agency owner. To know more about how InstaSites are built and marketed, click here.

Increasing customer lifetime value (CLV) is more vital than acquiring new customers for growing businesses.

It can cost five times more to acquire new customers than to nurture existing ones. Several factors contribute to how costly it is for a brand to acquire new customers including:

• Industry
• Marketing channels utilized
• The efficiency of your marketing strategy
• The current economic climate

Spending budget and resources to acquire new customers simply for a one-time purchase will hurt your bottom line in the long term. That's why learning how to increase your customer lifetime value is essential if you want to remain profitable.

In this article, we're going to help define customer lifetime value, how to calculate CLV, and the 12 most effective tactics you can implement to increase yours starting today.

What is Customer Lifetime Value?

Customer lifetime value is a metric that defines how much a single customer is worth to a business for the duration of their lifecycle. In other words, the more a customer spends on your brand, the higher their CLV.

You can calculate CLV in the following way:

The customer value is equal to their average purchase value times the average number of purchases in that lifespan. The lifespan simply defines the length of time since your brand acquired them as a new customer.

Therefore, the way to increase CLV is to convince customers to either make more purchases or spend more per transaction.

How do you make this happen? Let's dive into our top 12 tactics every business should use to increase the lifetime value of a customer.

Tip 1 - Make it Easy to Get Started

Whether you're selling a physical product or a service, your business must prioritize its onboarding process. The easier it is for a customer to get their foot in the door, the easier it will be to get them to convert.

According to a study, up to 67% of customer churn may be attributed to bad experiences during the onboarding process. The same study shows that more than half of buyers would be willing to pay you more just for a better experience.

The easiest way to optimize your customer experience is by interviewing clients directly. Investigate their pain points and formulate an improved process that grants consumers access to what they want faster.

You can do this by creating separate onboarding processes based on what the person is consuming. If you acquire a new prospect due to interest in a specific service, avoid wasting their time by having them fill out unnecessary paperwork that benefits you only and provides no value to them.

Businesses can also determine what information is necessary to create the initial account. That way, users can get started with the service, while you notify them at a later point to finalize the process at their convenience.

Furthermore, don't hesitate to remind consumers of why they're signing up throughout the process. Sometimes, a lengthier process may be necessary, so don't let them lose sight of the value they'll obtain at the end of the minor inconvenience.

Tip 2 - Offer a Personalized Experience

A survey shows that up to 65% of buyers are likely to switch to a different brand if the current one doesn't offer personalized communications. Similar surveys suggest that those same buyers are looking for personalization over speed, which is something to consider when reviewing the tip above.

Consider some of the most popular websites on the internet like Amazon or Facebook. Prepare your customer-facing teams with the right interview prep to ensure they align with your brand’s values and enhance customer loyalty. Both sites focus on different types of service, but both tailor the experience to the individual.

Those who log in experience recommendations specific to their interests, communications with their name, and product promotions based on previous activity. They never have to waste their time sifting through information that doesn't apply to their buyer persona.

Your brand must consider how to personalize the user experience for each individual that logs in to your website.

eCommerce sites can store browsing history and promote similar items.

Subscription service sites like DashClicks offer each account user the ability to create their client dashboard and notification settings.

That personalized experience not only makes the customer feel special but makes it easier to discover new ways to spend money. For every additional purchase they make, you successfully increase their CLV.

Tip 3 - Upsell and Cross-Sell

Offering upsells and cross-sells is a powerful way to offer that personalized experience described above.

When a new customer moves toward the checkout process, they've already decided to spend money on your brand. With that persuasion process successfully out of the way, the customer is now primed to potentially spend more if the offer is right.

However, you wouldn't offer an unrelated product or service and call it an upsell. An example of a proper upgrade would be to sell a keyboard or mouse to someone who's already buying a new computer. The consumer is already committed to spending the bulk of the value, so adding a bit more to the purchasing cost is an easier sell.

Meanwhile, those suggested products offer additional value to the customer by enhancing the benefits of the original product or service. Instead of simply trying to sell more, your brand appears helpful by understanding exactly what they'll need to be satisfied.

Upselling is not always about offering additional products but can be used to push a higher-tier subscription service. You can collect data about your users and make recommendations when you notice that they are reaching current account limits or restrictions regularly.

These types of actions can be automated, and you are once again personalizing those suggestions to that user's personal experience. They'll be grateful that you are aware of their needs and the offer reminder will inevitably convince many customers to convert and spend more.

Tip 4 - Address Payment Issues

Did you know that up to 40% of a company's customer churn can be attributed to payment failures? That makes it the premier cause of involuntary churn, which is devastating for your CLV.

Both new and existing customers can have their payment method declined at any point for the following reasons:

• Incorrect card number / CVV
• Change of address
• Insufficient funds
• Flagged activity
• Communication errors

There are dozens of additional reasons that payment can fail at any time that is not the fault of you or the customer. Nonetheless, one too many failed payments can cause a customer to abandon your brand for another where they can avoid these types of interruptions.

An easy, cost-effective way to combat this issue is to automate reminders to those who need to update their payment method. If your system notices a card is reaching its expiration date, send a gentle reminder to the user to empower them to avoid service interruptions.

Additionally, you should consider utilizing a billing system that allows for payment retries if you don't have one already. If a customer that regularly pays without incident suddenly experiences a failure, you can manually retry the payment without having to bother the customer.

Software like Retain or ChargeSentry promises to offer automated solutions for this specific problem. Avoid letting this solvable problem get in the way of your business growth.

Tip 5 - Emphasize Value & Benefits

A proven method for increasing customer retention is to regularly remind them of the value and benefits they receive through your brand.

When a customer has been paying for a service for a long period, it can be easy to take it for granted. They may face a period where they are examining their spending and considering cutting your brand from their budget.

Virtually every major online storefront from Amazon to Best Buy, to Home Depot, keeps track of customer activity throughout the year. Using this data, these companies can and do create personalized messaging that highlights metrics such as:

• Amount saved by shopping with that brand
• Amount saved through promotions & offers
• Number of additional rewards obtained through loyalty or rewards programs
• The number of exclusive discounts obtained

While these examples apply to more retail and eCommerce-oriented environments, service and software companies can also apply these principles.

For another example, we use software like Grammarly for this very content. Grammarly then sends weekly email updates demonstrating how often we use the software and how many words they check and optimize for us.

After reminding us of how often we depend on the software, they occasionally throw in mention of exclusive offers or updates to take advantage of to further enhance the value and benefits we obtain.

This type of internal messaging or email marketing is far superior to sending out the same standardized content you would send to any prospect. Remember that personalization is essential for not only getting more from customers but for keeping them onboard indefinitely.

Tip 6 - Offer Superior Customer Service

A huge advantage to bringing your brand online is the ability to provide stellar customer service.

Any time you can communicate with your audience and solve a problem, you are providing that service. With that in mind, you can utilize countless marketing channels such as your website, social media, live chat, and more to provide constant support.

Customers will measure your brand by this, as well. A Microsoft survey found that 96% of respondents feel that customer service is a determining factor in making a purchase. Likewise, a similar study found that 89% of consumers switched brands following a poor customer service experience.

In other words, your brand must make customer service a priority. However, simply being polite and offering your expertise is just the baseline of what's expected in 2022.

More customers are likely to turn to customer support options in areas other than your dedicated live chat on a website. Younger demographics, especially, are likely to search for your brand on social media before going anywhere else. If you're on social media, they want a prompt response in 60 minutes or less.

This highlights one of the many reasons that having a dedicated social media manager is essential for digital marketing. Not only will they help your brand connect and gain exposure, but they can also be on hand to address customer queries throughout the day without delay.

You can also improve your customer service response times by leveraging a chatbot to handle basic queries. Sites like ManyChat or Chatbot allow you to create customized scripts to help customers get the answers they need.

Brands can supplement automation like chatbots by linking to additional resources. Help center libraries can often help users solve basic issues without the need for an actual human response. That interaction is becoming less necessary as more people are becoming capable of using technology to overcome hurdles.

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Meanwhile, you'll still have your dedicated support team on standby to aid with support requests that cannot be solved alone.

Be quick with your responses. Be ready to provide accurate knowledge and solve the problem quickly. Finally, have company rules in place to empower your support team to keep customers happy in those tricky scenarios where there isn't a spectacular solution to the issue.

Tip 7 - Deploy a Rewards Program

Rewards programs are everywhere. You can't shop anywhere in person or online without an attendant asking you to sign up for one.

The reason for this is that a customer rewards program provides a built-in loyalty incentive. Your marketing has already done the job of persuading a person to shop with your company. You can then reward that customer simply for choosing to shop with your brand.

Those rewards can come in a variety of forms. The most common type is to offer some form of money back compensation for every dollar they spend. Consumers can then convert those points into coupons, sweepstake entries, or anything else you might be able to offer without hurting your bottom line.

Credit card companies also offer cash back incentives, while transportation companies typically offer some form of mileage incentive for each trip purchased.

Consider how your brand can create an attractive, customized rewards program that provides even more value to your customers. If a loyal customer may consider shopping elsewhere, thinking of their potential rewards can often be enough to keep them focused on you.

Tip 8 - Start a Customer Feedback Program

If you want to learn how to keep your customers loyal, ask them directly.

Something you never want to do as a business owner is to get caught in the trap of believing you always know what's best for the customer. Despite your best efforts, it can be very easy to overlook what seems like a minor issue. However, mild problems and small annoyances can be enough to cause customer churn when there's always a better option available.

This type of program does not have to be fancy. Utilize your email marketing to follow through with customers that utilize any aspect of your services.

Check-in with customers that purchase products or services and ask them to provide feedback. If they're particularly satisfied, you can use those testimonials to further your social proof online. If they share criticisms, take note. If enough customers share similar criticisms, your team can get to work on making the proper changes.

You can also gather customer feedback by making sure that your brand is listed on listing websites like Yelp or Google My Business. This grants additional exposure and provides another channel for customers to rate and review your company.

Finally, you should also ask for customer feedback when it comes to your customer service. This can help you smooth out your support process, analyze the performance of each representative, and let your customers know that their thoughts and feelings are valued.

Tip 9 - Offer Upgrades and Bonuses to Loyal Customers

Everyone loves getting something for free. Consumers love it, even more, when those gifts come unexpectedly from a brand they already use.

This provides a similar effect to a Rewards program. However, the surprising nature of it will make the consumer realize that you do think of and value them as an individual customer. Some may simply value the gesture, while others may choose to remain loyal in hopes of additional bonuses.

The key is to come up with bonuses that provide value without actually costing you additional money. If you're selling a product that directly competes with similar items, consider what bonus items you could add to the order for free. A bonus gift with purchase is a useful tactic that can tip the purchasing decision in your favor.

Other examples of this tactic can be seen in airline companies. Due to the hectic nature of the industry, your plane may be full or there may unexpectedly be empty seats. Loyal customers are always the first names picked when offering that free upgrade. The brand takes care of the consumers that take care of them.

Bonuses do not have to be limited to existing customers, however. With the right strategy, you can create a welcome package for first-time customers to make an excellent first impression.

After all, each customer is new at some point, and the extra attention and care may be just the solution to keep them coming back.

Tip 10 - Create Annual Memberships

Almost every SaaS company now provides multiple membership options to its customers.

Consumers can typically choose between monthly, bi-annual, or annual membership plans. Those brands then typically offer discounted rates for those who commit to the longer plans as opposed to going month-to-month.

The reason for this is that when a customer commits to an entire year, you automatically boost your customer's lifetime value. Meanwhile, they obtain a better value right out of the gate as the math works out to be less per month for the annual plan.

The trick to a structured tier plan is to work out the pricing in a way that's advantageous to your brand. Companies are not taking a hit when offering annual discounts.

Instead, pricing is configured in a way that allows the brand to remain profitable while incentivizing consumers to commit to the long-term. If they cannot commit to an annual membership, they'll typically end up paying more for the monthly membership.

Let's look at the popular streaming service Disney+ as an example:

• Monthly Membership - $8/Month or $96/Year
• Annual Membership - $80/Year

Both memberships offer affordable pricing, but the annual plan saves consumers nearly $20 overall.

The monthly plan stays in place for those that are not comfortable with paying the lump sum in one transaction. However, they pay almost $2 more per month for that convenience.

Regardless of what plan the customer chooses, both serve to increase your CLV. You make a greater profit from the monthly customer while rewarding those loyal customers that choose to commit for the long-term. In either case, your company makes the desired revenue.

You can structure your tiers to offer customers something that makes sense for your brand and industry. The most vital tip is to make sure that each of those tiers provides value to the customer. You still want your monthly customers to feel appreciated while providing a natural incentive for them to choose a different tier whenever possible.

Tip 11 - Start a Referral Program

Referral programs can sometimes be conflated with the rewards program we discussed previously.

Rewards programs offer bonuses to a single customer for continued purchases from your company.

Referral programs reward those customers for sharing your products and services with those in their social and professional circles.

Referral programs can boost your CLV differently by effectively giving you free advertising. That customer doesn't necessarily need to make an additional purchase to add value. If your brand obtains five new customers as a result of one person's referral, you gain more revenue for what you paid to acquire a single customer only.

Customers may naturally refer to your brand provided that you offer exceptional products, services, and customer care. However, incentivizing customers to refer to your brand doesn't hurt your cause.

In the B2B space, 78% of marketers claim that leads from referrals are of better quality than from other sources. For marketers overall, 60% stated that such programs generated a higher volume of leads.

That marriage of both quantity and quality of leads is exactly the ingredient every brand needs to boost their average CLV.

Common incentives to encourage referrals can include:

• Discounts on future purchases/subscriptions
• Actual cash rewards
• Bonus products/services relevant to the core offering

You can learn more about designing a quality referral program by checking out this handy guide courtesy of ReferralRock. They are a high-quality referral software provider that can help your program get up and running quickly.

Tip 12 - Make All of it Convenient

Last, but certainly not least, our top tip is to ensure that your brand offers convenience.

What makes digital marketing so intense is that there are thousands of companies vying for the same audience's attention 24/7. While many of these strategies may be new to you, countless business owners are already deploying their programs to cement customer loyalty.

With that said, your customer experience will be nothing if it is not as easy and intuitive as possible for consumers to navigate.

However, your brand can continuously optimize the buyer journey to be more convenient by deploying each of these previous tips listed above.

Simplify the onboarding process, make it easy to add and update payment information, and provide exceptional customer support options at every step. While you may be online, think of each customer interaction as if you were face-to-face with them. Provide swift responses, high-quality information, and let them know that you're invested in their problems.

The better you understand the consumer experience and address those pain points, the better you will become at making your process more convenient for your unique audience.

Start Increasing Your Customer Lifetime Value

You can summarize all twelve of these tips in one important lesson: value your customers.

If you treat customers as disposable, they will just as quickly find a competitor that's happy to succeed where you are failing. Anyone adept in digital marketing can bring new leads to the door, but it takes an exceptional customer experience that only you can provide to make the difference.

Even as you explore new options and finetune your programs, showing appreciation and listening to your audience will keep customers satisfied. However, by delivering a unique, personalized experience, you'll find ways to convert everyday people into customers for life.