Silence Costs: How Neglecting Your Contact Page Hurts Your Business Marketing

I've been thinking a lot about contact pages on business websites, mostly because I have sent out some inquiries through contact pages on websites for services that I'm interested in booking. I haven't heard anything back, and it's been weeks. 

Not only is it extremely frustrating for someone who wants to hand money over for services like yesterday to these businesses, but it could be better PR and Marketing.

If you aren't going to respond to inquiries via contact pages, why do you even offer one?

Here's why I say this…

Your contact page is not only the OG of lead generation but also sets the pace for the user experience with your business or brand. It is the first line of direct contact and communication. 

1. Establishing Trust and Credibility

A well-thought-out contact page featuring clear and accessible information instantly conveys professionalism and reliability to visitors. It serves as a direct channel for customers to reach out to your business, showcasing transparency and a willingness to engage with your audience. Users who can easily find your contact details are more likely to trust your brand and perceive it as legitimate.

2. Encouraging Customer Engagement

By providing multiple communication channels, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and social media links on your contact page, you empower visitors to choose their preferred method of interaction. This enhances user experience and encourages customers to engage with your brand, ask questions, and provide feedback. An engaged customer is more likely to become a loyal customer.

3. Enhancing User Experience

A streamlined contact page contributes to overall website usability and enhances the user experience. Visitors should be able to locate your contact information effortlessly without navigating through multiple pages. Clear and concise contact details improve navigation and ensure that users can quickly contact your business.

4. Generating Leads and Inquiries

A strategically optimized contact form on your contact page can be a powerful lead-generation tool. By carefully designing form fields and calls to action, you can encourage visitors to submit inquiries, sign up for newsletters, or request consultations. An effective contact form can convert visitors into valuable leads for your business.

The Impact of Neglecting Contact Page Inquiries

When a business neglects customer inquiries submitted through the contact page, the repercussions can be more significant than they might anticipate. Failing to respond promptly or effectively to these communications can significantly impact the business's reputation, customer satisfaction, and overall success.

Customer Dissatisfaction

By ignoring customer inquiries, businesses signal their audience that they are not valued or respected. This can lead to frustration, disappointment, and, ultimately, dissatisfaction with the brand. Customers who need to be addressed will likely seek out competitors who prioritize their needs and provide timely responses.

Lost Opportunities

Every contact form submission represents a potential opportunity for the business. Whether it's a sales inquiry, a partnership proposal, or simply a question about the products or services offered, failing to respond means missing out on valuable leads and potential conversions. Pay attention to these inquiries to avoid lost sales and missed connections with potential customers.

Damaged Reputation

Word travels fast; customers who feel unheard or ignored by a business will likely share their negative experiences online through reviews, social media posts, and forums. This can damage the business's reputation, leading to a loss of trust and credibility among existing and prospective customers. Poor customer service can have lasting effects on a brand's image and make attracting and retaining customers challenging.

Decreased Customer Loyalty

Effective communication is critical to building solid relationships with customers. By neglecting contact page inquiries, businesses miss out on opportunities to engage with their audience, address concerns, and provide assistance when needed. This lack of communication can erode customer loyalty over time, as customers may feel undervalued and unsupported by the business.

In all of this, I am glad that I reached out to my first choices for the services I was looking for because now I know they do not fully deserve my business, and I'm likely not to refer any other company to them. Those are the cold, hard facts of the digital situations we are all in. 

If you have made it this far, check the email your contact forms go to and respond to them promptly because you are losing potential and future business.

Analyzing Your Online Efforts

If you are a business there is one intimate relationship that you need to be having. That is the relationship with your analytics. You should have an ongoing relationship with your Google, website and all active social media platform analytics. 

I know that you are out there reading articles about what is the ideal time to post to my account. While these posts aren't wrong in the posting times, they suggest just not work entirely toward when YOUR audience is active. The key to figuring out your ideal posting time is research, reading your analytic reports from Google and whichever other platforms you are focusing on. For example, you might be throwing all of your efforts into posting onto Instagram but you have 25% more traffic coming to your website from your Facebook page that you hardly ever update. This statistic should trigger in your brain to refocus your efforts and test for 5-7 days upping your Facebook posting habits to see if they remain the same, increase or decline. 

Every single one of the accounts I manage is different, some have a crossover on the niche, but each of their ideal clients is different and unique to them as a business. Therefore making the "sweet spot" of posting times different for each of them. I know this because I am in an intimate relationship with their analytics. I'm checking daily the report of the previous day, how many profile visits, how many website clicks, what time of day was this all happening. 

Social media isn't black and white it's a whole lot of gray. Things are continually changing, and you've got to regularly read your analytics and actively test to find what is working. If you're not you are wasting your time by putting in any effort at all.  I encourage you to peek your social media analytics, Facebook and Instagram will display for you your top three posts of all time. Take a look at them and study what is the same or different about them.  Study your location sources, I recently did an assessment for a client and the second and third most popular sources were coming from Canada which is a place we weren't even targeting, and the places we were targeting came in sixth and seventh. We had to refocus and study what we were throwing down and why we weren't getting the attention from the locations we were hoping too. 

It's tricky I wish there was an easier way but this online relationship is the most dramatic, active and complicated one your business is going to have, so you need to take the reins and make your efforts work with you not against you.  If not you're just wasting your precious time. 

Must Love Media Kits

Media Kit. Two words that create a big punch.

What is a media kit you might ask? Well it's a multi-page document that businesses use to promote themselves and sell their services to potential clients. 

Who uses a media kit? Traditionally media kits have been used for magazine publication, but they've evolved into something that is beneficial for everyone to bloggers, photographers, writers, designers and other small businesses in between. Basically this document is a resume for your business, a way of describing who you are when you are unable to meet in person. 

Do you offer services or advertising in your business model? Then you for sure are in need of a media kit. The media kit is a great tool because it essentially gives potential clients all of the information they could possibly need in one easy to navigate document while often cutting  correspondence time in half because it’s already answered most of their questions.

Media kits can be formatted to market nearly any business. Whether you’re a blogger, writer, photographer or designer, a media kit is simply a way to explain what you offer in a streamlined, informative document. The easier you can make it for your clients to understand what you’re offering and how to book you, the more successful your business has the potential to be.

Below are the Six Things that MUST be included in your media kit.

I'm not going to lie this is a very time consuming document to create but I promise you that it will be the most important document in your arsenal.  

Instagram Workshop For Your Business

"I've been a small business for 6 years. If I didn't understand how to compose great photos I would not still be in business. I actually arrange my work flow around good photo content. Social media + good photos = sell things." Tamara Young Consign Couture

Just like every business owner, every business is different, and their social media feed should reflect that. When I first sign on a client, sometimes their Instagram feeds just need another pair of eyes.   Which is totally acceptable because not everyone is born a photographer or a marketer.  If they are a client that lives near me, we grab a coffee and we talk photography basics,  how to get the best photo, how to to up their hashtag and engagement game. 

All of this perked an idea in me, why not team up and ask my "staff" brand photographer that I use for all the website revamps to teach a workshop on how to get a killer social media photo with just your phone.  I pitched her and she said yes, so here it is a two part workshop happening in April at my favorite work from space The Society Hotel.  

In week one brand photographer Ashley Courter will teach you photography basics and assign you some homework. In week two I will help you with your homework and help your business with industry specific hashtags and tips on how to build an authentic following which will turn likes into sales. 

There are still spots available, sign up via the workshop tab.  Come enjoy lattes, wine, snacks all while learning to level up your businesses Instagram game. 

Responsibilities

When someone hear's the term "Social Media VA" I'm convinced the first thing that comes to their mind is that all that person does is sit and scroll Instagram then pin a bunch of items the rest of the day on Pinterest.  

Yes, scrolling Instagram is part of the job responsibilities, but what not very many people know however is that being a social media manager requires a TON of content planning in advance.

Think Instagram is really instant? Think again, quite a few of those feeds you love and follow, chances are they carefully thought out, weeks and even months in advance. 

Here are the top 8 of my responsibilities as a Social Media VA

• Planning
• Styling
• Researching
• Scheduling
• Posting
• Analyzing
• Responding
• Engaging