Walk into any gym to inquire about a membership and you will most likely experience hard selling tactics. Hard selling can be an aggressive approach that jumps right to the point of making the sale right there on the spot.  The gym manager might tell you that if you sign up for a year, you will save money and that, oh yeah, the sale ends today.  This tactic not only keeps you long term, it also comes with an expiration so that you will need to sign up right then and there. Although this is a pushy commitment, a hard sell may work here because the appeal of a gym is obvious and you already walked in to the door.

But would this strategy work when someone responds to your mobile online ad?  Since you don't see this person face to face, it will be difficult to know exactly where to start your sales pitch. Remember, your ad found the user. Not the other way around. So you will need to first, build a relationship to get a feel for the potential customer and how interested they really are.  You do this by nurturing the conversation with the lead.  Once you get a response, you will have a better idea which direction to proceed.  

Good news. With Cidewalk, you don’t need to resort to hard sales tactics with a brute forced message. Cidewalk helps business owners get in touch with potential customers through text message leads. When you receive a text lead through your Cidewalk mobile ad,  you will want to take the nurturing approach.

How to nurture a lead:
- Ask easy questions and start a conversation
-Don’t push the customer away by simply sending a link to your website
-Offer helpful no pressure advice and recommendations

Related Reading: Chatting Ads Are Working and Here’s Why 

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Try text advertising today with Cidewalk ​

​Speed is life. Especially in the world of lead management. The odds of qualifying a lead in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times. And from 5 minutes to 10 minutes the dial to qualify odds decrease 4 times, as shown in the Lead Response Management Study*   Don’t let your leads go stale waiting to hear back from you. Every minute that goes by is a moment you lose the chance of a customer.

Good news
 Advertisers using Cidewalk’s new Chatting Ads service are now able to let interested consumers reach out directly to them right from their mobile phone via text message, and kick-start an instant conversation to help cater to their needs.  

Learn How to Make Your Ads Chat for You. 

Ref: http://www.leadresponsemanagement.org/lrm_study) 

Most marketers, even experienced gurus, tend to fall into the "benefits vs features" trap, while drafting an effective ad copy.  As marketers we have this urge to list and highlight the set of key features about our service or product while creating the ad copy.  However, we tend to forget that our customers mainly care for the benefits. Whats in it for me? is the question at the back of their minds while viewing an ad.

As an advertiser on Cidewalk, you can be sure that your ad will reach the right users, that is, users in the town you had selected. However what gets displayed to the user and how the user will react to the ad they saw depends on the ad copy.  It is worth putting in the extra effort to draft an ad copy that end users can relate to.

Features simply define what your product is all about, such as what it can do, its shape, the technology behind it, etc. Where as benefits highlight what a product can actually accomplish for the end user.  The good news is that features can be transformed into benefits.  

For example,  high gas mileage on a car is feature. Money saved on gas is a benefit that end users care about. 

So while creating the ad copy, take off your sellers hat, and put on your customers cap, and think about what they care for.  Cidewalk's  hyper local geo-targeting ad platform will take care of the rest. 

Check out our related blog post: How to Make Your Ad Click

Unlike flyers and traditional banners ads, customers are now preferring a new way to connect with businesses that creats an instant connection.  You can now do this our our new text message ads.  Text message ads bring the consumer directly to you.  Take control of the conversation right from your phone as soon as someone is interested in your business.  Here are 3 things to keep in mind when you’re chatting with your text leads.  

​The most common (ineffective) response advertisers use in their text leads is, “check out my website for more information”.  With text ads, you have a unique opportunity to talk directly to your potential customers one on one, don’t slam the door in their face by just sending them to your website right away.  Take the opportunity to get to know your customers and give them what they want and maybe even close the sale right there.

​When you receive a lead, be straightforward. This is not the time for, “hello” and “how are you”.  The user is looking for helpful and informative information regarding your ad, reply with features, options and any promotions you may be offering.  Before hitting send, ask a relevant question to kick start a conversation.  If you receive a reply, you will know that the conversation is going in the right direction.

Don’t try to sell your product or service during your first conversation. Offer help and assistance or guidance.  For example:
​
Don’t say: “We have a water mug for $5.99”
Instead say: “We have several water mugs with custom designs. I can help you find the right one.”  

Next, ask questions that are super easy and quick for people to answer. Most importantly, keep the conversation simple and straightforward.

As a small business owner, you’ve probably marketed your business with signs, banners, flyers and one-pagers.  These included all kinds of text and fancy graphic designs.  But in this day and age where everyone has their eyes on their phone, mobile marketing is now the way to grab your customer's attention.  But how do you take all of the information about your business and describe it in two lines or less and get the attention of potential customers?  As you can imagine, it will be difficult.

You will begin with, “what should my ad say?"  Well, I’m here to help.  Advertisers sometimes lose sight of what their customers are actually looking for.  Here is how we can work together - you’re going to continue being the expert on your business, and I will meet you halfway and chime in with some online marketing tips.  

We’re going to use the, “work-backwards approach” and figure out the “end-goal”.  To do this, instead of thinking about the best 3 lines to describe your business, let’s establish your customers’ need first, and work backwards from there.  

The question you need to answer with your ad is, “Is this relevant to my customer?” How do you answer that question?  First establish what is the solution or end-goal that your product/service brings.

Let’s use a Fitness Center example:

Typical title used: “Best Fitness Center”  
End-goal title: “Be Beach Ready”

Do you see the difference?  We established that the end-goal of using a fitness center is being “beach ready”.  Of course, there could be many other reasons someone would want to use a fitness center, such as “getting healthy”.  The good news is you can use different messaging to see what works best, because you can edit your ad at any time.  Woohoo, marketing is fun isn’t it?

So let’s create your ad.
Step 1: Establish the end-goal of what you offer_________________________
Step 2: Create a 25 character title________________________________________
Step 3: Create a 80 character description_________________________________

Description: the description can be a continuation of your title, since the title space is limited to 25 characters.  In continuing with the fitness center example, let’s complete the full Cidewalk ad:

Title: “Be Beach Ready”
Description: “Get the body you want in 30 days at Evolve Fitness.  May Special 50% off 1st mth​”

We accomplished multiple things with this ad:
Established the end-goal (what's in it for them)
Told them where (Evolve Fitness)
Offered them a time sensitive special discount (50% off)

Here is a helpful checklist to test how strong your ad is.  The more of the following you can use in your ad, the better:

• Highlight your value prop (relevant end-goal)
• Include any offers (e.g 50% off first services)
• Make it personal (e.g  special offer for YOU)
• Have a clear message (avoid slang or uncommon words and phrases)
• Urgency or call to action (e.g offer valid this month only)

Now that you know how to market your business for mobile, Cidewalk can get your mobile ad out in the city or town of your choice in minutes.  Get started now: https://www.cidewalk.com