Leadoo Marketing Technologies (Leadoo MT), the “Never miss a lead again” conversational lead generation martech company, launches its new platform to help UK SMEs update their marketing strategy, fight back in the current business climate and set themselves up for future proofing their business. Companies operating in the North of England paint a somewhat bleak picture in reaction to Covid-19, with less than half having been ready to serve customers online, or to have digitalised their businesses and to see the need to adapt in the future.
Mikael da Costa, Founder of Leadoo MT said: “We have been seeing unprecedented interest in our chat bot service from businesses wanting to maximise their online business and engagement in the absence of face-to-face opportunities. This is a tough time for small and medium businesses, almost without exception they need more leads and more sales. They now need to make their websites work much harder for them to generate business and make these online improvements at speed.”
Leadoo MT focusses on chatbots for lead generation for SMEs, both B2B and B2C companies, enabling them to digitalise their business, sales and marketing by maximising conversions from website visitors. To accompany the introduction of its new conversational lead generation platform, Leadoo MT released the results of a survey amongst UK SMEs which reveals the following statistics for the North of England businesses:
- An impressive 63% of businesses in the North of England agreed that they had taken significant actions to save their business – with the highest in the South West (83%), followed by businesses in Wales (74%), London and the South East (71%)
- Under half of Northern businesses, 41%, agreed that at the start of lockdown their company was ready to serve its customers in a world where online channels were basically the only way to do business, compared to highs of 53% in London and the South East and the South West
- 44% of North of England businesses had taken actions in digitalising due to Covid-19, compared to highs of 57% and 56% in London and the South East and the South West respectively
- Northern businesses scored only 27% when agreeing with the statement that they had invested more in online sales and marketing due to the Covid-19 crisis, compared to a high of 34% in the South West
- North of England businesses also scored the second lowest score at 47% (compared to 35% for the East of England) in agreeing that having been forced to be more virtual/online, it would change the way their company does business in the future. This compares to the highest score of 64% in London and the South East
- 59% of Northern businesses agreed that the government had done enough to help save their business, compared to a low of 46% in Wales and a high of 70% in the South West
Other UK wide industry specific results from the research included:
- 54% of companies agreed that having been forced to be more virtual/online, it would change the way their company does business in the future with this peaking at 77% for those in business services
- 60% agreed that they thought the government had done enough to help their business survive although this dipped to just 36% for financial services and 51% for tech
- The construction industry lags behind others in having taken actions in digitalising due to Covid-19 with just 24% agreeing compared to 66% for business services, 62% for financial services, 60% for tech, 46% for retail, 33% for transport and logistics
- Tech companies led the way in increased investment in online sales and marketing due to the Covid-19 crisis at 59%
Leadoo’s automated Inpage chatbots activate passive website visitors, who represent over 90% of all website traffic. In the first week after lockdown began (23 March), Leadoo MT saw a 50% increase in online conversions among its 600+ clients’ websites across Europe. “People haven’t and won’t stop spending, but companies need to be ready to handle this online engagement. The UK market is particularly responsive to our conversational lead generation approach and we see increases of inbound leads of between 50-100% for UK companies” says da Costa. Leadoo MT therefore warns that those SMEs that continue to deprioritise digitalising their business will find this inactivity backfiring post COVID-19 as buyer behaviours have changed for good.
Smaller SMEs have taken least action in adapting to the crisis, have not invested in digitalising their businesses in online sales and marketing, do not seem to view this crisis as changing the way they will operate in the future and are more unhappy with actions taken by the government to help. Commenting on this research, da Costa says “We were surprised as we thought perhaps smaller companies would have been more agile than the larger SMEs but it seems they are not adapting well. Whilst we wouldn’t expect them to invest to the same extent as medium or large companies, we think this lack of action will harm their prospects going forward”.
The new conversational lead generation platform provides an easy to interpret dashboard that empowers SMEs, demystifying digital analytics and helping them understand their website visitors’ behaviour and learn what works best for their business. The platform:
- Enables companies to move website visitors off the website into a chat channel of their choice such as Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp, text or phone.
- Provides smart customer profiling – allowing clients to better understand their potential customers via unique and GDPR compliant technology, enabling SMEs to monitor and analyse individuals and their buyer journeys across the internet
- Offers, through a Bannerbot or Conversational chatbot, a way to target website visitors including potential prospects to start a conversation with people who have never even visited your website as well as the opportunity to retarget those people which increases your chances of keeping them engaged.