Thursday 19th Dec 2019
All too often we see retailers losing out on sales because they introduce customers to the option of paying for their chosen goods with finance too late in the buyer journey. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to 9 alternative places to plug your finance offering that are not the payment page.
- Google Ads
Your paid search ads are the perfect place for advertising your finance as your customers are already very engaged with your brand and the product – an affordable payment option could just be the icing on the cake.
- Print Ads
If you’re running printed ads, it’s a good idea to include a small reference to finance options. You have little control over who sees your ads in these publications, so it’s best to appeal to as wide a group as possible by keeping it generic.
- FAQs
In a self-serve world, your FAQs are probably one of the first places a customer will look for answers to their questions before shopping with you, so make sure you explain your finance options in there, and give them a point of contact if they want more clarity.
- Banners on Product Pages
You’re probably already mentioning your finance options on the relevant product pages, but make sure you do it in the form of a banner or something that jumps off of the page and catches the customer’s attention, otherwise people may miss it.
- Live Chat
If you have a live chat facility on your website, make sure your staff are geared up to discuss the finance options available and understand them fully. If you’re using AI, it’s a good idea to build up the bank of knowledge around finance too.
- Webpage Metadata
If you rank highly in Google for your key terms, your organic metadata could be a great place to include your finance offering when it comes to driving awareness, so that potential customers see this as soon as they start researching.
- Sales Staff
It can be hard to make sure all of your staff are as knowledgeable as they need to be about finance, but it’s extremely important. Finance terms and conditions can be complicated, so customers will often seek clarity from the retailer. It is therefore imperative that your employees can talk about it confidently and professionally. If the customer has particularly complex queries, Hitachi Capital Consumer Finance has a Retailer Helpline where your staff can ask the experts.
- Email Marketing
Email marketing is still an extremely cost-effective channel for most and a great way to target specific customers, so it makes sense to push your finance options that way too. Especially if you run email promotions for products that are eligible.
- Banner on the homepage
If not all products you sell are eligible for finance, you’ll need to keep the messaging quite generic, but the homepage is a great place to raise awareness of your finance offering. Most customers will navigate to your homepage at some point in the buyer journey, so it makes sense to reinforce their understanding or even bring finance to their attention wherever you can.