Starting a business takes more than just a good idea for a product or a service. It is becoming increasingly important to have a solid grasp on how to engage customers online using everything from email to social media. Engaging customers online usually comes as an afterthought for most people starting out a small business, but the sad and unfortunate reality is that having a personal Facebook account doesn’t mean you have the tech and social media skills to start the kind of conversations with customers that drive sales.
Social Intents was started by a software engineer who was trying to help out his wife as she started up a retail operation. He quickly realized that there was a whole group of people just like his wife (business owners, bloggers, and startups) who were all looking to:
- Increase sales and traffic
- Get quality feedback from users and customers
- Increase their social media presence and reach
There are a bunch of “solutions” for those very problems on the market today but almost all of them come with a very heavy price tag. Social Intents was started as a functional alternative to all those SEO experts and consultants who make money by telling people how terrible their sites are (and that their services/tools are the only way to get traffic up).
The rights set of tools (or widgets)
Social Intents is, at its core, a set of social widgets that users can utilize to:
- Build social media and email list campaigns
- Get feedback and ideas from visitors and customers
- Offer social incentives
The tools provided at SocialIntents.com fit seamlessly into websites because they can integrate users’ logos, CSS, background images, and styles like a dream. You don’t need to be a coding genius either. Just copy and paste a simple little set of code that they generate. There are currently 5 tools in the Social Intents arsenal, each with their own way of helping users get their customer engagement on.
1. Social Offers
Incentivize customers to follow you by giving discount codes after signing up to like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter with this simple widget.
2. Social Sharing
Lets users sign up to follow you on social media without having to leave the site or stop what they were doing (which we can only hope is spending money).
3. Exit Coupons
This widget helps to reduce shopping cart abandonment by having a special offer pop up before users leave the site.
4. Email List Builder
Some times all you gotta do is ask. This WordPress popover widget lets visitors signup to website email lists. It is fully integrated with MailChimp and Constant Contact.
5. User Feedback and Ratings
There are two feedback widgets from Social Intents. One for WordPress and another that uses Shopify. Both let users gather super useful feedback from customers right there on their sites.
All of this awesomeness comes at a very fair price. Monthly plans start at $8 for their Lite package (which includes 1 widget and the ability to use your logo) and go up to $108 a month for their Ultimate package (which includes 30 widgets, added security, and a lot of social engagement power). All plans come with a 14 day free trail and signing up is a breeze.
If you agree with the guys at Social Intents that there should be other options out there for people starting their own businesses, then follow them on Twitter or register for a free trial now.
