For today’s multichannel software lead generation campaigns, websites and similar online properties form the core of the marketing efforts. These are the places where all other marketing routes start from and lead back to. But are you really using your business website (and other online channels) to its full potential?
You can use a variety of metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your business website but, in the final analysis, conversion rates are the analytics that matter the most. In order for your website to generate optimal conversion rates, it has to be aligned to your sales funnel first. The sales funnel is the sequence of interactions between you and your site visitors that eventually guides them to take a specific action.
You therefore need to have your sales funnel sorted out first in order to optimize your website for conversion. Here are six tips to get you started toward a smoother sales funnel:
1. Meet visitors before they arrive. Meeting your visitors in advance means thoroughly knowing them and understanding their needs, preferences, motivations, and distinguishing characteristics. Without this advanced knowledge, it’s difficult or even impossible to come up with strategies for interacting or engaging with your website visitors once they finally arrive. Meeting your visitors before arrival essentially requires you to profile your website’s target audiences for later reference. This will also prove useful for future b2b lead generation campaigns.
2. Dissect & direct traffic. Site traffic is actually composed of several segments of visitors, each with its own characteristics. These characteristics help you identify ways to communicate and present the benefits of the solutions that you have to offer. In other words, you’re going to use the needs and attributes of each segment for presenting content about your solutions. This further implies directing specific segments to specific landing pages with content/copy relevant to them.
3. Use the prospect thermometer. Successful lead generation requires you to separate the least promising leads from those who are only a slight nudge away from buying. Sales prospects fall into three groups: cold, those who have only heard of your solution for the first time and are thus least likely to make a purchase; warm, those who are interested but are unable to make the decision; and, hot, those who are both willing and able to buy.
4. Leave no lead behind. Once you’ve determined which leads are ready to buy and which are just snooping around your site, commonsense dictates prioritizing the sales-ready prospects. However, this doesn’t mean completely ignoring cold leads altogether. Your business website should be able to address the needs of early-stage prospects, as well as other software lead generation modules, and guide them through their decision-making journey.
5. Create a sense of urgency. A very effective tactic to facilitate the flow for the generation of leads from one state to the next and all the way to boiling point is to include the element of urgency in your calls-to-action. Urgency, if applied correctly, makes your site visitors feel a proposed action that they need to be take right there and then.
6. Respond promptly – always. Research shows that the probability for converting web-generated software leads decreases as response time increases. That’s why it’s important to respond to online leads (who provide contact information) immediately (no more than an hour after completing the web form) by phone. This applies to potential clientèle ready for software appointment setting or those requesting further information.
How are you leveraging your business website for enhancing prospect conversion? Are you keen in promoting your web address for lead generation purposes?