Remember when your website was really just a replacement for the yellow pages? Prospective clients would find your business, and then pick up the phone and call you.
The customer journey looked a lot different then, and bringing a prospect through the sales funnel was more straightforward.
No more. They’re still looking up your business, but from their smartphone, and instead of calling, they’re looking for all the answers on your website. Your website is where your customer’s journey will start and end, and pulling them further down the sales funnel requires having the right mechanisms in place to garner micro-commitments that culminate in the sale.
Your website needs to be great at capturing leads, one of the three core goals of your marketing strategy, and there are several effective ways to do it:
- Lightboxes: The most valuable information you can get from a prospective client is their email. Lightboxes are the pop-ups you see on websites asking for your email, and other variations, like a floating bar that stays with the visitor as they scroll through your site. To really leverage lightboxes, you need to have a reward that compels visitors to give up their valuable information. The key is to only ask for their email address: asking for their name will reduce conversion by 20% and their phone number by at least 40%. I’d rather have their email address, get the opportunity to extend the conversation, and ask for more information later.
- Rewards: Pop-ups and floating bars with the standard “enter your email address to receive news and updates” have low conversion rates because audiences are too discerning for generic pitches that don’t offer value beyond their email inbox getting inundated with more email. You need to offer a reward that will really grab the attention of a prospect and push them to give you their email. Good rewards should border on causing you some discomfort – you’re willing to offer it because you know what you’re gaining in the long run, a captive audience, but you also recognize its a high-value offer, like expert insight you’d rather a prospect was paying to receive, or, a high-value promotion for a service or product that you could also very well charge for.
- Call Tracking: once we’ve captured a prospective client’s email address, you now need to stay top of mind, pulling them further into the sales funnel. Once you’ve developed a deeper relationship, that’s when the phone call comes, and with call tracking, we can understand what’s really working. You should have two call tracking numbers: one for your website, and one for the emails you send out, so you can track data on where that call came from. When someone clicks on a link in your email, the phone number on the website then switches to the email call tracking number so that we getting proper attribution to the email causing the call. Important note on call tracking: you must add your tracking numbers to your Google My Business listing so Google doesn’t get confused and reduce your ranking because of a lack of confidence in having the right information. You can list tracking numbers as alternatives in your Google listing, but they don’t actually show. If you’re in a type of business with a lot of activity from your Google listing, using a separate tracking number there is valuable.
- Live chats: live chats are a great way to start a conversation with prospects who are interested in learning more about your business right away. However, live chats are contingent on having the proper staffing in place to make them work effectively. Even the most sophisticated chats or bots that have messaging architecture built in or have the ability to be customized will require, at some point, the hand of human touch. If you have someone handling incoming calls from clients, they are the ideal point of contact to handle live chats. Prospects who are initiating conversations through chats expect near instantaneous responses, so only use these if you are prepared to fulfill this expectation. When managed well, 60%-80% of chat sessions collect prospects’ contact information.
- Analytics: with all of these lead capturing mechanisms in place, it’s crucial to track data on how they are performing. Where are visitors scrolling and clicking? Where are conversions taking place on your website?
While these mechanisms are the most up-front tools for lead capture, there are additional tools you can use to increase micro-commitments on your website:
- Testimonials: testimonials are a great way to build authority and trust from a prospect. While testimonial quotes are great, video is always king. These videos need not be high in production value either – in fact, too much production can make the testimonial look too scripted or inauthentic. Videos should be 60-90 seconds in length and highlight a client’s experience working with your brand or business.
- Explainer videos: another 60-90 second video that breaks down how you do things or perform certain services or products are another way to build trust and engage your audience. There are so many ways to accomplish these videos, from live video to employing software like Vyond or Magisto to create them.
- Landing Pages: while there are a ton of third-party landing page creators, your best bet is to build a custom landing page for your website. What makes it a landing page is that it only has one purpose: share your high-value reward in exchange for their email address. You don’t provide other options of where to go – the one and only goal is to capture the prospect.
- LinkedIn posts: you’ve done the work of creating all this great content for your website and email marketing – leverage it on LinkedIn to amplify the effect of your word of mouth! It’s the perfect place to build your B2B audience.
At boomtime, we follow the data, and our work with hundreds of B2Bs has given us expert insight into how to leverage and implement these tools to capture leads for your business. Visit our website to learn more.
All the best,
Bill Bice
CEO
