As a business owner, you might already be implementing different strategies for successful lead generation and seeing results. But what happens if none of those leads are converting?
While you might get a lot of people visiting your website and reaching out, you still need to convert leads into revenue-generating customers. And that’s why, today, we have six tactics that will help you to convert more of your business leads into sales.
A lot of companies focus on optimizing their service pages, product pages, and content. However, they neglect to use the same strategies for their homepages. Yet this is often the page people will land on first. As such, you should put plenty of effort into getting it right.
One of the things that makes a great homepage is ensuring that it’s as easy as possible for people to take the next step. You can do this by providing a sophisticated search tool, and using strong calls-to-action. Also, consider how to make it easier for people to contact you with questions or concerns.
For inspiration, let’s take a look at a website that has done a great job of optimizing its homepage to easily move people through its sales funnel.
Helix Hearing Care provides hearing aids, as well as care and support for hearing-impaired people. On their website, you immediately see how they make it easy for visitors to take the next step with them. At the top of their homepage, you’ll find that they have included three separate calls-to-action (CTAs). One for people who want to take an online hearing test. The second for people who want to call the company. And, finally, one is for those who are ready to book an appointment.
This makes it very easy for people to know what the next course of action is when they get to their site. For instance, if you’re a new visitor, you’ll know that you need to take a hearing test. However, if you’ve already done this, you could decide to take the next step. This may be calling the company for more information, or booking an appointment straight away.
They also have a search tool that allows people to find different parts of their website using specific words or phrases. This is a great example of an optimized homepage. They’ve focused on doing as many things as possible to ensure a visitor isn’t lost on their site.
To do something similar for your website, you could have a section on your homepage where you outline the various steps that can help visitors achieve their desired results, from start to finish. You should also include different contact options. Adding a phone number, email address, or even a live chat messaging solution for people to use if they need clarification or information.
To turn website visitors into leads — and ultimately make sales — you’ll want to harness the power of strong calls-to-action. A website CTA is a prompt that encourages visitors to complete a specific action.
To ensure you’re creating effective CTAs, try to use strong verbs that give a command. Verbs like “get” “subscribe”, or “submit” usually work very well. This is because they tell people the exact action you want them to take.
You should also be using your CTAs to create a feeling of missing out (FOMO) in the people who read them. One way to trigger FOMO is by setting a time limit for your offers. So, for example, you could say the deadline to get a particular product or service is in 12 hours. This motivates more people to buy since they wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity when the deadline closes.
Lastly, try to ensure that your CTAs stand out by using bright and noticeable colors for your CTA buttons. This means the colors you pick for your CTAs should contrast with the background color of your site. You want to ensure visitors won’t miss them while scrolling.
To give you some inspiration, check out how FreshBooks creates and uses strong CTAs on their website.
FreshBooks is a company that provides an accounting solution for small and medium-sized businesses. On their webpage for invoice templates, they use a green CTA button to invite people to create a free invoice. The background of the page is white so the CTA very noticeable to people on the page.
The copy tells people exactly what to do, which is to click on the button to create a free invoice. And, by including the word “free,” they’re also capturing the interest of people who might not yet be ready to make a financial commitment. The combination of the color and the effective copy works very well to get the attention of website visitors. It can also increase the number of sign-ups they get. These signups could possibly turn into paying customers later on.
CTAs are a necessary part of your website, regardless of the type of business you own. What’s important is that you find a way to use clear and concise words to tell people exactly what you want them to do. Remember to also select bright colors for your CTA buttons that will make them hard to miss.
When someone lands on your website, they’ll want to be confident that you’re great at what you do. A way for you to prove this is with the power of online reviews. Reviews and testimonials are ideal, or you could also highlight your media mentions, awards, qualifications, or case studies. These will show that you’ve done a great job for your customers in the past and will generate more leads for your business.
When it comes to asking your previous customers for testimonials or reviews, consider sending a simple email asking them for feedback. Another way to ask for reviews is by sending them the link to your company’s profile on review sites like Yelp or Trustpilot. You could include the link with your email receipts. This makes it easy for customers to follow the link and give you a rating or feedback about your company.
Now let’s have a look at the website of a brand that uses social proof to provide evidence of their ability to help their customers.
iCASH, an online lender in Canada, does a great job of showing website visitors how competent they are in their industry. Once you get to their website, you’ll see a section in the middle of the page that highlights the accolades their company has gotten in the course of their business.
They’ve displayed relevant statistics like the number of members they have, the percentage of approved applications, and star ratings from their customers. If anyone looking for financial help were to land on their page, seeing these numbers could encourage and motivate them to contact iCASH and take advantage of their services.
To emulate what they’ve done on their site, you could also display reviews and testimonials in the same way. But, if you have a lot of them, you could incorporate a sliding carousel element into your website’s design so people are able to view more testimonials within the same space.
One of the reasons why you should analyze your customer journey is so you’ll be able to create content that will suit the needs of people at different stages. For example, some people might not even know your services exist (and that they need them), while others might just be weighing up their options before making a purchase.
The three main stages of a buyer’s journey are awareness, consideration, and decision. Tracking your customer journey stages allows you to see how traffic moves along your lead funnel. As such, there are different kinds of content that work well for each stage. For the awareness stage, people are just getting introduced to your brand and the best way to keep their attention is with informative blog posts or infographics that explain what your company does and how it can help them.
When prospects get to the consideration stage, they are already looking at various options from a number of brands. So the type of content that works well here would be buying guides or comparison pieces. Use these to tell them what to look out for in a product. Or, give them the benefits and disadvantages of each option so they can choose the best one.
And, when they finally get to the decision stage, they’ll want to be sure that they’re making the right choice. The way to give that assurance is by creating case studies or product demonstrations. These can show how your company has been able to help past clients achieve positive results.
For inspiration, let’s take a look at a comparison piece that has been created by a website to target people at the consideration stage of the sales funnel.
DocSend is a document-sharing platform that allows people to securely track and monitor important documents. On their website, they have a section called customer stories. Here they share case studies of how they’ve helped clients to improve processes or achieve specific results.
One of these case studies shows how they helped one of their clients, Campus, in negotiating a 7-figure sales proposal. The case study outlines their client’s goals, challenges, the solution applied (using DocSend’s platform), and the results they were able to get. For prospective customers who might be in the consideration stage and on the fence about using the company’s platform, case studies like this do a great job of convincing them. They help to show that the business has helped others in their position and can help them as well.
When it comes to creating case studies like this for your website, make sure you carefully document the journey that your clients take with your brand. This means you should be highlighting your clients’ objectives, problems, the solutions you offered, and the end result. Include quantifiable figures that can prove how your company was able to help them.
If website visitors can imagine themselves using your services, they’ll be far more likely to invest in them. To ensure this, you need to know how to choose the right images. You could use images of people who represent your audience in your product photos. Or, create guides that will show exactly what customers should expect when they buy from you.
You could also make detailed product or service demonstrations, outlining the benefits of your products over the features and specifications. To give you an example, let’s take a look at a brand that uses quality images of people using its products.
Warby Parker is an online retailer that sells eyewear like eyeglasses, contacts, and sunglasses. On their homepage, visitors are greeted with the image of two people wearing eyeglasses that are sold by the brand. Warby Parker is immediately helping website visitors see what their products would look like if they wore them.
And this image isn’t just restricted to their homepage. They also include several photos of other men and women wearing their glasses throughout the site. And, in the section for kids, they’ve also managed to get images of children sporting eyewear from their store. This is a really smart tactic to employ, as it can get more website visitors closer to buying their product, leading to more sales for the business.
One important thing to note when adding images to your website is the quality. Images of high and professional quality make it easier to trust a brand. So, it’s a good idea to invest in great imagery.
Someone might not spend money with you the first time they hear about your business or visit your site. However, they might come back if you stay on their mind. And one of the best ways to ensure this is by incorporating social media into your marketing strategies.
If you are able to frequently engage with your customers on social media, there’s a greater chance that they’ll be thinking of you regularly. Often this means they will eventually convert. To engage with your audience, you should try liking their posts. Also, consider replying to their comments to show that you care. You could also repost content from your customers if they’ve tagged you in their posts while using any of your products.
Lastly, you can make use of the various features on each social media platform to keep people engaged. Features like Instagram Stories, Twitter Polls, and Facebook Stories are a great way to ensure that you’re active and visible to your audience.
Here’s an example of a brand that does a fantastic job of engaging its followers and staying visible online.
GoPro is a technology company that’s popularly known for manufacturing HD action cameras and creating video-editing software. They are present on a lot of social media platforms, and particularly Instagram. If you look through the account, you’ll see that they regularly respond to their followers’ comments and questions.
They also have a habit of reposting user-generated content (UGC) of their customers using their products. In this example, you will find that they’ve reposted the photo of a customer using their GoPro camera while surfing. UGC is a great way to improve engagement with your customers as it recognizes them and helps to build trust in the minds of prospective clients.
To get you started on engaging with your followers, another proven method is to regularly hold contests or giveaways. Simply give your audience a set of instructions to follow to be in with the chance of winning a prize. Ask them to like your post and comment or request that they also tag some friends in their comments. This not only increases your engagement but it also draws the attention of other prospective customers to your brand.
To recap, these are some of the different tactics you can use in turning your business leads into paying customers. Some of these are to use strong calls to action, and some provide social proof of your abilities. Remember to regularly engage with your audience through social media so you stay on top of their mind.
These are tried and tested strategies that have worked for many businesses and can work for yours as well. And, if you would like to stay updated on new strategies, our blog has more digital marketing advice that can help you grow your business.
Author bio: Adam Steele is the COO at Loganix, an SEO fulfillment partner for agencies and marketers. We build easy-to-use SEO services that help businesses scale. If you liked this article, please check out our SEO guides and templates on the Loganix blog.
