Without Conversion Your Website is Pointless (How to Get More Leads and Tee up More Sales…NOW)
Dacia Coffey
Fractional Chief Marketing Officer | Keynote Speaker | Revenue Acceleration | Marketing Plans | Branding, Differentiation & Messaging | CEO
So you have built a beautiful and highly creative website. What do you want to happen now? If you think sales will simply start rolling in, this is hardly the case. You must develop a plan to convert interest into action, to ensure your website is driving sales success.
First, go back to your goals. What behaviors do you want to drive? For B2B companies, the goal of a website generally falls into one of these categories. You want your visitor to:
? Feel more confident in choosing your company
? Fill out a form to get their contact info
? Contact you with a direct business inquiry
? Share your content or refer your company
Dr. BJ Fogg from Stanford University has done phenomenal research on how to use behavioral design to guide people towards a desired action. His “Fogg Behavior Model” states that you can drive a behavior when three elements come together: motivation, ability and trigger.
Let me share how this concept will help you transform your website into a sales enabler.
1) Motivation
One key reason why websites don’t convert is because they focus on products and service details, instead of buyer motivation. Your website should be about your prospects, not about you. What do they care about? Uncovering the hidden motivations that drive your prospects is crucial in designing a path that leads to a sale.
Their motivations could be either of the following:
Pleasure and Pain- People are naturally drawn to things that promise pleasure. You can leverage this by creating content that promotes a delightful experience through buying your products or services (ex: improved profitability, energy savings, time savings, increased productivity). Or, you can tailor your content to offer a solution to a painful experience (ex: reduced risk or avoiding wasted time or wasted money). Note that pain-removal is a much stronger motivator due to the psychological tendency towards pain avoidance or loss aversion.
Hope and Fear- This motivator impacts your behavior by letting you anticipate an outcome, either good or bad. How does this work in practice? A lot of companies motivate people to buy their goods by fanning hopes of a good outcome. Others, such as those that sell insurance, use the fear that people will suffer unexpected losses in the future if they don’t get an insurance plan.
Acceptance and Rejection- Because most of us gravitate towards products or services that other people approve of, this motivator is also very effective in encouraging a buying decision. (It’s called social proof.) Companies often use testimonials to influence people’s decisions through the acceptance and rejection motivator.
2) Trigger
Once you’ve successfully motivated your prospects, trigger them to move forward in the buying cycle. A major mistake we often see on websites is neglecting to have a clear call to action. Strong CTA’s can get your prospects to take a desired action, boost your conversion rates and help achieve your website’s overall goals.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
Be sure to include clear calls to action throughout your website. Examples include downloading content after filling out a form, clicking on a link to read more content on another page, filling out an inquiry form to schedule an appointment, watching a video, sharing your content, or taking an assessment. These are just some of the ways you can keep your visitor moving through the sales cycle and closer to you.
Limit the number of calls to action on a page. Too many conversion paths will only water down your true goal and distract your website visitor. However, it’s a good idea to include a call to action on every page, to make it easy for a visitor to act without delay when he or she is ready.
Use landing pages. Clear, focused content on a single page gives the reader the space to consider your information without the distraction of unnecessary navigation, too many words, or any other distracting elements.
Simple design increases your likelihood of conversion.
Use great headlines and hyperlink text as “carrots” that pull a prospect deeper into your content. This is particularly important if your subject matter is complex, or if you need to communicate a great deal of detailed information. Headlines, subheadings, and hyperlinks provide the added benefit of making it easier to scan blocks of text, too.
Video dramatically increases the time spent on your website and is the most highly converting form of digital communication.
3) Ability
Make it easy for your prospects to complete the conversion process, or they will lose their motivation. Simple navigation can easily influence them to take the final step. But if they have to endure long forms, unnecessary popups or other usability issues, then you just effectively sabotaged your sales efforts.
Make sure to keep their journey seamless from start to finish. Ask yourself: If your goal is for them to fill out a form, how long will it take for them to do so? If you want them to contact you with a direct business inquiry, are your contact numbers accurate and up to date? If you’d like for them to share your content, are share buttons available, and are they conveniently placed on your website?
Optimizing conversion takes planning and effort. But when these three elements – motivation, ability and trigger - all work in harmony with your goals, you will see that your website is not just an online brochure. It is a critical member of your sales team!
The point of all of this is that MARKETING SHOULD HELP YOU SELL MORE. The growth of you company means more prosperity for all as you help your customers to be more successful, hire more people, and create a domino effect of positivity.
Get more information on how to use your website to help your sales team hit their number. Check out our blogs below.
Did You Know: Friction from Your Website is Costing You Sales? https://www.themarketingblender.com/know-friction-website-costing-sales/
Navigation & User Experience: Don’t Be Annoying. Does Your Website Pass the Test?
https://www.themarketingblender.com/navigation-user-experience-dont-annoying-website-pass-test/
Stop Using Invisible Words: A Guide to a Clearly Differentiated Website
https://www.themarketingblender.com/stop-using-invisible-words-guide-clearly-differentiated-website/
Understanding Buyer Psychology: The Path to Creating a B2B Website that Really Sells