If you are selling a product or promoting a service, an optimized conversion funnel is critical to your online marketing success. It acts more as a filter than a funnel because within a funnel all of the liquid (leads) eventually comes out of the bottom, but in website conversion, you lose liquid at every level of the path, as if the funnel is perforated. If you are not getting conversions, your funnel may not be optimized. Fortunately, there are actions that can be taken to improve its effectiveness…and plug some of those holes. We at Creative Butter have identified five steps that work in tandem to convert a stranger to a visitor to a prospect to a lead:
- Build Awareness via Brand Touchpoints
- Generate Interest on Landing Pages
- Incite Desire With A “Call to Action”
- Generate Leads From a Web Form
- Cement Bond With Personalization
Step 1: Build Awareness via Brand Touchpoints
Build Awareness about your product or service through your brand touchpoints and marketing channels with the purpose of driving prospects to your website. Best practice is to frequently monitor from where your cutomers are coming to your website (e.g. advertising, organic search results, social media, podcasts, your own share-worthy infographics, etc.) so that you can plan your future marketing campaigns based on these results.
Step 2: Generate Interest on Landing Pages
Generate Interest in your product or service through well-crafted messaging and visuals that are engaging and on-brand. In other words, keep your new visitor’s attention now that they are on your website. A Landing Page is a Web page within your website where your visitor lands after a Web search, digital ad click, etc. As with any Web page, it should be made clear where the user is within the site so that they do not feel lost. Obviously, you will not appeal to all who are made aware of you, but this is your chance to pique interest, and be visible to a new potential customer.
Step 3: Incite Desire With A “Call to Action”
Incite Desire for your product or service by offering a solution to a problem. Solve that point-of-pain and you will develop goodwill between you and your customer, which will translate into repeat business and brand advocacy (free advertising!). The Call to Action is a brief message that is phrased to spur action and is generally written as a command, like “Learn More” or “Start Free Trial” or “Buy.” It is the promise of getting a desirable “goodie” with minimal effort on the customer’s part. It is often visually engineered to stand out from the rest of the page (without going against the Brand Guidelines) through the use of complimentary colors, button graphics, exclamation points, etc. It should be strategically placed on the page to be visible and tie back to the messaging.
Step 4: Generate Leads From a Web Form
A Web Form gives your user the ability to obtain the promised goodie by filling out a group of checkboxes, radio buttons and/or text fields. This is where you generate your leads. This process should be painless and with absolutely no technical issues whatsoever. Moreover, be sure that the amount of information required within the Web Form matches to the amount of information being provided (i.e. Do not make it necessary to fill out a lengthy Web Form to get a PDF with minimal information).
Step 5: Cement Bond With Personalization
A Personalized Thank You Page and Confirmation Email solidify your new relationship. The Thank You Page confirms that the Web Form technology was successful and that the requested materials will soon be viewable, downloadable, etc. Moreover, the Thank You Page should point your prospect to tangential information within your website of potential interest. It might also provide links to share the converted offer by email or social media and may even go so far as to present a follow-up offer. Finally, a Personalized Email is the last piece of the Website Conversion Funnel. This email should be branded in such as way as to relate back to the website so it is obvious where it came from before the messaging is even read. Mostly importantly, it should contain keywords, as well as links or images, that make the offer easy to find again and, in doing so, “save-worthy.”
