Accelerate Lead Collection To Boost Your Sales

Does your business need more prospects and customers?  All of us would welcome having our sales funnel filled with solid prospects.  If your business depends on identifying sales leads on a regular basis, a couple simple actions on your website and the use of a landing page can greatly accelerate and focus your process of lead collection.

Get An Early Start

If you have a strong sales conversion rate once you start a conversation with a prospect, your goal is to identify more of the right people to engage in sales discussions.  The earlier you can identify a prospect, the earlier you can close a sale. 

For businesses with a lower sales close rate, focusing prospects on your key value proposition early in their research / shopping process can help you engage and close more customers who value what you offer.

Accelerate Your Speed To Leads On Your Website

For many organizations, marketing campaigns drive prospects to the company website.  While this is an effective way to quickly provide access to all of your company information, prospects may visit your website several times before they reach out to contact you to start a conversation – and become a sales lead.  I recommend sending prospects first to a landing page – more on that thought below.

Whether you send prospects directly to your webpage or they land there after starting on your landing page, keep relationship building a top priority on your website.

The easier it is for a prospect to find what they need and to give you their contact information while on your website, the earlier you can start a conversation to gain their business.  Here are some key steps you can take on your website to accelerate this process:

• Incorporate the image and message from your marketing campaign on your homepage.  Let them know they have gone to the right place – and align your benefit communication across all consumer touchpoints.  This reduces your bounce rate and engages web visitors in your content.
• Place an easy to find “Request More Information” link on the upper navigation on your website.  This should be in addition to contact information.  You will get more leads by providing links for both “Request Information” and “Contact Us”.
• Keep your web navigation simple and feature the most commonly sought out information as choices in your navigation bar.
• Include a video that explains your core value proposition that ends with a call to action to request more information or to contact you directly.

Identify Leads Even Sooner With A Landing Page

Through the use of a marketing landing page, you can engage prospects earlier in your marketing campaign – and boost the conversion rate of prospects to leads and then to customers.  According to Omniture, online advertising campaigns that use landing pages typically see a conversion rate improvement of at least 25%. 

You speed up your lead capture as your marketing sends prospects directly to your landing page where you collect their contact information right away.  This can shorten the time from advertising through information collection from weeks or months to a single day. 

Prospects see your ad, click through to your landing page, provide their information in exchange for more information and then can click through to your website.  You are now collecting lead contact data at the start of their search process rather than once they have visited your site several times.  Because landing pages have become a more common tool, consumers are used to giving away some basic contact information in exchange for something from you.

Optimize Your Landing Page To Boost Sales

Here are a few proven best practices you can use on a landing page to boost your impact and effectiveness.  These include:

• Engaging visual and simple benefit communication that ties to marketing campaign – connect the dots to minimize friction.  The goal of the landing page is drive the action of starting a conversation. Optimize your landing page to remove anything that causes prospects to leave before giving you their contact information.
• Offer of value for value – collect contact information in exchange for:  brochure, white paper, free trial, discount, etc.
• Use a simple, short form to capture key contact information.  Collect only the information you need to start the conversation.  Start with name, email, a question/comment box and perhaps a city and state if needed.  Including too many information capture fields will cause prospects to avoid filling out your form. You can collect additional information in your future touch points with new leads.
• Offer a simple thank you page that delivers the promised value once you collect their contact information.  Also include a link to your website on the thank you page.
• Make your landing page mobile friendly.  This is a must today.  According to Media Behavior Institute’s 2013  “USA Touchpoints” study, over 40% of US adults (age 18- 64) use a mobile phone to access the Internet weekly.  Expect that to grow to over 50% in 2014.  For most businesses, this includes your prospects.  If you build your landing page using responsive technology, your prospects can and will likely engage with you across all mobile formats.
• If you are using Google AdWords in your campaign, make sure you use your search keywords in your landing page copy and headlines.  The more closely you are aligned, the more likely you are to win your ad bids and deliver valuable prospects to your landing page. 
• Use A/B testing to optimize your efforts.  Test variations of your landing page to optimize your results.  Ongoing testing of different single variables such as your headline, image, benefit description, information capture form and call to action can help you identify the optimal combination of landing page elements to boost your conversation rate.
• Also use your landing page to optimize your digital marketing.  By placing ad pixels on your landing page, you can track your not only your traffic by marketing source, but also your conversion by marketing source.
• Optimizing your landing page can take some time, but your actions will yield solid results in boosting your conversion of prospects to leads.  Then your sales team just needs to close the sale! 

As you plan your 2014 marketing and sales efforts, consider adding a landing page to your marketing mix if you do not already have one.  If you have a landing page in place, take steps to test and optimize your efforts and effectiveness.  Also take time to review your website home page and navigation.  Make it easy for visitors to find what they need and to request more information.  These simple changes will help you get off to a more productive start in the New Year.

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This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blend website.

GrowthSpring Group is a unique strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that helps clients accelerate sales and profit growth. We help you identify and implement new business insights, opportunities, winning strategies and plans. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com