We love meeting new companies, hearing their stories, and taking in their vision for the future. These conversations inevitably end in “how can we help?” The number one answer to that question is, hands down, “more leads.” Rightfully so, digital marketing is the most accessible connection to audiences and in the B2B market, prospects are especially challenging to engage and convert, as social media and email behavior varies so much amongst professionals.
We typically follow up with two questions:
- “Are you currently getting any leads from your website? If so, how many and what percentage of them become customers?” (We want to know why you want more leads)
- “how do you feel about your website and is it used and evangelized throughout the company?” (There is a direct connection between the overall use and condition of a company’s website and the number of digital leads generated.)
Dead End Websites
The number of digital leads generated is directly tied to the effectiveness of digital marketing activities. Where do these activities typically drive traffic to? The website. Every company wants to increase revenue and maximize marketing ROI through lead generation, but the website is typically a major challenge to any marketing professional walking in and trying to create more leads on day one. Having a website designed to convert visitors into leads is crucial and many websites are dead ends. The 3 major issues that make a dead-end website are:
- There are no specific, relevant calls to action (“contact us” won’t get the job done),
- the user journey is not optimized to give the user the right information when they need it to keep the on the site, or
- there is not a soft conversion opportunity (not everyone wants to go straight from awareness to speaking with sales)
Dead-end websites seem insignificant? You can always create a landing page and start running campaigns for a short-term fix, but savvy buyers will click around landing pages to learn more about the company, and if what’s behind the proverbial landing page curtain isn’t impressive, no conversion.
Great, but how do I get more leads?
We’re glad you asked. The following tactics can be used by any business to triage their website lead generation and find some opportunities to create more conversions (leads).
Quality versus Quantity
The first step is deciding whether you need a greater volume of leads or higher quality leads. Consider the following when making this decision:
- How many leads are you currently getting? This number varies for each business, but at a minimum, you have to begin with this baseline information so that you can assess the effectiveness of your lead-generation activities.
- How many leads convert into sales? If you’re getting 100 leads per week, but only converting one of them, you may have a quality problem. If you are only getting 5 leads per week and converting zero, you have a quantity and quality problem.
- When leads come in through marketing channels, what happens to them? You must be able to answer this question so the marketing team can manage prospect expectations and contribute to sales enablement. For instance, are leads sent directly into the Sales CRM to be acted upon or is there complexity and delay?
- When prospects don’t become customers, do you know why? Knowing this helps to figure out a course of action for increasing the quality of leads. If you need higher quality leads, that means it’s a marketing education and content strategy opportunity. On the other hand, if you need more leads, you may need to test some traffic tactics and/or do some website optimization.
- Do you have written guidance for Market Qualified Leads (MQLs)? It’s important to have quantitative and qualitative parameters for what constitutes a quality lead.
- What should a prospect know before talking to sales? If you send a lead to the sales department without having all the pertinent information that’s expected, the chances of losing that lead go up exponentially. So, keeping marketing up to date on the prospect education requirements can be a game changer.
Content
Most companies are frustrated with lead generation activities but generally indifferent to the fact that their website is outdated, not a reflection of what they do now, or any other circumstance that renders it useless. The content on your website plays a crucial role in lead generation. Accuracy and relevance are key factors that can either help or hinder your efforts. If your website accurately represents your offering and how you want to do business, it will attract the right audience.
On the other hand, if your website is irrelevant or doesn’t accurately represent your company, it can repel potential customers. Further, even if your website is well-designed and optimized, it won’t be effective if internal stakeholders, especially the sales team, don’t view it as a valuable tool to supplement their conversations. So, strive to ensure all content on your site is accurate, relevant to your target audience, and well-paced for the transition from awareness to conversion for the best possible outcomes.
Traffic Analytics
In the world of lead generation, website traffic is king. It’s what brings users to your digital home and hopefully, your content encourages them to stay a while to explore what your company has to offer. Generating website traffic (paid or organic) can bring you more leads. However, you should not blindly drive a ton of traffic to your website.
You’ll want to review your traffic and user behavior analytics before you take action on driving more traffic. This can tell you a lot about the traffic that you are getting and help you predict what might happen if you increase traffic. Here are some examples of what you could do based on what you find in your analytics, before generating more traffic:
- High homepage bounce rate: Make some content and optimization tweaks to the homepage
- Main exit pages: Are there opportunities to convert on those pages? Maybe install an exit survey to gather more data.
- User Paths: Is there a pattern for the order that users click through pages? Can you tie this behavior to a persona or industry and create a landing page that speaks specifically to them?
Sending prospects to your website can be a powerful strategy, but make sure that you have a handle on how users currently interact with your site.
Optimization
Website optimization has a significant impact on the amount of leads generated. One critical area of optimization is conversion opportunities. Ensuring that each call-to-action (CTA) requests a specific, accessible action and addresses the pain points of the audience is essential. Whether it’s hard conversions like sales, or soft conversions like joining the newsletter or downloading a resource, offering a variety of opportunities for users to become prospects is important.
Additionally, search engine optimization (SEO) plays a role in lead generation. Ensuring that your site is optimized for your target audience and monitoring keyword performance can help drive traffic to your site and increase lead generation. It’s essential to continue adjusting keywords based on the data gathered to improve results. Ultimately, implementing different types of website optimization can help drive lead generation and increase your customer base.
In the world of digital marketing, it’s easy to get caught up in the latest trends and techniques. But the truth is, success starts with a strong foundation. It’s not just about appearances. That’s why we prioritize fixing foundational elements. Relevant content that resonates with the audience and adds value, paired with the right CTAs, are crucial precursors to digital marketing and lead generation. Without these elements, your marketing efforts may fall short.
After all, websites are the centerpiece of the digital presence and have a disproportionate impact on the effectiveness of all digital marketing activities. So, No Dead End Websites! Let’s focus on building a healthy foundation first, and then reap the benefits (more leads) as your digital presence soars.
Not sure how your website needs to be improved but you know it needs work? Schedule a free website review with us and find out!
