How to Turn Your Website Visitors Into Qualified Leads for ROI
When you're planning inbound marketing, one of the most vital things to consider is how you're going to turn your website visitors into leads. Frankly, it doesn't matter how many visits your website receives if you can't find a way to make sales from those visitors.
Crucial to content-driven inbound internet marketing is the ability to turn your web visitors into sales leads. How? Read on!
Using Landing Pages To Turn Your Website Visitors Into Leads
A landing page is often the most effective tool for making these conversions. A landing page is like a sales page, in fact. You're presenting an offer, outlining the benefits of the offer, and asking the visitor to take action to obtain it. You're just not asking for money.
- Start with a catchy headline. Start with an action verb indicating what the customer should do. Use words like “Download” or “Sign up.” Then say what the offer is, with a very brief summary of the benefit.
- Write brief copy explaining the offer in more detail. Keep it short and to the point. You're not selling them on anything except the benefits of swapping their name and email for a download. Just go over what the content contains and include a full bullet points on the benefits.
- Images help. A picture is always eye-catching, and helps make the offer “real” to your visitors. A photo of the content or offer is generally best.
- Make it a blind alley. Don't include any other links or buttons on a landing page besides the ones for obtaining the content. The visitor's only options on a landing page should either be agreeing to the offer, or hitting the “back” button on their browser.
As far as what information to ask for, keep it simple. In most cases, a name and email address will suffice. If you do B2B, you might also want their company name or position.
One technique I've seen that seems quite effective is to have escalating lead pages. Basically, every time a visitor wants to access another piece of content, they have to give up a little more information that helps target advertising to them. On the first round, it's just their name and email. On the second download, their title and job responsibilities. Then their income or some demographic information, and so forth.
With this form of content marketing, you'll build a robust sales lead database of prospects who are already interested in what you have to offer. Qualified leads? I'd say so!
Using Calls To Action
Once you've got your landing page content prepared, you need to direct people to it. Call To Action (CTA) buttons are an effective way to drive traffic, enhance your inbound marketing and direct qualified people to your landing page. To do this, create content text or image links announcing your free offer. Creating them is straightforward:
- Make them visually distinct and stand out
- Use similar wording to the landing page headline
- Keep them action-oriented. (ie, “Click Here For a Free Marketing Review!”)
These CTA's should be placed in key site areas that receive a lot of web traffic. Your homepage, major sub-pages, and your blog sidebar are great places. I've also found that CTAs can be integrated into blog copy as well, if they're positioned as helpful rather than sales oriented.
Takeaway
Landing pages are a highly effective way to turn your website visitors into leads. Treat them like miniature sales pages to convince your visitors to give you some information in exchange for a free offer of value to them, and lead them to these pages with CTA buttons.
For more information and a review of your web marketing landing pages for lead generation and increased ROI Click here.