At HIVE, we strongly believe that your website should be your best salesman yet for many businesses, it's kind of an afterthought. Think about it - your website works 24/7, should always have the answer that someone is looking for, can provide pricing, fill your pipeline with leads, and maybe even close the sale. If you give your website all the tools that it needs, it can easily be your best salesman. And the best salesmen always generate leads. Today we're going to dive into 5 tips you can implement today to start generating more leads online by giving your website the tools it needs to do so!
1. Top of the funnel offers
So many businesses focus on what they ultimately want to happen - a sale, but that isn't always what a visitor is looking for. Even if you're promoting a Free Trial, not all visitors are going to be ready for that. They're still in research mode. They're just realizing that they have a problem and they're learning about the problem. For an example, if you're a SaaS (software as a service) company and you provide cloud services, someone that just had their local server go down may just be researching their options. They're not ready to sign up with your company, shoot, they may not even be sure what a cloud really is or how it can help them. They're just looking for help and more information. Provide them with it. Developing top of the funnel offers like white papers, infographics, or videos that talk about what a cloud is and how it can help their business will help you fill your pipeline with prospects that can be nurtured into customers later.
2. Middle of the funnel offers
The same holds true here from the first point, but in this case, that prospect has figured out that they want to move to a cloud, but they're deciding between SaaS companies. In every industry there is competition and it's your job to convince your prospects that you are the correct choice. Here you could develop content such as a comparison of your services to your competitors or maybe even develop some thorough case studies from your most successful customers.
3. Chat Bots
Bots are going to be a major part of the future of sales. Everyone wants instant access to answers and adding a chat bot to your website can do just that. They're not intrusive and viewed as just a helpful feature. There are many chat bots out there and more are popping up every single day, but the idea behind them is that you (and your team) can be accessed 24/7. If someone visits your website and they can't find the answer that they're looking for, they can simply type their question into a chat pane and the question can be sent directly to you and your team through your website, email, and even text message. You can respond immediately the same way. This will help you generate more leads online and close more deals.
4. Effective CTAs
CTAs (calls-to-action) are your best friend. They have a place on nearly every page and will help you grow your pipeline. There are several types and placements of CTAs that can be very effective including:
- Slide-In or Popup CTAs
- Be sure to be as unintrusive as possible. Remember - you're trying to be helpful. Slide-In and Popup CTAs have been shown to be even more effective than static CTAs.
- Exit Popups
- These have been shown to be especially effective. Give a special offer when someone clicks on the url bar or goes near the tab close button. It's a last chance to convert someone to a lead before they exit your site.
- SMART CTAs
- These are calls-to-actions that change depending on the person that visits your site or a specific page. For example, someone that is visiting your website for the very first time will see a different call-to-action than someone that is a former customer. This helps you deliver custom content to your visitors.
We recommend at least one CTA per page and one at the end of every blog post. You can't expect to grow your pipeline without giving your visitors the ability to become a lead!
5. A/B Testing
We all have preconceived notions and ideas about what will be most effective with our visitors, but we don't really know until we test it. We recommend utilizing A/B testing as regularly as possible so that you can start to develop data that will allow you to focus on the designs, copy, and layout (among other things) that resonate best with your specific followers. This can be done with landing pages, calls-to-actions, new pages, and even full web designs. The more data you have, the better your decisions.
We all want more sales. We all want to grow, but we can't do that if we're not utilizing all of the resources at our disposal effectively. You don't have another salesman that works 24/7, doesn't take vacation, ask for a raise, or need breaks. If you truly want to grow your leads, grow your leads online by starting with these tips.
Generating leads is not your only goal with your marketing. You want to attract new visitors to your website and your business, you want to develop content that keeps them coming back, you want to close more sales, and you want to create referral traffic from raving fans of your business. All of those things go into a great inbound marketing campaign.
