If you want more website leads, you’ve got two options: advertising and marketing to get more visitors to your site or conversion rate optimization to convert more of the visitors you already have into leads.
In my experience, most lead seeking business owners rely exclusively on option one. But to operate this way is to completely fail to take advantage of one of the web’s greatest features—the ability to run inexpensive data-driven tests to measurably improve your results.
When it comes to getting more web leads, you need to ALWAYS BE TESTING!
Good, Better, Best
Good online marketers see their website as a sales funnel that looks something like this:
Great online marketers implement the best analytical tools they can afford and continually test various advertising and marketing strategies designed to fill the funnel. The very best digital marketers take things one step further.
The best marketers don’t just test advertising and marketing strategies designed to fill the funnel more efficiently, they also recognize that between each segment in the funnel above is a conversion. Wherever there’s a conversion point, there’s an opportunity for testing, optimization, and data-informed improvement.
When It Comes to Conversion Rate Optimization, the Devil Is in the Details
BIG conversion rate improvements can be achieved with relatively minor changes. Watch this:
In the video, the beggar’s sign says, “I’m blind, please help.” A young woman—and undercover conversion rate optimization expert—notices the man’s sign and makes a few small adjustments, which results in a dramatic increase in donations.
While you might be rolling your eyes at the fictitious nature of the video, it’s based on a true story told by David Kirby involving a Frenchman named Jacques Prevert. A similar version is attributed to David Ogilvy all around the web.
The point is, small changes can have a MAJOR impact on your site’s conversion rate. Here’s another example that is absolutely taken from the real world, and this example involves business analytics software powerhouse SAS.
The call-to-action (CTA) button on the left page says, “Download Paper.” The CTA on the button on the right page says, “Get My Free Paper.” Which one do you think had a higher visit-to-lead conversion rate?
If you guessed the page on the right (“Get My Free Paper”), you were right—by a lot. The CTA “Get My Free Paper” increased downloads by 25%!!
Think about that for a moment.
Let’s say you run a local, residential plumbing company and you get 2,500 visits per month from within your service area to a landing page which has “Schedule An Appointment” as the primary CTA. If the page’s current visit-to-completed web form is 7%, imagine what might happen if you changed the CTA to “Get A Plumber TODAY!”
In my experience, something that simple can have a profound impact on your site’s conversion rate. And for those of you worried about being too busy, you can always change things back. That’s the power of the web—the ability to run quick tests like this.
Closing Thoughts and Takeaways
At Blue Corona, we have a proven 5 step process for helping our clients better utilize analytics and the web to grow their businesses. The first step of our process is to track everything and commit to making data-driven decisions. The fourth step is to commit to continuously testing and optimizing to improve your conversion rates.
If you want to grow your business, testing and optimizing never stops. You’re either testing and optimizing advertising and marketing strategies to get more qualified visitors to your website at a lower cost or you’re working to convert more visitors into leads and leads into sales.
Maybe you’re not sure what your website’s conversion rates are, or whether you’ve got the right tools in place. No problem—we can help. Maybe you’re not sure what to test first? That’s okay, just drop us a line. We’ll help you figure it out!