You’ve got people visiting your website and reading your blog content. They’re actively seeking out your product or service and are interested in learning more. How do you get them to stay—and even buy your product or engage with your service? It’s time to encourage them to take the next step. You want them to impart some of their valuable information to you, so you can convert them from a casual site visitor to an important lead. But how exactly do you accomplish this? You need to offer your potential customer something of value. It doesn’t have to be big—just something that they value enough to give you something in return, namely their email address or other contact information. If they’re willing to impart their information to you, then you know they have interest in what you’re selling and can be considered a lead worth following up with.
Make an offer.
Everyone loves to get something for free. Putting offers on your site is an effective way to attract potential customers. Depending on your business, there are all kinds of things you can give away for free. The type of offer you make is up to you. If your business is service-oriented, something like an eBook or a webinar may be the way to go. If you sell products, a potential customer might be inclined to sign up in exchange for a coupon, a product demo, or a sample.
Implement calls-to-action.
A call-to-action (CTA) is the button your visitor clicks on to claim your offer. This is the beginning of the conversion process. If your visitor clicks on this, you know they have at least some interest in what you’re selling. The CTA button directs users to a landing page, but your goal at this stage, when someone is visiting your site, is simply to get them to click on that button. This can be easier said than done. You may have to experiment with your button’s copy, size, color, etc. There is no perfect button that will work in every case, but there are some tactics that get better results than others. Use action-oriented words for your copy, such as get or download. For example: “Start your free trial” and “Request a quote.” Try to shy away from generic terms like submit or click here. Additionally, your CTA button should be prominently placed and in a contrasting color to the rest of your page, so there’s no missing it. You’ll have more space on your landing page to further woo your visitors.
Design an effective landing page.
Marketing Sherpa found that 68% of B2B businesses used landing pages to gather new sales leads for future conversion. Your landing page needs a clear, concise, action-oriented headline. It gives you a little more room than your CTA button does, so go ahead and use a few sentences to explain your offer clearly—one to three should be sufficient. You want to stress what’s in it for your customer. Why should they care about your offer? Why should they give you their information? Online wine club, Club W’s corporate gifting landing page, nailed it with their simple, yet effective headline: “This year, give a gift everyone will love. (Hint It’s Wine).” It’s to the point, tells why their product is of value, and even injects a bit of humor. 
Similar to what you do in your blog posts, it makes sense to use numbered lists, bullet points, and bolding on your landing page. People tend to skim online, so you only have a few seconds to grab your visitors’ attention. Therefore, you want your information to really pop and be easily digested. You can even add interest by including an appropriate image or video. Videos can be really useful to explain a complex service or product. Just make sure your images or videos relate to your copy. You want them to stand out but not dominate the page and become distracting.
Capture their information.
The landing page is all about gathering information about your potential customer. It boils down to this: You want them to fill out your form. At this point, it’s still early days in the sales process, so don’t ask for too much. Most people probably aren’t going to want to answer a lot of questions and give up information like their addresses or telephone numbers for a short eBook. Conversion rates have been shown to fall off when you ask your visitor to fill out more than three fields. Start with the basics: a name, an email address, and maybe a company name. Armed with this information, you can now consider your visitor a lead, which you can then pass onto your sales team to convert into a customer. Getting a visitor’s email address won’t guarantee you a sale, but it does get visitors one step closer to purchasing your products or engaging with your services. Putting some effort into your offers and landing pages will help you acquire more targeted leads, which will almost certainly get you more sales down the road.
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