Inbound Marketing Insights

The conversion process is critical to the success of your inbound marketing and digital marketing strategy. Did you know that 55% of website visitors spend 15 seconds or less on your website? That is not a lot of time to get them the information they need before they decide to go elsewhere…likely to your competition.  Optimizing your conversion process starting with the moment a visitor lands on your site ensures you are giving them every opportunity to become a contact in your system, and ultimately a lead for your sales team in the future.

Last week, the Phoenix HubSpot User Group had Angela Hicks, Inbound Marketing Professor at HubSpot, in town to speak to us about how HubSpot trains their team and thousands of inbound marketers around the globe about content conversion.  Here are some tips from the Phoenix HubSpot User Group, and trends and best practices we have seen as part of the content optimization process. 

The conversion process primarily consists of three things including: call-to-action, landing page, and thank you page. Keeping those three things in mind when planning your next offer will ensure you have the structure in place to start generating leads and providing additional conversion avenues for your website visitors. 

How can you get the most out of your conversion process? The most critical part of maximizing your conversion process is to analyze your results. Most importantly, you want to look at the following:

• On your calls-to-action, the most important number in your conversion is how many individuals viewed the call to action versus how many clicked. This will tell you if your call-to-action is actually driving visitors to the action you want them to take.
• On your landing page, the most important number is how many views you have on your page versus how many people fill out the form. As a general rule, if your landing page is seeing a 20%+ conversion rate, it is doing very well!
• On your thank you page, the most important number is how many people click to the thank you page, but then take another action after that. The number here will typically be smaller than the landing page conversion because the individual has already received the intended information. Anywhere above a 5% conversion rate is great on a thank you page!

The most important part of analyzing your results is to find the weakest point in your conversion process and focus your efforts there. Be sure to only change one thing at a time so you can really pinpoint what’s working and what’s not working.

Here are some tips on how you can optimize the three main parts of the conversion process to maximize your results:

Calls-to-Action (CTA):

• Assess the CTA out of context. Make sure the language is actionable and clear.
• Consider tone for your buyer persona
• Evaluate the visual elements such as: placement on page, color, shape, contrast and imagery.

Landing Pages:

• Start with the text. Optimize the header and the offer copy first.
• Make sure your page is entirely distraction-free. Some common distractions can be links, CTA’s to different pages, and a menu bar.
• Optimize the questions on your form. Be sure you are asking only the information you need, and only what’s relevant to that particular persona and where they are in the buyers journey. Tip: If you’re using HubSpot, you can use smart fields on your forms to ask new questions to individuals who have filled out a form on your site before. This helps gather more data from the visitor automatically without risking a lower conversion rate.
• Make sure your landing page is visually appealing. Place emphasis on important words, and use an image, video or animation to further describe the offer. Keep it concise!

Thank You Pages:

• Make sure it’s very clear where the visitor can access the offer they just requested from the landing page.
• Include a CTA below to take them to another page, which is further down the marketing and sales funnel. For example, if they just downloaded a guide, you can send them to a case study.
• You can also include a sidebar form to have them sign up for your blog or newsletter. 

The conversion process is complex, and has many moving pieces to it. You need to be constantly evaluating your offers, how they are converting, and make changes as necessary to be sure you are optimizing your assets to maximize your lead generation efforts. If you’re interested in more information and tips on the “Convert” part of the inbound marketing methodology, here is a blog we wrote on all aspects of the Convert phase.

If you’re interested in discussing your conversion process, or ideas on where to start, you can schedule a complimentary 30-minute inbound marketing consultation with our team.