Marketing in the B2B sector has one main goal: to supply the sales team with leads, for instance addresses from interested persons. The size of the company is irrelevant – medium-sized enterprises can win new customers just as much as large corporations. One way to generate leads is through the company-own website. Here is where you should have the conversion rate in sight at all time. What exactly the conversion rate is and how companies can generate leads from it is explained for you in this article.
What is leads generation?
Leads generation is a method in marketing which covers the generation of interactions with qualified interested persons. In this context, leads are customers or interesting data which (potential) customers provide to the company to start a dialogue.
Why it is so important to generate leads
The generation of leads encompasses more than just gaining sets of data. Its objective is to filter out those contacts which have the potential to become new customers. The generation of leads therefore has a leading role in online marketing.
Especially enterprises that are active in growth markets or which would like to grow faster than the competition rely on new interested parties. Even if a B2B company offers a product which requires special explanation, the generation of leads can make a significant contribution to sales and marketing.
What the conversion rate is and how it can be raised
The conversion rate is defined as the percentage of persons who perform a certain interaction on a website or in an online shop. The conversion does not have to be a purchase or a transaction. Each goal previously defined and achieved can count as a conversion, for instance the subscription of the newsletter.
The first step to a better conversion rate is the definition of a goal, such as the approximate number of leads which a company would like to gain. When taking a look at the current conversion rate, you can then determine how many leads still need to be generated to achieve the company’s goal.
A possibility for optimising the conversion rate is to test various designs of a website or landing page. This enables you to find out which design leaves a better impression. A high-quality design and attractive images invite the visitor to browse through the site. Just as important are easy-to-read and accurate text, which ideally contains knowledge and is also written in an interesting way.
You can also increase your visibility on professional platforms such as wlw and Europages. The presence on these B2B platforms can drive traffic to your company's website and is a good opportunitiy to generate leads.
Good website navigation is good for the conversion rate
At the same time, it’s important that the visitor is navigated through the website. In addition to a good reading structure, call to actions (CTAs) above all are ideal for this. These are interactive fields, such as buttons or links, which inspire the user to click (e.g. “Click here for details!”) and guide the user to another page on the website or directly to the purchasing process. CTAs should clearly communicate to the visitor what they can expect after clicking and should stand out in their design and colour.
In contrast, conversion rate killers are unnecessary barriers – such as contact forms which are overloaded with information. Contact fields which show an error only once the user has submitted the form also increase the bounce rate. If a company has international customers, it’s recommended to offer the website in several languages. Local contact persons from foreign dependencies should be named with their contact address, email and phone number.
Dos and Don’ts
Unfortunately, there’s no standard solution for increasing the conversion rate – companies’ conversion goals are simply too different. The important thing is to regularly check the success or failure of the company-own website, to try out new designs and text, and to implement learnings from past experiences. A few dos and don’ts can, however, be briefly summarised.
Yes, please:
- Interesting gated content: With interesting, protected content – for instance white papers which require registration to download – can generate additional customer contacts.
- Contact form: The fewer fields a website visitor has to fill in, the more they are willing to do so. Errors should be shown immediately, not when the form is submitted.
- Call to action (CTA): On each landing page and each sub-page, a CTA should inspire visitors to interact further with the website (e.g. “Request your free offer today!”).
- Pop-up form: Frequently frowned upon, pop-up forms can be used for CTAs – as long as they don’t bother the visitor.
- Internationalism: Provide local contact persons for international customers.
No, thank you:
- Overloaded forms: Extremely long, complicated contact forms frustrate the visitor and increase the bounce rate.
- Pushy language: Confident text is good, loud boasting generates little trust. Just as unnecessary are upper-case letters (e.g. “CLICK HERE!”) and a lot of exclamation points.
- Wrong information regarding the use of data: If you don’t inform your customers accurately about the use of their data, you quickly lose their trust!
