How to maximize the bottom of your marketing funnel
How to maximize the bottom of your marketing funnel
Improve your website conversion
B2B marketers have long lived with the fact that 99% of the people who visit their websites do not convert into a lead and have long mitigated it by seeking out high volume search queries with SEO content and by using retargeting to bring visitors back for another try.
However with Google’s new Search Generative Experience (SGE) already starting to reduce organic traffic from highly popular informational searches and Chrome set to join Safari in phasing out support for 3rd party cookies, marketers are going to have to make up the shortfall by improving their website conversion rate and squeezing more juice from the smaller pool of visitors.
While the drop in website traffic is hard to stomach, there is a silver lining for conversion optimization because Google SGE’s filtering out lower intent traffic actually makes conversion optimization a simpler problem to solve. The people that make it all the way through to your website will be true bottom of funnel prospects who are aware of the problem they have, looking for a solution and ready to evaluate vendors. You just have to make sure your website speaks to them.
This posts details seven tactics to improve B2B website conversion with good (and some not so good) examples of how to implement each. The seven tactics are:
Make your homepage messaging customer-centric
Make your pricing clear and transparent
Make it easy to see your product
Drive to a single call to action
Ask qualifying questions on your lead form
Make it easy to compare your product to others
Make your content relevant to the problem you solve
1. Make your homepage messaging customer-centric
When a potential customer lands on your homepage, one of the first things they see is your homepage headline followed by the rest of your above-the-fold homepage messaging. Your messaging needs to quickly communicate the problem you solve, who you solve it for, the impact you deliver and how you solve it. Your messaging needs to be customer-centric.
However, many early-stage startups try to get too creative with their messaging, in the name of having a brand voice, or too clever with their messaging by packing it with insider jargon. This type of seller-centric messaging just confuses their potential customers, turns them off and sends them to a competitor.
Here’s an example of a homepage with seller-centric messaging:
It’s not clear what problem they solve and for whom they solve it. The headline messaging just describes their solution, in very generic terms.
The impact is vague. “Step into a new era of data-driven strategies” does not help a buyer figure out which part of their business Zeotap impacts.
In contrast, here’s Chili Piper’s homepage, a great example of customer-centric messaging:
The impact is very specific. They could have easily fallen into the trap of saying they double your leads or double your conversion rates, which would have been vague. By specifying that they double inbound conversions, Chili Piper makes it easy for their buyer to figure out exactly which part of their business they impact.
It’s very clear how they solve the problem. By saying that they qualify, route and schedule leads from anywhere — be it your webform, cold calls, campaigns, G2 page, Chili Piper makes it easy for their buyer to figure out exactly which workflows they help with.
2. Make your pricing clear and transparent
Transparent pricing helps buyers qualify themselves in or out of your sales process. If they can’t afford your product, its highly unlikely you will change their mind not matter how good a salesperson you are.
However, around 50% of startups do not publish their pricing or worse, have a pricing page with no actual pricing on it. If you think that revealing your pricing puts you at a disadvantage, it actually does the opposite.
Here’s an example of an unclear and opaque pricing page:
Its unclear. It says that pricing depends on a few factors specific to your team but then doesn’t explain what those factors are. This makes it hard for a buyer to figure out if they have the right type of team.
It’s not transparent. The answer to “How much does it cost?” is “It depends”. It can’t seriously be that complicated to publish this information. A buyer has no idea if they can even afford Gong.
In contrast, here’s an excellent example of a clear pricing page (on Chili Piper):
It’s clear. You can see the available packages, what they contain and how much they cost.
It’s transparent. You can see that pricing is per user and that one of the packages has a platform fee. A buyer can easily figure out if they can afford Chili Piper.
3. Make it easy to see your product in action
Buyers don’t want to jump through hoops just to take a look at your product. If your website’s primary call to action is “Book a demo”, your buyers won’t be thrilled by having to sit through a qualification call with an SDR and a discovery call with an AE before being able to see the product.
If your product doesn’t lend itself well to a self-serve trial (as many products don’t), provide a video tour of your product on your website. Focus on addressing the key use cases that buyers come to you to solve and on answering the key questions they have about how it works and how it integrates with other systems.
Here’s a great example of making it easy for customers to see your product with a demo library (on Ironclad):
Ironclad’s demo library contains 30 videos covering their common use cases, features and integrations. Its ideal because Ironclad’s ICP is legal, a group that on one hand is reluctant to talk to salespeople, while on the other hand is eager for detailed information to assess the risk of putting their contracts on a platform that uses AI. Videos are an effective way to bridge the gap.
4. Drive to a single call to action
Along with your headline and above-the-fold homepage messaging, your call to action (CTA) is one of the most important elements on your website as it directs your prospective customer into the evaluation process for your product.
When you use a single CTA repeated in multiple places you give your customer clear directions on how to get started with that evaluation process whereas using multiple CTAs can create decision paralysis.
Here’s an example of a website that has competing calls to action above the fold on the homepage:
The dominant CTA does not drive conversion to lead. If you click through to get the Gartner report, it dead ends in a CTA to work with Gartner. Sure they’ll get a lot of email addresses but most of them will be unqualified.
It’s not clear if they want you to try the product for free or talk to an expert. If the self-serve onboarding flow isn’t good enough to get a prospect to see the value, then its better to route everyone to an expert or make it clearer who needs to talk to an expert vs try it for free, and why.
By contrast Chili Piper’s homepage has a single CTA repeated multiple times:
The primary CTA on the homepage is “Get a Demo”. It’s clear to anyone landing on this page that to continue evaluating the product you should click the Get a Demo button.
The secondary CTA leads directly to the primary CTA. As you scroll down the page, the secondary CTA (“Learn more”) takes you to a child page that has multiple CTAs to book a demo.