Are you struggling with how to generate leads from your website?
Perhaps you’ve spent a lot of money getting your website to look the part, yet for some reason you’re just not getting the number of leads you need – and the ones you are getting aren’t always ready to buy yet.
Frustrating, isn’t it? The good news is, you’re not alone.
This is actually one of the most common problems many businesses approach me about, and it all boils down to one simple thing: touch points.
In this blog post, I’m going to explain exactly what I mean by touch points, and how you can use your website to increase the quality and quantity of leads for your business.
What are ‘touch points’?
Let’s start by imagining a classic business website – let’s call it Dave’s Conservatories.
Just like many small businesses, Dave’s Conservatories has a website set up that shows all of the products and services on offer, with one simple touch point: the ‘Contact Us’ page.
This is fine for the people who have already made up their minds and are ready to contact Dave to buy a conservatory – but what Dave hasn’t taken into consideration is that most people who arrive on his website will not yet have reached that stage.
In fact, they might not even know if a conservatory is really what they need.
Dave’s current website conversion rate is 1%, and because he only has one touch point, there’s nothing left for the other 99% of people who will take a look at his website, and then leave.
By only having one touch point, Dave is significantly limiting the options of his visitors.
So, what can Dave do differently?
Introduce multiple touch points
If you’re thinking Dave should perhaps try to focus on the other 99% of the people who visit his site, you’d be correct.
Think of it this way: Everyone who visits your website is at a different stage of their buyer’s journey. These stages look something like this:
- Awareness stage
- Consideration stage
- Decision stage
A touch point such as ‘contact us’ or ‘get a quote’ are mainly aimed at people who have already reached the decision stage of their buyer’s journey.
Instead, you need to create touch points that are relevant to each stage in the buying process.
By introducing more options and offering helpful downloads or informative content (these are known as ‘premium content offers’) you can reach people who are still in the earlier stages of their journey – and by including a form, you can easily capture their name and basic contact details before they download.
This in turn helps you quickly acquire more leads that you can then nurture into customers!
Below are just some examples of touch points you can create:
- Download our ebook
- Download a free whitepaper
- Subscribe to the blog
- Sign up to the weekly newsletter
- Sign up for a webinar
- Request our ‘how to’ email series
- Download a free infographic
You could also introduce more decision stage touch points, such as ‘request a free consultation’ or ‘request a quote’.
If only Dave had known this before!
Increase leads via your website in 6 steps
This is all very well, but if like Dave, you’ve not particularly experienced with inbound marketing and are left feeling unsure of exactly how to put the above advice into action to generate leads, this next part’s for you.
I’m going to talk you through how to generate more leads and nurture them into customers in six simple steps.
Step 1:
This first step involves taking an objective look at your website, and thinking about the journey your customers go through and the content on each page. Start thinking about downloadable offers or ‘touch points’ that might be relevant.
For example, on Dave’s product page, perhaps an ebook discussing alternatives to conservatories might be an idea. This would appeal to people in the awareness stage of their journey, who maybe aren’t sure if a conservatory is the best choice for them.
Step 2:
Now, think of their next steps – what should they do once they’ve clicked on your offer? Perhaps you could simply have a form for them to fill out their contact details before being given the download of their choice – or would it be more appropriate to send them to a landing page that tells them exactly what’s in the download?
If it’s a simple touch point, such as ‘subscribe to the newsletter’, perhaps all you need is a well-placed call-to-action (CTA) with a space to fill in their email address. Plan this out so it is as clear as possible when it is on the page.
TIP: If there’s space, you should also briefly let them know what to expect if they subscribe – essentially, give them a good reason to fill in their email address.
Step 3:
Go through the same process above for each section of website, and come up with a list of premium content offers that address their potential questions or challenges at every stage of the journey.
When creating your content, try to make it as valuable and informative as possible – this will build trust and establish you as a source they can turn to for more tips and advice – perhaps via your blog.
Step 4:
For each premium content offer (such as an ebook or detailed infographic), create landing pages which talk about the benefits of downloading the offer. This will let your visitors know exactly what to expect once they have downloaded it.
This is also a chance to entice them into downloading that offer, so try to make your copy sound persuasive, but not salesy or too-good-to-be-true. Include a form for them to fill out their contact details, such as their name, email address and telephone number.
Step 5:
Now that your leads have downloaded their premium content, it’s time to write some follow-up emails. This is called ’email nurturing’, and if done well, should help them to eventually become customers.
These emails should NOT be salesy, and should be separated out to maybe three or four weekly emails.
Perhaps the first email would go along the lines of thanking them for downloading your content, and asking if they have any questions or whether they managed to get their download okay.
Step 6:
Finally, analyse and test your emails to see which ones get a response from leads, and which are getting ignored. A marketing/sales platform such as HubSpot should help you see which emails are being opened, or clicked on the most.
You should be able to tweak them until you start to see the desired results, and this should in turn help encourage your leads to get in touch or revisit your website.
Conclusion
If you’re unsure of how to get more high quality leads from your website, you’re not the only one. It’s a common problem many businesses face, but it’s also a problem that can be easily fixed by introducing multiple touch points or call-to-actions to your site.
You should focus on creating different touch points for every stage of your customers’ buying journey.
- Awareness stage
- Consideration stage
- Decision stage
These can be premium content offers such as ebooks, whitepapers, infographics and more – or they could simply be offers to sign up to a weekly newsletter or blog. As long as each offer is helpful and relevant to the correct page, this should help you generate more leads.
Follow my above six steps on how to generate leads, and you should see the quality of your leads steadily increasing as more and more people begin to download your premium content offers.
Which touch points do you have on your website, and are they performing as well as they could? Let me know in the comments and I will try to help.