A well-prepared online marketing plan will enable you to drive targeted customers to your website, yet not every potential customer will be ready to make a purchase during their first visit. Although the ultimate goal for a business website is to sell, measures should be taken to engage all of your site visitors.
Such measures include adding one or more lead capture features to your website. The purpose of a lead capture exercise is simple: to provide a compelling reason for your site visitor to give you their business contact details, with the understanding that you will use them for additional correspondence.
How to Acquire New Business Leads from Your Website
Many businesses lose the opportunity to establish a 'connection' with potential customers by not adopting any lead capture activities. Perhaps many of your site visitors are not ready to buy, yet they are happy to allow you to initiate correspondence. The following examples outline some tried-and-tested lead capture techniques.
1. Email Newsletter Subscription
If you publish a company email newsletter, always provide a subscription form on your website. Include the form – along with some sales copy – in the same conspicuous position on every page. Make it simple for your site visitors to register for your newsletter wherever they end up on your site.
2. Free Downloads
Giving away a valuable report, case studies, or industry research in the form of a White Paper in exchange for a few contact details is a win-win situation. Your website visitors get something of genuine value for their business while you get targeted contacts with whom to continue correspondence.
3. Prize Draws
You can be creative with prize draws – the more appealing the prize, the more leads you are likely to acquire. Fun, original prize draws can easily have a viral effect, multiplying the number of new leads many times over.
4. RSS Feeds
If you publish a business blog, you must provide Really Simple Syndication (RSS), which allows your blog visitors to subscribe to your blog with only a few clicks. RSS subscribers are immediately alerted when you publish a new blog post. Feeds can also be set up to let the subscriber know when new comments have been added to your blog posts as well.
5. Don't Ignore Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is growing fast, partly because it is crossing into the business world. Web 2.0 sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have added features to make their content sharing platforms more of a legitimate medium for business correspondence. New potential customers can follow all your updates very easily with the click of a button.
Whatever techniques you choose, consider creating a dedicated web page – sometimes called a squeeze page – which has one sole purpose: to capture contact details. Here are some quick tips for persuading your site visitors to begin a 'conversation' with you:
- Use a clear Call to Action
- Consider how the page layout can help channel your visitors' attention
- Be creative with images to break up copy and get your message across quicker
- Share your message immediately with well-written headlines and sub-headlines
- Keep your web forms tight – asking for too much data may mean that your visitor will not proceed
Implementing well-thought-out lead capture activities will provide you with ongoing opportunities to win new customers, even when they do not buy on their first visit. If you would like help acquiring more leads from your website, please contact us.
