8/24/11This is the Part 2 of the B2B
Lead Generation based on an SES session by Lauren Vaccarello, Director of Search, Display and Social Advertising, Salesforce.com.
The importance of the landing pages is often overlooked. It is
understandable from the web site owner's perspective, because there are so many Web pages in a Web site. A landing page is just one of the many pages. However, from the visitors' view points, landing page is the first
encounter they have with your Web site. You don't get a second chance to make the first impression. In fact you have less than a second to convince a prospect that you are worth their time. The landing page is how you
introduce yourself to the prospects; therefore, you should make the most of it.
In one of the SES sessions information architecture was discussed. Searchablility, navigateability, and scent of the trace
are essential to guide the visitor through your web site and create a pleasant user experience. There is a parallel between a Web site that is well designed to guide the visitors to where the site designer want them to
go and that of a good sales person who guide the prospect in a sales meeting. Therefore, landing pages should be designed to guide users to the desired action, while at the same time limit friction, limit confusion, and
limit distraction.
Because visitors arrive at a landing page through an SEM ad, the landing page must be relevant to that ad. There is a specific purpose for that ad and the landing page should be laid
out to keep that focus. The message and action should be simple and clear.
Just like a sales person should find out a prospect's needs, then discuss how his product or service would meet the needs and
what benefits the prospect would get from it, the landing page should speak to the prospective visitor about what they are interested in – use the terms they want to read, avoid marketing speak, use facts and numbers,
use benefit statements, and talk about them not you.
Call to Actions (CTAs) Matter
The landing page must have a compelling call to action. An ad has a specific purpose and attracts
people who are interested in what's said in the ad. Therefore, the landing page should help the visitor on what to do. This includes a clear call to action. CTA should be above the fold (meaning it should be visible in
on the display screen without scrolling down to find it). There should be a single offer and limit distractions. It is similar to a face to face sales, advance the sale or close the sale first, don't distract the
prospect while that is going on!
In summary, the landing page must convey trust immediately, create a clear path to the desired action, deliver the information your customer wants, and develop compelling
call to actions.
If the goal of a B2B ad is to generate more qualified leads so that the telesales people can contact the prospects to further qualify them and close the sale, then the first step of the
landing process is to get the visitor to fill out a form. The difference between a B2B and a B2C landing page is that B2C landing page should have a CTA which is a BUY button, while a B2B landing page may result in a
form fill. The form fill should provide your sales team with necessary information, but keep the following in mind: don't ask for too much information, is everything you re asking for necessary, and is the user getting
enough value to justify giving you everything you require?
In a case study, a B2B healthcare company gets 23% of the ad visitors to fill out forms, by changing the landing page to ask more information
and encourage a phone call, the form fill rate went down to 11%. However, the sales doubled (which means the offline conversion rate quadrupled), and the sales reps spend less time on poor quality leads and spend more
time on closing better quality leads.
In the next installment, I will discuss
