We know that good landing or conversion pages will get us leads from our website.  But, it’s just the tip of the iceberg in the entire lead conversion process.  It’s the point at which people are willing to buy or give information about themselves in exchange for what we offer.

For many B2C customers, the offer may be to buy an item online.  For B2B customers, typically our sales process is longer and more complicated.  The conversion may be any number of things from an offer to provide some complimentary but informative insight paper, demo, webinar, presentation or trial offer.  And, each item would signify a different level of commitment to the sales or buying process for that website visitor.

When our offer is valuable, we can often get people to identify themselves as being someone interested in these issues, getting clarity on the challenges and the potential solutions to solve them.  

Now, how much indentifying information do we ask people to share?  It is known that we get more people to an offer if we ask for less information.  Also, if our offer is very strong, then we can often get away with asking for more indentifying information.  The more valuable our offer, the more willing someone will be to offer their indentifying information.  On the other hand, if it is sales leads, often, the sales department would prefer to ask for less information in favour of getting more results or leads. 

Balance the amount of identifying questions vis-a-vis the value of the offer in order to optimize the quality of the leads.  It’s not just volume but quality which will make your sales department productive and producing the optimal sales results.  Also, better qualifying information will help sales people prioritize and prepare for the follow up sales call.  And, in the long run, the marketing department will have improved insights into future campaigns which will yield the same or better results.

Most important to remember about conversion pages is that it is just the tip of the iceberg.  There is an entire process that goes the conversion page.  For instance, typically questions should focus on the process of how people will get to the conversion page and how we will handle that potential prospect once they have visited the conversion page or identified themselves.

So, we know that people don’t magically appear at a conversion page.  We need to get them to the landing page.  The first question is how are we attracting the prospective visitor to our conversion offer?  What is our offer?  The offer is very important and often stumps most business owners and marketing staff.  We’ll have to talk about how to come up with the offer in another post.

Once we do have offer firmly in place, we build the conversion page and optimize the conversion offer page itself.  Then, often, we also want general visitor traffic to the website to become aware of the offer.  The more general visitor traffic to the website, the more opportunities we have to lead people to the conversion page.  Notice that we need to lead people to the conversion page.  What’s the enticement to do that?  How might we do that?

What else factors into whether or not we identify ourselves?  Well, simply people must trust our brand.  People will likely investigate the website so how we present ourselves on other pages will have a lot to do with it!

Now, people may not always enter through the home page.  In fact, a website with a lot of traffic tend to have a variety of high performing entrance points to the website.  So, if your site isn’t chock full of enticing entry pages, that’s a good starting point for assuring you have a good quantity of potential prospects.  The stronger your traffic and page rankings, the more likely your conversion page will attract visitors directly.

If typical direct marketing conversion rates are any indicator, then a 1-3% conversion rate is possible with a good marketing website.  For a spectacular campaign, you can receive more of a conversion but often this is related to a recognized brand name which has done a good job communicating its brand.

Next, once someone completes the conversion page, then what happens? Is it just a sales follow up process?  How is this tracked?  Do we have an online marketing follow up process as well?  An online follow up is a good way to assure we don’t lose people in the process.  Sales people get busy.  Marketing people are looking for new visitors.  But, who assures that people who have started down the process can continue the process.   

Often, the number reason for low sales is not enough follow up by sales people.  While they are busy doing what they are trained to do best – close the sale, we need to continue to keep our eye on the ball and assure that prospect follow up does not go amiss.

Add some opportunities to keep the connection alive.  Ask them to Receive the Newsletter, ask them to LIKE the Facebook Fan Page, Follow on Twitter or Connect on LinkedIn.  Obviously, signing up for an email newsletter is the largest commitment a website visitor could make and the most valuable.  Tracking a prospects buying behaviour is also much more insightful through an email newsletter campaign.

To gain credibility, assure the email newsletter is an engaging and informative source of content so people will be attracted to sign up or follow.  Remember, the value you provide to prospects and customers in your offers must be commensurate to the value you are asking to receive as a business owner, marketer or sales manager. 

As you can see, the conversion or landing page is a large consideration in any lead generation process.  Those who will be successful are those people who create a process or system.  The conversion page is the actual point of engagement but for overall success, make sure you look at it as part of an overall lead conversion or generation program.