What Are They Thinking? B2B Prospects and Your Landing Pages
The Article in 60 Seconds
Your landing pages are the difference between inbound lead conversion and turning a prospect away to your competition.
Too often, marketers assume their prospects have a singular focus when they arrive: will this company solve my problem?
Prospective customers think about many more aspects of their business than meets the eye.
Our mind readers know their questions, including:
- Can the prospect trust you?
- How will security concerns be handled by your company?
- Does your prospect understand their options?
Think About This
- Tested and optimized landing pages improve conversion rates by 40%.
- Using videos on landing pages can improve conversions by 86%.
- 1-second loading delays can lower your site conversion by 7%
- Including contact information on your landing pages improves conversion.
- Visitors like images. They are 80% more likely to read content combined with pictures or graphics.
Our Blinders and Biases
Too often we think of our customers in laboratory settings — clean, unencumbered, perfect.
Consider these scenarios:
1. The operations director for one of your target companies plops down on the couch on a Sunday afternoon to watch a little Netflix and catch up on social media. He lands on one of your ads. He clicks and begins scanning the contents when the sound of breaking glass erupts from the kitchen.
2. The CEO closes the door to her office after yet another efficiency update meeting. She grits her teeth and shakes her head. Are we ever going to solve this problem? She opens her laptop, and vents her frustration on the keys as she punches her question into Google. She clicks the third listing because she likes the headline and one of your pages loads.
3. The bank president heard about your solution from a friend at a fundraiser. After learning that their market share once again shrunk quarter-over-quarter, he pulled out his phone and found the picture of the napkin he’d written your company name on.
Three different types of customers in three different settings. Where is each coming from? What’s on their minds? What distractions are competing with you for their attention?
Too often we think of our customers in laboratory settings — clean, unencumbered, perfect. We bring our biases to bear on how we design, write headlines, craft copy, punch up calls to action, and wireframe the user experience.
Use the following questions to break you free from the vacuum and rev your creativity to turn your landing pages into lead generation engines.
Can I Trust You?
Are you trustworthy? How does the prospect know if their first interaction with you is a landing page?
88% of consumers said they trust online reviews as much as their friends’ advice. 85% admitted to reading up to 10 reviews before they could trust a business.
What social proof do your landing pages offer? Testimonials from satisfied customers? Links to reviews from industry experts?
Are You Real?
Your prospects are smart enough to know they can’t believe everything on the internet.
There are so many sites designed just to generate traffic and serve up ads. Unfortunately, some are smart enough about wording problems that they rank in competition with you.
How does your customer know you provide real solutions?
Do You Have a Unique Approach?
One of your biggest challenges is differentiating yourself from the competition. You may have identified the same pain as your competitors, but you have a better solution.
Can your prospect grasp that fact from your landing page?
How Will You Use My Information? If I Fill Out Your Form, Will I Start Getting Spam?
In a world more concerned about security than ever before, your prospects are less likely to provide the key information you need to nurture them into customers.
What can you tell them to quickly mitigate their fears?
If I Let You Know Who I Am, Are You Going to Hard Sell Me?
Have you ever downloaded a piece of content only to receive a phone call from the company before you’ve had a chance to open the document on your computer?
Now more than ever, B2B customers research and explore their options, then eliminate the chaff before connecting with a company. Find the balance that works for your company between high touch and letting your prospects “shop” on their own.
Do You Have a History of Success?
The most profitable B2B companies are also the most trusted.
Let your customers tell your prospects why your solution works. Their testimonials are invaluable.
When Will Human Interaction Begin?
Do you offer customer service and tech support during a free demo ? If someone downloads this piece of content or requests a demo, does that trigger a phone call in your sales process?
You trust your process. By communicating your next steps to your prospect, you prepare them for what to expect.
Does Your Product Come with Options? What are They?
As good as your solution is, one size probably doesn’t fit all. Your prospect also thinks their problem is unique. Do you offer flexibility or tiered options on your pricing page?
Do I Understand What I’m Looking At? What Am I Getting?
In all three scenarios above, your prospective customers have many things on their minds and limited time to process your landing page. How quickly do they “get” you? Is your page loaded down with jargon and cute phrases or do you cut through all distractions with a scalpel?
The First Thing to Do After Reading This Article
Take a look backstage at your best converting landing page and your least converting landing page. Consider each of these questions as you review your headlines, copy, bullets, images, forms, endorsements, calls to action, navigation, and more. Then set up an A/B test of a new version against the existing one. Re-evaluate at the 30 and 60 day marks.
Further Reading
How to Create an Epic B2B Website Resources Page
Five Tactics for Improving B2B Website Conversions using Thank You Pages
