Get More Leads By Providing More Conversion Choices

Enquiries and sales (or donations if you're a charity) are seen as the most valuable online conversion events, but they're also hardest to obtain. So give website visitors other ways to convert.

What are online conversion events?

The simplest way to look it is to think of a 'conversion' as an action someone takes on your website that benefits you.

So, someone buying a product from your ecommerce store would count as a website conversion.

Submitting an enquiry and requesting a call from someone in sales is also a conversion.

If you run a restaurant and someone books a table via your website, that's a conversion, as is someone making an online donation to your charity.

You can see why everyone chases these: they are the conversions most likely to result in a monetary transaction in the here-and-now.

But therein lies a big problem. Not everyone is ready to convert right away.

The bigger the commitment, the harder it is to secure website conversions.

There's no bigger commitment than handing over money (or promising to do so).

This is why it can be hard to secure purchase and donation conversions on your website.

Potential barriers include:

A lack of trust. This is a big one. Visitors may hesitate to make a purchase or submit personal information if they don't trust your brand.

Fear of commitment. A big purchase or long-term contract can feel daunting.

Information overload. Too much information or too many choices can be overwhelming, leading to decision paralysis.

Uncertainty about value. Visitors may not be convinced that your product or service is worth the investment.

Timing isn't right. A visitor might be interested but not ready to act right now.

This is why it makes sense to provide a range of other conversion opportunities on your website rather than just focusing on those that are 'closest to the cash till'. It can help you build an email list (more on the importance of that here) and facilitate nurturing opportunities (read about email marketing and 'ladders of engagement' here).

Offer lower commitment conversion opportunities throughout your website

If purchase, enquiry, and donation conversions are the highest value to you but also the highest commitment for your audience, then you need some alternatives that still advance you towards your goals.

Otherwise, all those people who visit your website but who aren't quite ready to take action (for all the reasons given above) will just leave, and some of the time, effort, and money you've invested in getting them to your website in the first place will then be wasted.

Let's look at some alternative, lower-commitment conversions that you can build into your website alongside those that will appeal to the more committed.

To help build trust: offer low commitment conversions

• Offer free content downloads like ebooks, whitepapers, how-to guides, checklists and templates etc in exchange for an email address. These provide value upfront and generate leads for you to nurture. Not only that, but they signal topic interest which then allows for greater segmentation and personalisation with your email marketing

• Encourage newsletter subscriptions. This allows you to keep your brand front-of-mind and allows you to demonstrate your credentials over time, building trust as you go.

• Use quizzes and interactive tools. Engage your visitors and provide personalised recommendations. On page quote builders can be useful for this too.

To help overcome a fear of commitment: provide stepping stones

• Free trials and demos. Allow potential customers to experience your product or service risk-free.

• Lower priced entry-level offerings. Make it easier for customers to dip their toes in the water before committing to a larger investment.

To help overcome information overload: simplify the journey

• Use clear and concise calls-to-action. Guide visitors towards specific actions, make the choice easy for them.

• Structure your pages using the AIDA format. Grab Attention at the top, gradually build Interest as the visitor reads down the page, then stimulate Desire, and, finally, motivate Action at the bottom. Focus on the key benefits they derive or, in the case of charity donations, can help to facilitate.

• Introduce a chatbot or live chat function. Offer immediate support to answer any questions and guide visitors. Make sure your chat widget collects people's contact details as part of the process and add these to your email list as leads for nurturing.

To help overcome uncertainty about value: demonstrate it

• Provide case studies and testimonials. Showcase the positive experiences of others, this is a powerful form of 'social proof'.

• Offer detailed product or service descriptions and FAQs. Address potential concerns and objections and highlight benefits. Remember, perceived value is closely associated with the fixing of pains, provision of gains, or both together - so be sure to prioritise this.

• Comparison tables and charts. Show how your offering stacks up against the competition.

To overcome wrong timing: keep them engaged

• Social media follow buttons. Encourage visitors to connect with you on social media for future updates.

• Offer 'Save for Later' and 'Wishlist' options. Allow people to easily bookmark your products or services for future consideration. Offer them a way to opt-in to updates about special offers and price changes

What a website employing a diverse conversion strategy might look like

OK, we've talked about the theory, let's take a look at this concept in practice with a worked example.

Let's say you manufacture and sell industrial waste compactors, with a starting price of £15,000. These can be used to compress waste so that the same overall volume can be removed with fewer transport journeys, leading to potential cost efficiencies. 

A factory manager might be interested in exploring the options for installing one of your entry-level machines, but there's zero likelihood that they're going to read about it on your website and immediately click on a CTA button that encourages them to place an order. Those issues of trust, fear of commitment, information overload, uncertainty about value, and timing will all play a part in that, and so need to be addressed with more conversion opportunities.

To help quickly establish a degree of trust, and highlight value, you could mention how many of these machines you've sold, indicate some of the big name companies that have bought them from you, and offer to email a selection of case studies. You could also feature a calculator on the product page that allows people to get a sense of how many transport journeys they could save, how this would impact their waste haulage costs, and how much CO2 it would save. 

To help overcome information overload, and demonstrate value, you could make a detailed product specification available for download that also features a comparison with alternative waste handling methods and rival machines. 

And to help overcome the fear of commitment, you could offer people the option of booking a free, no-obligation factory tour where they can see a selection of machines in action and ask any questions they may have.

Now, instead of just a single, high value but high commitment conversion opportunity, the factory manager that's interested but nearer the start of their journey has several different ways to engage with you - all of which identify them to you (so they're no longer just anonymous visitors in Google Analytics), shine a light on their interests, and provide you with a means of communicating with them directly so that you can nurture them by building a relationship. 

Without these additional conversion opportunities, the factory manager could easily have just browsed away from your website with the knowledge you sell a waste compactor of the kind they're interested in, but that's all.

Key takeaways: why a diverse website conversion strategy makes sense and can boost lead generation

Too much emphasis on bottom-of-funnel conversions on your website can leave you feeling deflated when your visitors don't take the actions you've asked them to. Not only that, you miss out on the chance to capture their details so you can nurture them, especially when they're in the early stages of their journey and still just conducting research.

• a diverse conversion strategy caters to different stages of the typical buyer/donor journey

• building trust and confidence are crucial for driving high-value conversions when the time is right

• providing multiple conversion opportunities can actually enhance visitors' overall user experience

• by addressing mental barriers, you can increase engagement and generate leads

• turning people from anonymous visitors to identified leads can help you drive more conversions

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