The 6 Essential Stages to Convert Website Visitors Into Valuable Leads
The marketing technology web gets more complex by the day. But for all of the sparkly new channels fund marketers may use to capture and convert investors, the website will always remain as the central headquarters to control a lead generation strategy.
Ultimately the website is the most valuable marketing tool there is. It’s the critical point for a visitor to sign-up to an event, download an e-book or subscribe to a market outlook blog series. No matter if an investor reaches a site through social media ads or an email link to find out more about a fund or investment strategy, website forms are the fuel to the flame that allow a fund marketer to kickstart personalised campaigns for every interested party.
The website’s more than a decorated shop window. It must be welcoming enough to entice investors to want to spend time there, but transparent enough for them to hand over their details. It’s achievable by considering these pointers that can optimise your lead generation powerhouse.
Attract attention with lead magnets
Investors may spend a lot of their quality time cross-referencing a fund to trust with their money, so a webpage visitor will not stick around unless they’re rewarded for their time and consideration. This calls for a financial website to give them something in exchange for a sign-up. Not just a pat on the back, but a piece of content that’ll give them repeatable value. This is the ‘lead magnet’.
Their free gift for signing up could be a ‘how to invest’ infographic, a long-form white paper about a certain sector, or a video interview from a portfolio manager. Whatever it is, it should address their research and hope to advance their buyer journey, while positioning the fund as the trusted voice of expertise.
Build informative landing pages
Websites can be seen as a well tied-together series of informative pages, but none do more for the lead conversion effort than a landing page. Their golden rule is to push an investor to fill in a form by minimising distracting visuals, widgets and navigations, offering a single option or call-to-action to access excellent gated investment content. They should also identify how their personal data will be used for full compliance transparency.
Too many buttons and custom fields can create option paralysis – constructing a brilliant, purposeful landing page relies on making it clear what is needed from a visitor and what they’ll receive in return.
Not that this removes the need to brand it accordingly! Templates can help to create consistently eye-catching landing pages that funnel users’ attention and create trust, all in the same place.
Go beyond a simple “thank you”
Gated content is exactly what it says on the tin: it opens up a series of paths that should guide an investor to more information they need to see before choosing to invest. Completed forms should lead to a “thank you” page that serves two purposes in one go: it provides access to the content, and triggers a welcome email that sneakily converts visitors into leads after dropping them into a nurture campaign.
Landing pages, forms, email automations, and CRMs can all be linked together using the website as a basis. They each play their important roles in funnelling contacts into marketing campaigns and identifying their preferences to personalise content, doing so automatically without any time-consuming manual effort.
Score your different leads
No prospect is the same! Each investor that visits a webpage will arrive for their own reasons, at different stages of the buyer journey, so lumping them into the same category is the worst thing you can do. Understanding which themes they’re intrigued by and through which channels they’ve been redirected to your site from helps to tailor different web-based content to their various appetites.
By linking a website form to a CRM, you can segment each lead according to their most visited webpages, links, and content. This paints an accurate picture of which contacts are new, which have been coming back for more, and assigning scores to them based on their behaviour makes it clear who the sales team need to contact right away. Artificial intelligence is making this data-crunching ability all the more simple.
Leave no prospect unturned!
Not every investor will be returning to the same webpages routinely like their favourite lunch spots; there are those that will rarely download or view content to spike leads scores that attract the attention of salespeople.
Nonetheless, they should not be cast aside as their value may prove pivotal at a later date. All prospects – cold, lukewarm and hot – should be placed within content automation processes that keep your fund in their minds. If, from there, they start visiting your website again, there’s every possibility they’ll be worth bringing into the sales fold once more.
Experiment to improve
Website form signups, page hits, and downloads all give rich investor data that’s powerful in identifying their success to gather leads. A dashboard should give an idea of baseline numbers, such as every sign up from landing page visitors, the percentage of completed (or incomplete) forms, and which of these visitors have been contacted for a sale.
Setting up conversion goals per month (like the website’s very own KPIs) will provide a rolling timeline to track the quality of the website in converting visitors, and can signal to fund marketers whether call-to-actions, page copy, images or navigations could be more inviting or persuasive. Never fear change, as it could be the key to better prospecting!
Learn more about ProFundCom
ProFundCom helps marketers convert more website visitors to leads through various tools and strategies tailored to the financial industry, including:
Email Marketing Integration: Create targeted email campaigns that drive traffic to websites, and integrate email marketing with website content to attract leads and nurture them through the sales funnel.
Lead Scoring and Tracking: Prioritise leads based on their engagement levels, and identify high-potential leads for conversion by tracking prospect interactions with website content, emails, and other digital touchpoints.
Content Recommendations: Personalise content to website visitors based on their interests and engagement history to enhance user experience and increase lead conversion rates.
Automated Campaigns: Set up automated workflows to engage with leads at different stages of the customer journey and deliver targeted content, follow-up emails, and personalised messages.
Website Analytics: Use analytical tools to provide insights into visitor behaviour, traffic sources, and conversion metrics.
A/B Testing: Conduct A/B testing on website elements such as landing pages, call-to-action buttons, and forms to identify effective strategies for lead generation and refine website content for better conversion rates.
If you’d like to find out more, get in contact with our team today!
