8 Tricks That Will Transform Your Website Into Your Best Salesperson
Does this scenario sound familiar?
You're preparing to launch your company's new website that is months, if not, years overdue. Sales teams anxiously await by the phones, ready for all of the new customers you're anticipating the snazzy new website will bring in. Launch day finally comes AND THEN........
Nothing.
We hear about situations like this all too often. Having a great-looking website is definitely something to boast about. However, if that traffic isn't converting visitors into customers, then your website is almost useless. In fact, many business owners consider their website their #1 sales and marketing asset, working around the clock to increase awareness and generate new customers. So it’s no longer a question of whether or not your site looks good, but how hard it’s working for your business to generate sales.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes, take a look at your website, and ask yourself the following questions:
- Is it clear what they’re trying to sell me?
- Is this going to solve my problem?
- Where can I learn more about this product/service before committing?
- What do others think about this company and its product/services?
- How do I purchase?
If you find it difficult to answer these questions, it might be time to consider the following tips to transform your website into a sales machine.
Open with a hook and compelling value proposition
Any experienced salesperson should know that the first 20 seconds of a cold call are the most important. So why should your website be any different? You only have a few seconds to win or lose the attention of your prospects. Be sure to use engaging and concise copy that speaks to the visitor’s problem and how choosing your business will provide the optimal solution.
Squarespace.com is a great example of a compelling value proposition
Cut the Jargon
According to Tony Haile, the average reader spends a measly 15 seconds actively on a web page. Furthermore, studies have also shown that most visitors do not read on the web, but rather scan pages trying to pick out a few sentences to get the information they want. Keep these facts in your back pocket when you’re writing website copy to avoid high bounce rates and low session durations.
Remember Tofu, Mofu, and Bofu
Understanding the sales funnel is essential to developing strategies that attract prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Your website should flow in a similar manner, offering top of the funnel (Tofu) content and a high-level overview of your offering at the top of the site. More engaged users will scroll past the fold, which should offer MOFU content to generate marketing qualified prospects. Middle of the funnel (MOFU) content can range from webinars and case studies to FAQ sections. Towards the bottom of the page, you should target Sales Qualified Leads who are in the decision stage with bottom of the funnel (BOFU) content offers such as estimates, consultations, or demos of your product/service.
Courtesy of Relevance.com
Nurture visitors who aren’t ready to buy right now
In a salesperson’s ideal world, visitors would have their credit cards out, ready to buy. In the real world, we must accept that this isn’t the case and have a strategy in place for those who are at the top of the funnel (TOFU) in what’s called the Awareness stage of the buyer’s journey. Create gated offers such as eBooks, guides, and how-to’s that still provide value to TOFU leads, with the opportunity to nurture them further down the sales funnel over time.
Courtesy of Hubspot.com
Use social proof to increase conversions
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon in which people conform to the actions of others under the assumption that it is the correct behavior. Sales people and marketers alike use this tactic to ease the minds of skeptical prospects. Studies show that nearly 70 percent of online consumers look at a product review prior to making a purchase and find reviews 12 times more trusted than product descriptions. Use these statistics to your advantage by providing some of the following items as social proof:
- Customer Testimonials
- Case Studies
- Number of Shares
- Number of users/purchases/downloads
- Trust seals
Check your ego at the door
We get it…your business is awesome. But how is it going to help me?
While the previous tip mentions sharing important metrics with prospects as an important sales tactic, avoid flirting with the fine line between proving your credibility and downright bragging. Rather, you should focus your website’s content around the visitor’s pain points and speak to their solutions as much as possible. The more you can do this without talking about yourself, the better off you’ll be.
Make it easy to buy from you
Your website’s goal is to make doing business with you as easy as possible. The more users struggle to figure out how to buy from you or where to click, the more you jeopardize potential sales. The process of purchasing from your website should be intuitive, self-evident, and completed in as few clicks as possible.
Here are a few things you should consider:
- Don’t give users too many options
- Ask them to fill out as few fields as possible
- Allow them to checkout as a guest
Testing, Testing, and more Testing
There’s no such thing as “perfect” when it comes to optimizing a website’s performance. In the volatile world of the web, visitors, expectations, and best practices are constantly changing. With affordable A/B testing software such as Optimizely and Analytics Content Experiments, there’s no excuse not to test your site for better conversion rates.
Here are a few things to test:
- Headlines
- Page Layout and Navigation
- Calls to action
- Different Media (Video vs. Image)
- Product offerings.
We hope you find these 8 tricks useful and have you well on your way to generating new leads and customers. If for any reason you've implemented these 8 tricks and are still struggling to move the needle, give us a shout. We'd love to take a look at your site and help you transform it into a 24/7 salesperson for your business.
