b2b Conversions

8 Quick Steps to Double B2B Conversions
2007 Pardot LLC, all rights reserved. 950 East Paces Ferry Road Suite 2440 Atlanta, GA 30326
o: 877-3B2B-ROI
f: 877.287.8952
w: http://www.pardot.com
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................................3 Eight Quick Ways to Double Your Landing Page Conversions.........................................................4 Simplify Your Form.........................................................................................................................................4 Track Implicit Data in Addition to Explicit.............................................................................................5 Tone Down Your Error Messages ..............................................................................................................6 Test, Test, and Test Again.............................................................................................................................7 Lock Up Your Valuable Content..................................................................................................................8 Images: Skip the Lifestyle Shots .................................................................................................................9 Keep it Above the Fold...................................................................................................................................9 Brag About Your Credibility ..................................................................................................................... 10 Conclusion....................................................................................................................................................... 11 About Pardot LLC.......................................................................................................................................... 11 Contact Us........................................................................................................................................................ 11
o: 877-3B2B-ROI
f: 877.287.8952
5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value
Executive Summary
The great divide for business to consumer (B2C) and business to business (B2B) marketers is the definition of conversion. In the B2C world, conversion starts and ends in the same place: the purchase. For B2B marketers with long, complex sales cycles, conversion typically means getting a visitor to fill out a form in exchange for something of value: a white paper, a demo, a free consultations, etc. There are four distinct groups of people that are interacting with your landing pages: 1. The vast majority of your visitors leave within 10 seconds of viewing your landing page. 2. The next group of visitors leaves when they decide your landing page is not compelling. 3. A few of your visitors attempt to fill out your form and convert but fail for one reason or another and then drop off. 4. A small percentage of your visitors successfully convert and become leads. As the four groups illustrate, you have a very limited time window in which you need to prove your value proposition. In the eight steps that follow, you will learn how to boost the effectiveness of your landing pages and raise the number and quality of your B2B conversions. Some of these steps are simple best practices and others are made possible by recently developed web technologies, but all will contribute directly to your online lead generation program.
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952
Eight Quick Ways to Double Your Landing Page Conversions Simplify Your Form
Use Conditional Fields (and the KISS Principle Keep it Simple Stupid)
With landing pages, less is often more. Nothing frustrates a visitor more than arriving at a landing page, seeing a compelling white paper offer, but then realizing she will have to fill out an onerous set of form fields before receiving anything of value. Companies who ask for more than a handful of data points in the first interaction with a visitor are just encouraging drop off. B2B sales by their very nature are often multi-touch and complex (read: not instantaneous). You, as a marketer, have a lot of time to flesh out your prospects profile and each touch point provides you with an opportunity to collect more data. The technological solution to this is using conditional fields. This technology allows you to progressively ask for just one or two data points during each interaction with a prospect, depending on the information he or she has already given. A visitor hits your landing page and is asked for her name, email address, and company in exchange for a white paper. She is then asked for her job title before viewing your flash demo 20 minutes later. Three weeks later she is asked for her department in exchange for another white paper. Finally she is asked about her buying stage when requesting a live demonstration. You set up the same form for all of your white papers, flash demos, and live demo requests, but you set them up to intelligently display only the fields that you are missing for a given prospect. Your marketing automation software identifies your prospects and remembers what information they have already given you. Try to keep that first form down to four fields at the most and provide enough compelling content throughout your site to gradually ask for more data.
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952
Track Implicit Data in Addition to Explicit

Your prospects are telling you a lot more than it seems.
Data that a prospect submits in your form is great but there is also a dearth of implicit information that can be gleaned without your lead ever explicitly telling you: Pass the lead source and advertising copy (in the case of paid search) through as hidden fields and learn more about where your leads are coming from. This can help you optimize your pages based on the keywords your visitors are searching for and will also tell you which of your campaigns are most effective. Capture all form entries even corrected or abandoned fields. This will give you great insight into a leads readiness to be contacted, without the lead ever having explicitly submitted the information. Use website caller ID to capture the visitors domain name and WHOIS lookup if applicable. This can tell you what company your visitor came from without her ever entering that information. You can then run this information against a Jigsaw, Hoovers, or other database to find information on the company and any contacts that might be listed.
A marketing automation solution can record any abandoned or updated data in an audits table without the visitor ever submitting a form. Looking at the example at the top of the next page, you can see that the prospect (note: this not a real person) entered three different email addresses as a result of the forms email validation rules. He first entered a Yahoo! address and was prompted to use a non-free address. He then tried an invalid, made-up address and was prompted to give a valid email. He then finally gave his corporate address. This would tell you as a marketer that this contact is wary of being contacted via email and probably not sales ready.
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952
Tone Down Your Error Messages

Use soft error messages to prevent drop off.
In terms of annoyance for visitors, in-your-face error messages are a close second to lengthy forms. Imagine that your website visitor has just spent a minute filling out a form. She presses the submit button and the screen starts to reload. Your visitor expects to receive your white paper, but instead of a familiar thank you message, she is greeted with a red error message. What's worse is if the data she entered before the error is not retained, and she is forced to reenter everything. The quick fix for this is to handle error validation instantly, and display any error messages as soon as your visitor tabs off of a field. This is a much softer warning, allows your visitor to correct his entries without a full screen refresh, reducing the risk of form abandonment.
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952
Test, Test, and Test Again

Continuously improve your landing pages through multivariate testing.
The one great truth about landing pages is that you can always improve upon them through testing. If you aren't getting much traffic, stick with A/B testing and examine two different designs. If you are getting a significant amount of visitors to your site, try multivariate testing instead. Assign an equal distribution of traffic to your variations, evaluate after a week or two, and pick the winner based on conversion rate. Don't rest on your laurels though. Rinse, repeat, and continue to improve those pages. Things can almost always get better. At a loss for things to test? Try a few of the following variables: 1. headline keep it short and compelling; the headline should describe an immediate benefit to the reader 2. offer experiment with white papers, demos, free consultations, and more 3. imagery try a shot of your white paper cover, an internal page, or a screen shot of your demo 4. length of form from the very simple three field form to more complicated, longer forms. 5. form fields -- try department vs. job title, making phone number optional, drop downs vs. free text Although testing can be difficult to do manually, many marketing automation solutions can make complex tests a breeze, automatically assigning traffic to each of your page designs and reporting on the results.
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952
Lock Up Your Valuable Content

Email your collateral to ensure you are getting valid contact information.
If you simply give out your content (white paper, demo, etc.) once a visitor presses submit, she is much more likely to give you false or incomplete data. A better solution is to set expectations that you will email a link to the white paper or demo upon form submission. While this does not always guarantee that the lead will give you her corporate email address, it does make it more likely that she will give you valid contact information. A simple statement such as Please complete the form below to have the white paper emailed to you should suffice. A short privacy statement in the footer may also be helpful to explain how you use the data you capture. Note that the example below sets expectations that the guide will be mailed to the visitor. A short privacy statement in the footer may also be helpful to explain how you use the data you capture. The privacy link opens a small separate window to avoid having the visitor stray from the landing page. You can also employ a marketing automation tool to ensure that email addresses that are entered are both non-free (important for B2B marketing) and from a valid email domain. The software can actually check the email domain in real-time and display a gentle error message if the validation conditions are not met.
When you do send the email, do not send the white paper as an attachment. Instead, send a link to the papers location, which is much more meaningful for tracking purposes. This will allow you determine exactly when your lead accessed the white paper which may be at a completely different time from when she first opened the email. When your reps follow up with a phone call they will benefit much more from knowing when the document was likely read rather than when the email was opened.
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952
Images: Skip the Lifestyle Shots

Give your visitors a sneak peak.
How many times have you gone to a landing page and been greeted with a header graphic that has nothing to do with the offer? Does seeing an image of a businessman on a laptop or a girl flying a kite really have anything to do with the white paper you are about to request? Probably not. A better solution is to provide a small image of the white paper or demo that is being offered. This gives your visitors something tangible to look forward too and a much more compelling reason to convert. The screen shot below is a classic example of a white paper hero shot, giving the visitor a sneak peak of what she will receive after converting.
Keep it Above the Fold

Too much scrolling will hurt your conversion rate.
You have tons of great content. You have fantastic imagery. Save those for your website. Your landing page should be a quick, clean path to conversion for your visitors. Eliminate as much vertical scrolling as possible by keeping most (if not all) of your content above the fold. This axiom was true for newspaper advertising and it is every bit as true for the web.
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952
Brag About Your Credibility

Third party credibility indicators help build trust with your visitors.
Visitors who are not familiar with your company may be hesitant to enter their contact information, even in exchange for something of value. Listing a few seals, certifications, or awards that your company has won can go along toward establishing some credibility with your audience. Examples Include: 1. Client testimonials (use name brand clients if possible) 2. Site security badges (Verisign, Thawte, Trust-e, etc.) 3. Ratings from Better Business Bureau and similar organizations 4. Awards and industry recognition The following example is the footer of a landing page for a popular marketing solution. Badges such as the Inc. 500 and Marketing Excellence Awards let visitors know that this company is legitimate.
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952
Conclusion
By implementing these eight simple steps, you will not only increase your total number of conversions, but also the quality of the data that you capture. Some of the steps are simply best practices while others may be part of a marketing automation solution. Either way, each of these can be implemented at little or no cost to most B2B marketing programs.
About Pardot LLC

Pardot is an on-demand marketing software company that increases sales and maximizes efficiency for companies with complex sales cycles. Pardot offers Prospect Insight, an industry-leading marketing automation product that manages prospect interactions such as site visits, business chat, email, forms, and more. The on-demand suite solves the integration challenges faced by B2B marketers today by allowing you to control formerly disparate online and offline marketing tools one central interface. Pardot was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Atlanta, GA.
Contact Us
Please contact us to learn more about marketing automation and Prospect Insight. We would love to set up a demo or talk to you about how Prospect Insight can best meet your business needs. Pardot LLC 950 East Paces Ferry Rd Suite 2440, 24th Floor Atlanta, GA 30326 Tel: 877.3.B2B.ROI Tel: 404.492.6845 Fax: 877.287.8952 Online: www.pardot.com
o: 404-492-6845
f: 877-287-8952

b2b Conversions

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b2b Conversions

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8 Quick Steps to Double B2B Conversions

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

Track Implicit Data in Addition to Explicit

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

Tone Down Your Error Messages

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

Test, Test, and Test Again

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

Lock Up Your Valuable Content

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

Images: Skip the Lifestyle Shots

Keep it Above the Fold

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

Brag About Your Credibility

5 Steps to Double Your Web Marketing Value

About Pardot LLC

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