While researching prospects, I visit their website and make observations about their lead generation practices to determine areas in which our agency may be able to add value. The following observations are based on one such visit to the website of a SaaS-based communications company:
Create Clear Benefit Copy for Downloadable Resources
While looking for a resource page, I found a ‘whitepapers’ graphic on the sidebar of the products page. The graphic had a thumbnail image of a non-descript white paper and a caption reading: Download Free Whitepapers Today.
- Instead of presenting a general link to whitepapers, you might consider presenting me with a graphic of an actual white paper that is relevant to the page I’m on with copy detailing the benefits of the white paper (i.e. Learn How “X” Can Drive Higher Sales, Reduce Support Costs and Improve Productivity).
Break Out Content Offers and Deliver Descriptions for Each
Upon clicking the sidebar graphic for white papers on the products page, I was presented with the Request for Information page with a form listing eight (8) whitepapers, titles only. After scrolling down the page, I noticed a paragraph description of each of the whitepapers, below the page fold.
- While it’s valuable to present a substantial list of resources, presenting them all in a single form may limit the opportunity to provide the most relevant and valuable piece of content for that particular prospect.
- Additionally, some visitors may miss the white paper descriptions below the fold and abandon the page as a result.
- Instead, you might consider presenting the white papers, datasheets and other content assets in a list format – linking each content asset to individual form pages containing benefit details specific to that asset.
- You may also consider serving prospects a “thank you” page (after form submission) which presents opportunities to:
* include a link to download the content asset (which can also be tracked if you are using a marketing automation solution)
* continue the dialogue with the prospect (perhaps by offering another relevant content asset or demo)
* advance him/her to the next stage of the sales cycle. (See this blog post for a discussion on the same topic).
Deliver Downloadable Resources as Links and Use Thank You Pages to Advance the Prospect
Shortly after submitting the form, I received an email, subject: “Here is the information you requested from ‘X Company’.” The email presented the white paper as an attachment (again, you might consider a download link instead of an attachment for tracking purposes) with several calls to action (click to chat, phone number, email address for sales and a “Limited Time Only” promo).
- As with the thank you page (comments above), emails are a great opportunity to present information to advance the prospect in the sales cycle. Presenting an immediate opportunity at this stage to contact sales may be a bit premature for some prospects and it may be valuable to include a demo or another relevant content asset as means of nurturing the prospect.
Present Prospects with What They’re Expecting
Out of curiosity, I clicked the promo graphic and was taken to a page which doesn’t contain any contact or call to action information (I expected to be presented with some sort of form page on which I could input the promo code: “whitepapers”).
- You might consider redesigning the promo landing page to include a field to enter the promo code and receive the “Limited Time” offer.
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