Double B2B Conversions

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1 Double B2B Conversions a Pardot ebook 8 quick steps to double your conversion rates.

2 Executive Summary Simplify Your Form Use Forms Best Practices Tweak Your Layout Tone Down Your Error Messages Lock Up Your Valuable Content Brag About Your Credibility Track Implicit and Explicit Data Test, Test, and Test Again Conclusion

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY For B2B marketers, the sales process really begins at conversion. You need to design and optimize every aspect of your landing pages to maximize your visitor conversions. 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, or a free consultation. Landing pages are often the de facto site for these conversions, making their optimization crucial to the sales and marketing process. There are four distinct groups of people that are interacting with your landing pages: Figure 1.0 Leave within 10 seconds Visitors that leave within 10 seconds of arriving at your landing page make up the vast majority of viewers. Visitors that leave when they decide your landing page is not compelling are the next largest segment. Some visitors attempt to fill out your form but fail or give up and then drop off. A small percentage of your visitors successfully convert and become leads. 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 web technologies like marketing automation, but all will contribute directly to the success of your online lead generation program. Decide your page is not compelling. Attempt the form. Successfully convert Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

4 1SIMPLIFY YOUR FORM No matter how compelling your landing page offer, you can still scare visitors away from converting with a long form demanding lots of information. With landing pages, less is more. Nothing frustrates a visitor more than arriving at a landing page, seeing a compelling white paper offer, and then realizing he or she will have to fill out a long and complicated-looking form before receiving anything of value. Companies who ask for more than a handful of data points in the first interaction with a visitor are encouraging form abandonment. during each interaction, allowing you to gradually build an in-depth prospect profile. This lessens the burden on prospects while still collecting the valuable information that the marketing and sales teams need to move forward. The same form may be used for all the content across your site, but progressive profiling allows the form to intelligently display only the fields that you are missing for a prospect. Marketing automation software uses cookies to identify returning prospects and remember what information they have already given you. B2B sales are typically multi-touch and complex, rather than instantaneous, impulse buys. Because of the length of the sales cycle, marketers can flesh out a prospect s profile over time. Each touch point provides an opportunity to collect more data. A solution called progressive profiling uses what are known as conditional fields to ask for just one or two data points Try to keep the first form down to four fields at most, and guide prospects to view other compelling content across your site in order to gradually obtain additional data. Almost 80% of B2B marketers aren t satisfied with their current levels of customer conversions. (CMO Council) 2014 Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

5 2USE FORMS BEST PRACTICES Increasing conversion rates on your forms is about more than your form fields. Stick to best practices to make sure your forms function as successfully as possible. FOCUS ON OUTCOMES Conversions are all about expectations. It s a value exchange at its core: visitors should know what they ll see after submission and what they ll get for giving you information. You can increase your conversions in many cases simply by making the call to action on your form more descriptive and outcome-focused. For instance, if you re sharing a white paper that focuses on social media ROI, Learn How to Measure Social ROI might be a better call to action for you than Download White Paper. USE THE RIGHT FORM FIELDS Don t just think about the number of form fields, think about how they re organized. Here are some best practices for setting up and formatting your forms: Don t put two or three mutually-exclusive options into a dropdown menu; use a radio button instead. This helps users scan faster. Use checkboxes when users can select multiple values simultaneously, or when giving a single option that can be toggled on and off. When you need a single selection, but you have more than a few options, use a dropdown menu. Only select a default when the vast majority will select that option, and ensure it s clearly labeled. If you have a lot of options (more than 20), consider using a text field instead. If your labels are beside your form fields, consider making them right-aligned for enhanced readability. If form length isn t an issue, use top-alignment for even faster form-filling. Don t give your visitors any reason to walk away from your forms by sticking to these best practices Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

6 3TWEAK YOUR LAYOUT Your landing page has only seconds to capture the interest of a visitor. This makes the aesthetics and layout of your landing pages crucial elements of the conversion process. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE It s an unfortunate truth that, no matter how hard you work to carefully craft your copy, the vast majority of visitors simply aren t going to read it. Visitors are scouring the web for information, and an internet full of near-useless content has taught us all to expect little value. On a landing page, that truth gets amplified. Here s what we know about how visitors read : Text is almost always scanned, and not read entirely. Greater focus is given to words in the top and left side of the page. Text is scanned in what s called an f-pattern. According to Nielsen Norman Group, before a visitor leaves, they ll read at most 28% of the words on a page. If you need more than a couple of short paragraphs of text on your landing page, make sure the first words in those paragraphs give an idea of what they re about. If you can divide the content into groups, do so! Make sure you write clear, concise headings to help scanning eyes find the information they re searching for. Skip the Lifestyle Shots Give your visitors a sneak peek of what you are offering. 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? 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 to and a much more compelling reason to convert Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

7 4Tone down your error messages Don t waste your visitors time with needless error messages. Validating fields as a user completes your form is an easy way to make sure a visitor gets it right the first time. In terms of annoyance for visitors, in-your-face error messages are a close second to lengthy forms. Imagine that your visitor has taken the time to fill out and submit a form. The visitor expects to receive your white paper, but instead of a familiar thank you message, they are greeted with a red error message or worse an empty form, forcing them to start all over again. Guess what? They re probably not going to feel very motivated to complete your form the second time, and another potential lead will bite the dust. without a full screen refresh, creating a better user experience and reducing the risk of form abandonment. Marketing automation platforms make it easy to validate specific form fields like addresses. Often times, personal addresses will do your sales team no good. You can prompt visitors to supply only a corporate address in real-time as they are completing your form. Handle error validation instantly, displaying any error messages as soon as your visitor completes a field. The quick fix for this is to handle error validation instantly, displaying any error messages as soon as your visitor completes a field. This much softer warning allows your visitors to correct their entries 2014 Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

8 5lock up your valuable content ing your collateral with a tracked link is an easy way to ensure that you are a) getting valid contact information, and b) gathering valuable behavioral information for your sales team. Many companies simply redirect to the requested content when a visitor submits a form. A better practice is to set the expectation that you will a link to the white paper or demo upon form submission. While this does not always guarantee that the lead will give you a valid, business address, it does make it more likely. A simple statement such as Please complete the form below to have the white paper ed to you, should suffice. Another option is to use validation on forms, which allows you to set custom levels of approval to ensure that addresses are non-free (often important for B2B marketing), from a valid domain, or both. It is also a good idea to include a short privacy statement that informs prospects that their address will not be abused or re-sold. This is a small step that can help reassure prospects who may be hesitant to provide their information. When delivering the content via , it is best to send a link to the document s location instead of an attachment. This allows you to track link clicks so that you can determine exactly when the materials were accessed. When your reps follow up with a phone call, they will benefit more from knowing when the document was read than when the was opened. Validate address. Send via . Provide tracked link Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

9 6BRAG ABOUT YOUR Credibility Consumers are becoming more and more wary of marketing messages. Third-party credibility indicators carry far more weight than any marketing message. 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 a long way toward establishing some credibility with your audience. Examples Include: Client testimonials Site security badges (Verisign, Thawte, Trust-e, etc.) Ratings from Better Business Bureau and similar organizations Awards and industry recognition. Your blog or website s footer is a great place to display credibility through badges or other endorsement graphics. Badges such as the Inc. 500 and Marketing Excellence Awards let visitors know that this company is legitimate and helps reassure them that their information is safe. They also serve as the first step to establishing your brand s reputation with new visitors. Consumers are becoming more and more resistent to traditional marketing messages. They are instantly skeptical and take everything a company says with a grain of salt. Third party credibility indicators are a great way to circumvent this skepticism and can carry real weight with potential customers. 90% of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced their buying decision. (Dimensional Research) 2014 Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

10 7Track implicit and explicit data Your prospects are telling you a lot more than you think. Tracking lead sources, abandoned form data, and anonymous visitor data can give you a wealth of information about your visitors. You can gain valuable data from prospects on forms, but even more telling is the implicit information that can be gleaned from your visitors actions and behaviors. By tracking activities at the individual prospect level, you can: Track the lead source on landing page submissions down to the search term. This shows you exactly where your leads are coming from, so you can optimize your pages based on popular keywords and determine which campaigns are most effective. Capture all form entries even corrected or abandoned fields. This provides great insight into a lead s readiness to be contacted and helps determine the right path for follow-up or continued nurturing. Capture data for both anonymous and identified visitors using domain name and WHOIS lookup. This can tell you what company your visitor came from without them ever entering that information. You can then run this information against Data.com, Hoover s, or other databases to find information on the company and any contacts that might be listed. A marketing automation solution can record any abandoned or updated data even before the form is submitted. If you notice a prospect enters two different addresses before supplying their corporate , this might indicate to a marketer that the prospect is wary of being contacted via . It may be more appropriate to put leads like this one on a nurturing track rather than contact them with a sales pitch. Only 38% of marketers have a single view, including current and historic information, of how buyers interact with content across the digital touchpoints. (Forrester Research) 2014 Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

11 test, and test again 8Test, Continuously improving your landing pages through multivariate testing is key to maximizing conversions, and marketing automation platforms can do this testing for you. The one great truth about landing pages is that you can always improve upon them through testing. Many marketing automation systems allow you to set up a simple multivariate test, which automatically distributes your incoming traffic to two separate landing pages. The landing pages should be just slightly different, perhaps varying the design, copy, or content offering. After some time has passed, evaluate which version has a higher conversion rate in order to develop the most effective page possible. At a loss for what to test? Try a few of the following: Headline: Keep it short and compelling; the headline should describe an immediate benefit to the reader Offer: Experiment with white papers, demos, free consultations and other content to see what prospects view as most valuable Imagery: Try a shot of your white paper cover, an internal page, or a screen shot of your demo Form length: If you started with a lengthy form, try removing a few required fields and see if conversion improves Form fields: Try department vs. job title or changing up formatting with drop down menus or checkboxes Copy: Experiment with how your text is organized (short paragraphs, bullet points, etc.) 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 Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

12 9conclusion Conversions are a crucial element of any B2B marketing strategy. Creating conversion points that really deliver results is easy with the proper strategy and planning. By implementing the eight simple steps mentioned in this ebook, you will not only increase your total number of conversions, but also the quality of the data that you capture. Optimizing your site and landing pages for conversions is an easy way to increase the effectiveness of your marketing and sales teams alike. Some of the steps are simply best practices, while others may be part of a marketing automation solution. Most can be implemented at little or no cost and will help improve ROI for any online marketing program Pardot, a salesforce.com Company

13 PARDOT IS SALESFORCE FOR B2B CUSTOMERS. Pardot offers a software-as-a-service marketing automation application that allows marketing and sales departments to create, deploy, and manage online marketing campaigns that increase revenue and maximize efficiency. Pardot features certified CRM integrations with salesforce.com, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and SugarCRM, empowering marketers with lead nurturing, lead scoring, and ROI reporting to generate and qualify sales leads, shorten sales cycles, and demonstrate marketing accountability. Your customers are smarter, more capable, and better- informed than ever before. This new breed of consumer demands a better breed of marketing, and the Pardot platform has the capabilities to get you there. Learn more about the fundamentals of inbound marketing, using forms and landing pages to augment an inbound strategy, how you can avoid common pitfalls, and where marketing automation fits into the inbound equation. GET THE FREE GUIDE UP NEXT... Guide to Inbound & Automation UP NEXT... Landing Pages Handbook Build optimized landing pages using marketing automation. Our Landing Pages Handbook provides checklists, tip sheets, and worksheets to help you build effective landing pages that increase conversions, decrease bounce rates, and create a positive user experience for your buyers. Learn more at pardot.com > GET THE HANDBOOK REQUEST A DEMO 2014 Pardot, a salesforce.com company 13