double b2b conversions - target marketing · use the right form fields don’t just think about the...

Double B2B Conversions8 quick steps to double your conversion rates.

a Pardot eBook

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

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©2014 Pardot, a salesforce.com Company | 1-855-426-9213 | 3

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:

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.

For B2B marketers, the sales process really begins at conversion. You need to design and optimize ev-ery aspect of your landing pages to maximize your visitor conversions.

Figure 1.0

Leave within 10 seconds.

Attempt the form.

Successfully convert.

Decide your page is not compelling.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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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.

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

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.

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)

1SIMPLIFY YOUR FORM


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.

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.

USE FORMS BEST PRACTICES2


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.

TWEAK YOUR LAYOUT3


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.

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

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 email addresses.

Often times, personal email addresses will do your

sales team no good. You can prompt visitors to

supply only a corporate email 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.

TONE DOWN YOURERROR MESSAGES4


Emailing 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 email 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 email address, it does make it more likely.

A simple statement such as “Please complete the form

below to have the white paper emailed to you,” should

suffice.

Another option is to use validation on forms, which

allows you to set custom levels of approval to ensure that

email addresses are non-free (often important for B2B

marketing), from a valid email domain, or both.

It is also a good idea to include a short privacy statement

that informs prospects that their email 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 email, 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 email was opened.

Validate email address.

Send via email.

Provide tracked link.

LOCK UP YOURVALUABLE CONTENT5


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)

BRAG ABOUT YOURCREDIBILITY6


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

email addresses before supplying their corporate email,

this might indicate to a marketer that the prospect

is wary of being contacted via email. 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)

TRACK IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT DATA7


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.

8TEST, TEST, AND TEST AGAIN


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.

CONCLUSION9

©2014 Pardot, a salesforce.com company | 13

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