Getting site visitors is only half the battle. You must also move them through the buyer’s journey on your site and take them through the phases of the sales funnel toward conversion. Every aspect of your design impacts how effectively your target audience traverses through your site.
According to Sales Insights Lab, only 50% of your prospects are a good fit for what you sell. Honing in on the half who want what you offer improves revenue and ensures your efforts are effective.
Paying attention to elements of good design through each stage of your sales funnel process ensures you reduce bounce rate, move qualified candidates forward and improve your conversion rates.
Here are the things you should focus on if you want to improve your online sales funnel.
1. Create Multiple Landing Pages
One landing page can’t address the needs of every user. It’s also simpler to track the effectiveness of different marketing efforts when you have individual landing pages for each one.
The better you get at promoting to your target audience, the higher your conversion rate goes. Think of your landing pages as a chance to gather research. Dig deep into heat maps and which areas of the page people focus most on. Remove anything not related to the goal of each one.
Velaro offers live chat services for a variety of industries. They break down landing pages into industry type. The one above is for educational institutions. They can easily see where traffic comes from for this page and repeat any effective marketing efforts. The page directly address the audience’s needs.
2. Rework Your Headlines
Consumers expect your headlines to move them through the sales funnel. Even if they read only the header on your page, they should have a sense of what you’re offering and move toward the call to action (CTA).
How you write your headline depends on where in the sales funnel your user arrives. Some people will be in the awareness stage, while others already know about your product and need to move to the consideration part of their journey.
Put yourself in the shoes of your users. What would your main question be at each point in the funnel? Answer the query via your headlines.
3. Segment Your Audience
Your home page should be a hub for the buyer’s journey. Anyone who lands there should see a clear path to enter the sales funnel and move forward. At the same time, you should understand not everyone comes to your site via the front page.
Think about the unique needs of your customers. How can you divide them into groups to better personalize their experience? Funneling them to the appropriate areas helps you provide them with particular insight into why your product or service is right for their needs.
Fidelity Life understands they serve customers with varied needs. When you go to their homepage, you’ll see they’ve segmented the audience into common areas. Users choose from options such as “I’m Single,” “I’m Partnered” and “I Have Kids.”
As you move through the phases, notice the questions become more specific to each individual group. Fidelity uses this information to hone in on the policies best suited for each person. By the time you reach the decision stage, the choices are clear.
4. Understand Pain Points
Every person who enters your site does so because they are facing a problem and hope you can provide a solution. Think about your core audience. What are their needs? Why do they look for a solution such as yours?
The reasons may be simple or complex. For example, if someone is hungry, they may seek local restaurants. However, you also need to understand human emotion and what drives people. Perhaps your buyer persona associates comfort with food. It would behoove you to focus on those feelings when creating your website.
The process is a bit different for each business type. Take the time to dig into demographics, psychographics and survey your current customers. The more you understand their needs, the easier it will be to create a website meeting them.
5. Highlight Benefits
No matter what type of business you own, you have competition. What makes your business stand out from similar ones? Think about the benefits of the customer choosing you over someone else?
Dig down and understand the unique value proposition of your brand. Do you offer the best customer service? Are your products personalized? Whatever the benefits are of choosing you over anyone else, highlight them throughout the phases of your buyer’s journey.
Trulia serves home buyers, renters and sellers. They showcase the benefits of using their site for each type of patron. Note how they explain they have over one million homes listes. They also tell users about the filters for rentals so you can find the home or apartment that’s right for you.
Another unique feature of the site is their neighborhood insights. They explain how they offer more information than other real estate websites so you can learn about the area you’d like to live.
6. Create Interactions
Throughout the sales funnel, people may have questions about your product. Make it easy for them to interact with you. Add a live chat feature using a bot and then connecting them to a live agent. Provide easy contact information, such as a toll-free number.
You should also provide answers to the most common questions. Utilize user reviews, testimonials, frequently asked questions and other tools to move them through the site at warp speed.
Perfecting Your Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a living, fluid entity on your website. What works for your target audience today might change tomorrow. Pay careful attention to your conversion rates. Make tweaks and test them for effectiveness. Over time, your funnel will improve and so will your numbers.
About the Guest author
Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the director at a marketing agency before becoming a freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.