“Go to this website, click that link, call this number, fill out that form,” we internet marketers tend to be very prescriptive when dealing with prospective new or existing customers!
When you ask people to do something, you are creating a point of friction and your audience will not continue unless the reward is greater than the friction they might be experiencing at that particular point
If you want to improve the performance of your landing pages, I would tend to argue that you should try to remove as many points of friction as possible.
Case in point: When examining a B2B case study on how to increase response rates online for free trial software offered on a large corporate company’s website recently, I found……
The instructions were much too complex
Visitors who clicked through to their email offers to download the software had to wade through instructions for a four-step process.
Information was presented in the wrong order
Before discussing the offer that brought visitors to the site, the landing page asked for an email address. The actual links to the free trial downloads [were] much lower on the page and it is very likely that the potential prospect was frightened off before they even reached that point?
The landing page offered multiple versions of the product
My understanding of a sales process is that you would want someone to make the decision about which version they need after they have decided they want to download it,” he advises. Showing multiple versions and system requirements made choosing this product look more complicated then it needed to be and the initial response rates proved that they were losing customers as the bounce rate from this particular page was extremely high.
After some discussion their Internet Marketing Consultant convinced them that it was in their best interests to redesign the form and after obtaining permission to do so was pleasantly rewarded and the average email subscriber rate jumped by more than 300 percent, proving that it’s always a good idea to work with professionals and online experts who can quickly analyse and work with you to increase responses. Here’s what the new form offered:
- A large image of the product’s packaging
- A pull-down menu pre-loaded with the most popular version
- A field for an email address with a brief explanation of benefits
- A “download now” button
The Point: Clarify and simplify. Take care to remove any roadblocks that keep visitors from doing what you want them to do at your landing pages. You just might boost your conversion rates!