By Myra Sugg, Ad Media Sales Expert
As any marketing or sales professional will know, the path to purchase in today’s landscape is growing increasingly complex. Few customers simply wake up one day and decide they’re going to buy something without significant research up front. Instead, leads go through a variety of crucial steps to get to the point where they’re willing to buy something.
To ensure they have the best chances of converting their leads, sales and marketing teams invest endless money and time into ushering their prospects through the “sales funnel.”
Unfortunately, despite endless innovation in this space, many customers are still lost at the most important point in the funnel: the decision stage.
The Problem with Decision-Stage Content Pages
There are several stages to the buying process, starting with awareness, and progressing all the way through to loyalty and retention. Unfortunately, some parts of the funnel are often considered more carefully by marketing experts than others.
There are endless ways to capture the attention of clients during the “awareness” stage, from paying for social media advertising campaigns, to building your organic presence in search results. In the comparison stage, when clients begin looking for evidence a solution is right for them, companies frequently introduce everything from video reviews, to case studies, and testimonials.
When the time comes for a customer to make a decision and purchase a product or service, they land on a specific content page – one designed to provide the last pieces of information required to ensure a conversion. Unfortunately, this final content page can suffer from a number of potential problems.
By the time your customer reaches the “decision” stage, the last piece of content they receive from you needs to not only be insightful, convincing, and packed full of the right data but also provide the last “push” to ensure the conversion. Smartly blending content and a call to action (CTA) on the decision-making page is tougher than it seems.
Why Aren’t Customers Converting on Content Pages?
You can’t assume your leads will naturally convert based on the interactions they had during the awareness and consideration stages. While the relationship you’ve built with your audience member up until this point will be crucial, it’s also important to make sure you’re getting the final interaction right.
Even the smallest error at the bottom of the funnel can send them running in the wrong direction. Some of the most common reasons customers don’t convert on the last content page include:
- You’re not answering the right questions: Most of the questions your client has about your product or service should usually be answered before they reach your final content page. However, there may be some unresolved last queries to address. Speak to your sales team for insights into the kind of questions they usually get when closing a deal, to make sure you provide the right information.
- You’re not using the right call to action: The call to action is the ultimate final push you can use to improve your chances of converting a lead, or as it used to be called, making a sale. Customers expect a personalized and meaningful experience from every business they interact with, so not just any CTA will do. You’ll need to ensure you’re speaking directly to the most relevant target audience. For example, vcita’s website widget can help boost your chances of a conversion, by allowing you to create specified fly-ins for different content pages, prompting customers to schedule a call, or a service appointment. You can create CTAs specific to your target audience. For instance, a website designer might use a CTA on a site-building content page, encouraging customers to book an appointment to discuss website requirements.
- You aren’t trustworthy enough: Customers will only convert if they trust the value they’re going to get from a product or service is greater than the perceived risk of buying something. If you haven’t built enough trust, you’re not going to get a conversion. Remind your audience they can trust you by providing social proof, trust signals, and additional information designed to ensure your offer comes off as risk-free as possible. Generous return policies, free shipping and satisfaction guarantees can go a long way.
- You’ve rushed the customer journey: If you’ve tried to push your customer down the funnel too quickly, they may not have enough information to make a decision. In this case, you need to go back and take a look at the full funnel. Are you addressing all the stages of your customer’s journey correctly? At what points are you issuing what types of offers? A decision-making content page is intended to nudge your customer into the purchasing stage. Don’t try to close the sale here.
Final Thoughts
Designing your content pages for conversion means ensuring you know when and how to make the final push required to convert your customers. Getting everything from the information on the page, to the CTA right will ensure the work you do up to the point of decision really does pay off.
