A high-converting website should be optimized for mobile traffic and have a definitive sales funnel strategy. A mobile-first world brings with it an expectation that if you don’t want to lose clients, then you need to use a responsive design on your website. Your website assets should not only be responsive, but they should be planned according to a targeted lead generation campaign. One of the best lead generation strategies involves placing retargeting pixels within your website design.
The importance of responsive design
You might be wondering why responsive web design is crucial for conversions. The modern Internet is one of the most egalitarian forms of media and communication. The Internet is consumable from wherever people need to use it, which was originally desktop computers. But mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are starting to gain market share at the expense of desktops. Usage on these devices is growing so much that it is overtaking the traditional desktop browsing environment. With this reality in mind, it’s time for businesses to design their lead generation pages to emphasize mobile navigation.
Responsive design means exactly what it sounds like. A responsive website design responds to the screen size of the device that the visitor is viewing it on. Instead of having to deal with the headache of creating different websites for different devices, a responsive website rearranges the elements to fit any screen. This means that a site’s mobile visitors will be smoothly navigating through a site without confusion. A better mobile user experience carries with it the rewards of having happier customers.
One popular responsive design for lead generation is the use of cards in a web design layout. A card layout is great for organizing a large amount of content into easily viewable “bite size” pieces. The card design metaphor also works great for responsive design. As the viewport size changes, the layout of the cards adapts and reorganizes itself at various break points. For lead generation, certain lead generation cards can be shuffled into your deck. This makes it possible to get your message across to your client while keeping everything within a responsive layout.
If you want to get started with responsive design for lead generation, make sure you mock up how you want your site to look at from a variety of viewports. Your web hosting should be fast enough to serve your design layouts as the visitor’s viewport changes.
Designing your website to facilitate a sales funnel.
Now that we’ve covered the importance of responsive design, you might be wondering what kind of responsive web pages do we need to create to optimize lead generation. A site’s design strategy should consider how customers are going to move through the website’s sales funnel.
Most funnels begin off-site in the form of ads. Advertisements help generate traffic back to the business’s website. These people are seeing the company’s ads for perhaps the first time. They then go to a content-based web page on the site. Businesses should send these visitors to a content-based page (like an article or a blog) instead of a landing page. Companies will have better conversions by creating content that informs and inspires people. A piece of content that teaches prospects something new will help the prospect form a favorable impression about the company. A company could send them directly to a landing page, but they risk losing the sale if they push the visitor too much without first developing rapport.
These content pieces won’t make any sales by themselves, but those content pages will be embedded with pixels on them. The pixel essentially cookies that visitor’s browser such that the business that owns the pixel can now follow them around the web. That means that as long as you have a retargeting campaign setup in Facebook or Adwords, the visitor will see your display ads all around the web.
The idea behind retargeting is that after the visitor has seen your ad a number of times, they’ll eventually click on an ad and go to your landing page. There’s no special web hosting required to implement this strategy. Let’s lay out the exact look of the website to facilitate this type of retargeting sales funnel.
- A business will need their designer to create some catchy ads to place on social media sites (like Facebook) or a display advertising network.
- There should be a series of content pages that these ads lead to. Different content pieces can be created according to different campaigns.
- Each of these content pages on the website has a pixel on them. This means that even if the visitor bounces back to Facebook or from wherever they clicked the ad, the business will be able to retarget them with other ads the same day, the next day or even the next week.
- These new ads lead to the businesses landing pages.
The above lead generation strategy means that you will need a series of content pieces. Most businesses will elect to include these within their existing blog. As the retargeting campaign is rolled out, the business has to have a series of landing pages to capture these warm leads. The campaign structure makes it so that the company is not sending cold leads to the landing pages.
How to structure the landing pages
The retargeting campaign begins with a content piece, which triggers a pixel that shows visitors targeted ads as they browse the web. All these ads lead to targeted landing pages where a business makes them an offer. A business can structure these pages such that when a customer says yes, they’ll end up on a thank you page. This thank you page can then upsell them on other services or products that might be of interest to them. To market to customers who say “no” to a business’s landing page offer, the website should feature an opt-in form for a newsletter. A newsletter gives businesses another means to market to warm leads.
Responsive design and a proper funnel structure for a business’s website design are a potent combination. Done right, a business’s site can look nice and generate plenty of leads.