Web leads are the people who visit your business web site. If properly managed, web leads often become customers. If your web site and the copy on the pages (as well as other information and helpful content) are well written, visitors will be led from a landing page to the pages that will provide the information they want or answer their questions.
A study by the American Marketing Association recently revealed that only 80% of those who visit a web site will make it beyond the landing page, only 20% will reach the shopping cart, and only 2% will make a purchase. This reveals two important truths: (1) many web sites are not making navigation easy enough to move visitors through the site to a purchase, and (2) web sites are not helping people overcome the typical barriers to buying.
According to the study, the five leading reasons people leave a web site before making a purchase are:
1. They are not ready to buy. Instead they are still gathering information or they are not the right visitors. Web leads must be managed (if they are the right visitors) in ways that help them gather the information they need quickly and given a reason to buy now.
2. Unclear site instructions. These web leads shut down because they cannot find the information they need to buy. Your job is to make that information easy to find.
3. They get distracted. Often there is too much dissonance on the page. The landing page should resemble the ad that brought you the web leads. This will feel comfortable. There should be nothing on that page that is not designed to move the lead to a buying decision.
4. Fear, uncertainty or doubt. Many things can produce these feelings. Among them are too many product choices or options, the risk associated with buying complex or high-priced items or services. Your job in managing these web leads is to remove the risk (or mitigate it), limit the number of options and help them move to more and more focused information and decisions.
5. Frustration and fatigue. These are the web leads that get tired and frustrated because they cannot find what your ad told them to expect or because there are too many steps in the purchase or links do not work properly, etc. Your site design and the text on your landing pages must remove these possibilities.
Web leads are too often people who might have bought but gave up. Managing leads means removing barriers. When you can find ways to manage web leads around these barriers, you will reduce the number of people who leave your site without buying from you.
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