Today’s fintech buyers are millennials and other digital natives who prefer to search and research everything online. And today’s fintech agencies are taking notice. Today’s fintech decision maker can seamlessly switch from shopping for silicone bakeware to researching lending platforms – all on the same mobile phone. More than that, they might purchase a set of bakeware online for a hundred dollars, then expect to purchase the software they need for hundreds of thousands of dollars via a similar self-service ecommerce platform.
Alternatively, they might want a hybrid digital and traditional experience where they research a new business solution for months online before they hear from your sales team. Yet, still expect a customer experience that’s highly personalized to their interests and concerns.
Regardless, fintech industry customers now demand a digital experience that mirrors their B2C experience. Afterall, you don’t cease to be a person when you’re at work. Yet, while your clients might expect a more B2C online experience, their buying journey and the risk factors involved are vastly different than when they are that consumer shopping. However, a wrong purchase decision could mean the difference between millions of dollars in profit or loss.
To provide the website and landing page experiences your fintech customers crave, you need to supercharge your website design and incorporate conversion rate optimization (CRO). In this article, we explain what we mean by CRO and how to use it to optimize your website and landing pages to improve results.
Landing page optimization techniques that get more leads
Data is the fuel that feeds your marketing engine. And to get the data you need takes research. The same is true of any strategy or tactic that helps your firm achieve its digital marketing and sales goals. Tactics like conversion rate optimization (CRO) involve using data and testing to continually improve your website’s ability to convert visitors into leads or leads into buyers. But before we discuss the step-by-step process required to completely supercharge your website, let’s look closer at CRO and how to create landing pages that convert.
What is conversion rate optimization?
Conversion rate optimization or CRO involves improving online content, such as webpages and related landing pages, to ensure that visitors complete a desired action. Many people assume the word “conversion” means a prospect makes a purchase or becomes a customer. But a conversion can also be:
- Subscribing to a newsletter
- Downloading a piece of gated content to become a lead
- Contacting your sales team to sign up for a demo or a free trial
Your organization’s specific conversion goals will differ for your different solutions, vertical industries, buyer personas and even at certain points of the buying journey.
How to determine your conversion rate
Not everyone who visits a page on your website needs to complete a purchase or become a lead. Some visitors might land there by accident. Or your content might draw students, journalists or content writers performing research. Still, you must have a way to measure how well your landing page converts. That’s where conversion rate comes in. It’s calculated based on the percentage of landing page visitors who take the action you wanted them to take. Calculate it with the following formula:
For example: If one of your solutions is a SMB lending app that’s vital to multiple verticals in the financial sector and 100 people visit a website landing page and 10 of those visitors sign up to trial the app demo, then the conversion rate on that page is 10%. 10 demo signups / 100 landing page visitors x 100 = 10%.
To increase your conversion rate, you can make minor changes to key elements on a landing page, or even offer product discounts or give away product samples. However, don’t focus too hard on your conversion rate because the goal of CRO isn’t increased conversions, it’s increased revenue. In other words, if all those leads aren’t generating sales and increasing returns on your investment (ROI), then none of it matters. So, what does matter when it comes to basic CRO?
How to design your website so it’s conversion-focused
When a website looks amazing and everyone from the marketing team to the CEO thinks the copy reads better than their favorite book or newspaper, the entire company cheers. Unfortunately, while a great looking website might lead visitors to your site, great design and copy doesn’t equal conversions. Your site’s main goal should be converting visitors into leads. Next, your ecommerce pages or your sales team can convert those leads into sales. Here’s a quick rundown of how to do just that:
- Persuasive images. Don’t omit this key step. Use images that include relevant information that helps persuade your visitors, such as a helpful statistic or similar proof point.
- Directional cues. Directional cues, such as arrows, images, typography or even white space guide users to a CTA or other important elements. For example, an image may have a person looking at or pointing to a CTA button. White space can create a visual pathway around a button. Typography can be used to create contrast and hierarchy on the page.
- CTA buttons. People have become trained to recognize CTA buttons. For this reason, it’s crucial to make your call to action a clickable button rather than a linked sentence, phrase or image. Whether your solution can be purchased or requires a form fill and sales response, make it obvious. Otherwise, if prospects can’t easily figure out how to purchase, they’re probably going to move on.
- Action colors. While there’s some debate as to which button color performs best, your CTA buttons must be a high contrast color that stands out on your website and landing pages. It should be the color that your visitors click the most. So, if red works better for your site, try red buttons. If blue performs better, then blue, and so on. If you’re not sure which color performs best, you can perform an A/B test to figure it out. Bonus tip: If you’re using a landing page to offer both a downloadable asset like an eBook and to ask customers to sign up for a sales demo, then use two different button colors.
- Forms. It’s tempting to try to collect as much data as possible on your lead gen form. However, shorter forms – that only ask for what’s necessary – convert better. For example, you don’t need more than a name and email if someone is signing up to receive your email newsletter. Purchase forms will need to ask for more, e.g., shipping address, payment information, etc.
- Reduce options. CTA paralysis is a common issue that can significantly impact your website conversions. This happens when a visitor is overwhelmed by choices and is therefore unable to decide. Instead, limit the number of CTAs on your site and prioritize the most important ones. Use clear CTA language so users know what action they’re taking. Additionally, if a buyer must complete multiple steps to complete an online sale, add a progress bar so they know how many steps to expect and when they’re done.
Test and optimize page content to increase conversions
To improve your conversion rate, you must make a commitment to experimenting, testing and optimizing. What works for one audience or campaign might not for another. And what was converting well last week might stop working as well today. For this reason, it’s important to continually test and optimize your CRO tactics.
- CTAs. Different types of CTAs can be categorized into different types based on their purpose and wording. Here are some of the more common ones you can test:
- Action-oriented CTAs are designed to be clear and direct, so users know exactly what action they are taking. For example, “Buy Now” or “Sign Up Today.”
- Benefit-oriented CTAs focus on what users receive for taking the desired action. For example, “Get Your Free eBook.”
- Urgency-oriented CTAs leverage the fear of missing out (FOMO) to encourage users to act quickly. For example, “Limited Time Offer” or “Last Chance to Save” prompt users to act before it’s too late.
- Social proof-oriented CTAs leverage proof points to encourage action. For example, “Join over 1 million satisfied customers.”
- Hybrid CTAs combine different elements of the above CTAs to create a more compelling message. For example, “Join Our Exclusive Community Today and Get Instant Access to Our Free Resources” combines benefit-oriented and urgency-oriented elements.
- Headlines. A well-crafted headline can capture a user’s attention and encourage them to continue reading or take a specific action. Here are some of the ways you can optimize your headlines:
- Experiment with different types – and there are many different types, such as question headlines, how-to headlines, benefit headlines, versus headlines, statistic headlines and more.
- Optimize for SEO using relevant keywords your target audience is likely to search for.
- Be clear so visitors know what the page is about and how it benefits them. Avoid using vague or misleading headlines.
- Use emotional triggers such as humor, fear or curiosity to capture attention, create a connection and increase engagement.
- Analyze your headline using a free online tools from Advanced Marketing Institute or Coschedule, which evaluate your headline based on things like character count, readability, keywords, emotional words and power words.
- Page content. Well-written landing page copy can help users understand the value of your fintech solution, build trust and encourage action. Here are some ways to experiment, test, and optimize landing page copy
- Use persuasive language. Focus on the benefits of the product or service, and use social proof, such as testimonials or customer reviews, to build trust.
- Be client centric. Use data and research to understand your audience and then write content that explains how your technology answers the challenges, opportunities and goals of your audience.
- Write clear and concise copy. Avoid using jargon or technical terms that may confuse your fintech audience. Use short paragraphs, bullet points and subheadings to make the copy scannable.
- Experiment with different copy lengths. Depending on the complexity of your fintech solution, users may require more (or less) information before they are willing to convert. Experiment with different copy lengths to find the optimal length that drives the most conversions
- Include proof. Expert insights and social proof can be more persuasive than a statistic or anything a copywriter can create. Leverage client and partner logos, expert quotes, customer testimonials and industry awards.
Leverage research to understand the needs and behaviors of your target customers
To keep your B2B fintech website humming, takes research. And that research phase never ends. For example, an email campaign for a new, better payment app has an individual landing page that was generating traffic and converting last week but leads dropped off drastically this week. How would you know if the content just needs a quick refresh or whether you need to drastically change entire templates, try new visuals or rewrite the copy? And was it a problem with the landing page itself, the emails or the entire campaign? Useful tools that can provide key insights into how customers interact with your website and what might be causing them to not complete a conversion action include:
- Surveys
- Heat maps
- User testing or A/B testing (see below)
Identify your website key performance indicators (KPIs)
KPIs help you identify what’s working and what isn’t on all your landing pages, including those where customers can make a direct purchase via an online shopping cart with their company credit card or another form of digital payment. Examples of metrics to track to improve webpage conversion rates include website visits, product purchases, form submissions, phone calls, chatbot interactions, etc.
Use A/B testing, multivariate testing and heatmaps to evaluate any changes you make to your webpages
A/B and multivariate tests
Whether you’re testing one website variable (A/B testing) or multiple elements at the same time (multivariate testing), testing is critical for optimizing every content asset, whether it’s your entire website or an individual ad campaign targeting a new audience with information about your brand’s solvents. Moreover, assessing your site’s landing pages isn’t something you do one time and never repeat.
Tools like Optimizely and Google Optimize allow you to test different variations of your website. With the right martech, you can evaluate different headlines, images, CTAs, etc., and determine which versions convert more website visitors into leads or increase sales conversions.
We explain how to perform A/B tests, in this article: Drive Your Marketing Decisions with A/B Testing.
Heatmaps
Another way to improve website conversions is to use heatmaps. A heatmap is a graphical representation that uses color to represent website data. There are multiple types of heatmaps, but the most common variation is used to analyze online audience behaviors. Optimizely, Hotjar and Crazy Egg are just a few examples of martech solutions that include heatmaps.
If you sell fintech solutions online, use heatmaps to help identify the elements that need improvement. For example, images or descriptions that aren’t enticing prospects to make a purchase, or site navigation that makes it difficult for buyers to navigate between their shopping cart and other areas on your website.
Assessing your landing pages isn’t something you do one time and never repeat. It’s particularly important on an ecommerce page when adding a new product alters the page layout, copy, images, calls-to-action (CTAs), etc. Use what you discover during your evaluation to make improvements and eliminate what isn’t working. Then test those changes. Testing, tweaking and retesting is a continuous process.
How martech can help improve website conversions
Marketing technology (martech) is a valuable tool that plays an important role in CRO. Moreover, it’s a must-have if your fintech marketing strategy includes digital marketing tactics or ABM. Martech can help improve your website conversion rate optimization efforts in the following ways:
Personalization. With an integrated martech stack, fintech marketers can use AI to evaluate customer data, such as preferences and behaviors, and then create and automatically deliver hyper-personized content and experiences to individual web visitors. Marketo, Salesforce Pardot and HubSpot are all examples of martech that help companies personalize content and distribute targeted messages by audience to increase leads and get more customers.
Session replay or digital experience analytics (DXA). These tools provide valuable quantitative and qualitative insights that help you to understand how visitors interact with your site. Martech solutions that include a session replay or more advanced DXA tools include Hotjar, Glassbox, Dynatrace and FullStory to record and replay website user sessions.
Customer service. Build relationships with prospects, instantly answer buyer’s questions and provide high-quality customer experiences that convert with a customer service chat window or chatbot. Drift, Intercom and Zendesk are all automated customer service solutions.
Analytics. Many of the CRO tactics we’ve discussed require that you collect, measure and evaluate data to optimize your website. Google Analytics (GA allows) you to measure and evaluate your KPIs and it can integrate with other martech tools like Hubspot and Salesforce.
Fintech website CRO is an endless activity
Optimizing your website for conversions is an involved process that requires experience, know-how and a sound strategy. Plus, the work is never complete. From research to testing and data analysis to personalization, optimizing your website CRO is an ongoing process. You must also have a keen understanding of a variety of martech solutions and how each tool will integrate with your technology to achieve your conversion and revenue goals.
With over 21 years of experience, Elevation Marketing knows how to implement a variety of advanced B2B CRO tactics that help you provide the website customer experiences today’s B2B customers crave. Contact us today to partner with you to create personalized content and experiences that improves ROI and drives sales revenue.
