You’ve taken the time to build out your franchise website with a wealth of information you know will attract the serious prospects, but all of that content means very little when there’s no clear next step these buyers can take after getting interested.
I’ve talked about the first vital piece of the conversion puzzle, calls-to-action, and how in many ways, they’re the first step visitors take to becoming a lead.
So, what’s next for these soon-to-be franchise leads? Where does actual lead conversion take place?
The real point of conversion happens on the franchise landing page.
Consider, for example, that landing pages have the highest conversion rate (23%) of sign-up forms.
No matter how large or small you are as a franchisor, making sure you’re giving prospects a place to convert when they want to is extremely vital for franchise lead generation.
If you’re one of the many companies out there who simply doesn’t know how to set these pages up effectively or don’t have the resources to do so, you’re not alone.
Let’s dive into what these pages are, what they do, and why you need them, anyway.
What is a landing page and how does it work?
Simply put, a landing page is a webpage allowing you to capture a visitor’s information through a lead-capture form.
You’ve probably filled out a form like this before. Think “First name, Last name, Company, Email address.” You get the picture.
In franchising, they’re used to target serious buyers by offering them something valuable to their research process. This could be a webinar, a white paper, a franchise success story—anything you feel an interested prospect would find useful.
To illustrate how they work, here’s a real life scenario:
A prospect finds your website and takes interest in a blog post introducing the products you sell.
This person just happens to have worked with these products in the past, so they’re naturally interested in learning more about the ones you offer. After getting through the post, they find a CTA offering a free product guide.
Intrigued, they click through to the guide’s landing page where they learn what’s inside. They’re presented with a form where they enter their contact information in return for the free download.
As their file downloads, their contact information is entered into your contacts list and the visitor officially becomes a lead.
Win-win, right?
If you’re still fuzzy on exactly why you need to have these pages setup on your franchise website, here are the four biggest reasons you can’t go without them:
1. Simple, straightforward lead generation
If you’re sending email, social media, and organic search traffic to your homepage or other places that aren’t optimized for lead generation, this is without a doubt the one thing you need to do to drastically improve your lead numbers. All it takes is a little planning, content creation, and implementation.
Not doing so is no different than closing your eyes to those looking for a business opportunity like yours.
Landing pages are the easiest way to generate franchise leads you can segment, nurture, and send on to the sales team when the time is right.
2. Bring your offers to life
Franchise marketing offers and landing pages are connected at the hip.
Without landing pages, you’re stuck letting your offers go out to potential buyers without any exchange of valuable contact information—the core component of what makes inbound marketing work.
3. Get a clear picture of who is most engaged
Landing pages aren’t only about generating brand new leads; they’re also a crucial tool in understanding which of your existing franchise leads are actively engaging more than others.
Based on the kinds of content and offers they’re downloading, your sales team can score leads accordingly and engage with the kind of message they want to hear.
4. Learn which of your offers are most effective
Think of each landing page as another data point your marketing team can use to optimize your inbound franchise marketing strategy.
By tracking and analyzing the metrics your landing pages are gathering such as how many people are downloading a certain offer or resource, you can start adjusting new content to focus on the subjects and ideas that are most compelling to visitors.
What you can start doing to improve lead generation today
You’re probably wondering where to start.
If you’re ready to put these crucial lead generation elements in place as soon as possible, take some time to take stock of your offers and resources. If you’re lacking in the content department, work on putting together a content strategy you can use to start driving conversions.
Another essential piece of digital marketing for franchises is getting found online. Check out our guide to franchise SEO to learn the basics.
Topics: Franchise Marketing, Website Optimization
