In B2B marketing, all efforts converge towards the same goal: converting the prospect into a buyer to expand the customer base and make more sales. As such, the conversion rate appears as one of the essential indicators of the performance of marketing campaigns. Given its direct impact on income levels and long-term growth, every effort should be made to keep this rate as high as possible. But before thinking about increasing it, how is the conversion rate calculated? We tell you everything in this article.
What you need to know about the B2B conversion rate
Also known as “conversion rate”, the conversion rate is a key performance indicator for marketing campaigns. This is a ratio for measuring the effectiveness of inbound marketing strategies that is widely used in B2B.
If converting can have several meanings depending on the purpose of the marketer, it is generally about transforming a prospect or a lead into a buyer by making him/her take and execute the purchase decision.
With the democratization of data marketing, marketing teams can easily take various measurements in order to consider various actions to be implemented for the optimization of the profitability of the deployed strategies.
Conversion rate in B2B: the calculation method
While it plays a crucial role in the assessment of marketing efforts, the conversion rate is very easy to determine. The operation takes place in 3 steps. First, you need to add up all the times there was a conversion, whether it was a sale or a lead generation.
Now divide the resulting number by the total number of visitors registered on your site. Finally, multiply the result by 100 and get your conversion rate. It is very simple. You divide the number of buyers by the number of customers for the same period and multiply by 100.
A conversion rate can be excellent, good, average or bad. However, this rate varies according to several factors such as the sector of activity, the product or service offered, the source of traffic (mobile or PC), the quality of the text of the landing page, the seasonality, etc.
It is not uncommon to note, for example, that the B2B conversion rate is much lower on mobile than on desktop. Similarly, you may notice that the conversion rate of some of your deep pages is lower compared to the site as a whole.
In fact, given the value they add and the number of channels that lead to them, some pages may have a lower or higher conversion rate than the website they are part of.
How to increase B2B conversion rate in 10 steps?
As a marketer, your goal should be to improve your performance indicators. Improving your conversion rate will mean finding solutions to increase the proportion of visitors who take the desired action. Here’s how to do it.
1. Analyze or audit your traffic
Any performance optimization effort must start with a situation analysis or audit. To increase your conversion rate, you must first look at your different traffic sources.
2. Get to know your personas
Here, the goal is to define in a clear, precise and detailed way the profile of your perfect client. To do this, you need to know the needs you want to satisfy. Your customers are the people who specifically need your product.
Thus, by starting with the qualities, strengths and benefits that your product or service offers, you can get a clear idea of the type of problems that your offering solves. With this information, it becomes easier to define the type of customers to target.
However, it doesn’t end there, because in practice, your prospects may surprise you. The most effective way to create personas, i.e. the ideal B2B customer profile, is to study the behavior of your prospects and, if possible, conduct interviews or demand studies.
In some cases, one persona will not be enough. For companies with more or less complex operations, it is possible to have several customer profiles for different segments of the overall customer base.
Based on this data, you can tailor your site’s customer journey to ensure you are targeting the right prospects to convert. On the other hand, more prospects will be converted.
3. Optimize the SEO of your site
Before conversion, you must first attract good traffic. To avoid having a mass of unqualified profiles in your address list, you need to do SEO. With a keyword audit for example, you will be able to identify the keywords on which your pages must be optimized.
This is the basis for attracting traffic not only in volume, but also in quality. This is where you need to start to ensure you have profiles to convert.
4. Improve the UX (User eXperience)
In a world of increasing digitalization, the user experience or “User eXperience” is a vital parameter for conversion. After having defined the profiles of prospects corresponding to your target and implemented the means (SEO and/or SEA) to attract the right profiles on the basis of keywords.
Now you’ll have to figure out why some of them close your site before your goal is reached, leaving the conversion unfinished. There are several reasons for this. For example, it is possible that :
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the architecture of your site is poorly designed;
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the organization of the pages does not facilitate a fluid navigation;
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your pages or landing page takes too long to load;
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Internet users are confronted with repeated bugs with your site;
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frequent pop-ups interrupt the navigation;
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banners cover important writings on the site;
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the visitor deplores the inexistence of a live chat module;
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your forms are too long;
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your pricing system is not very clearly described;
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your site does not have a breadcrumb trail;
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the absence of legal mentions on the site creates ;
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etc.
As you have surely understood, the idea here is to put yourself in the visitor’s shoes and to feel the technical difficulties that the Internet user faces when he arrives on your site. Basically, a technical SEO audit will reveal all the technical issues related to your site that may hinder the quality of the customer experience on your site.
Many software, free or paid, can allow you to make a technical SEO audit and detect flaws. If you don’t know how to do it, don’t hesitate to entrust the work to a reputable webmaster.
By putting yourself in your target’s shoes, you will find information that will allow you to create content with high added value for your prospects.
5. Create targeted content
To support your B2B customers’ progress through the conversion tunnel, you need high-quality content. To be of high quality, your content must be relevant, understandable, but above all personalized.
In B2B, quality is vital. So find ways to improve the relevance of your content and its accessibility. Find the most suitable presentation format. For example, we can plan quality blog articles that demonstrate your expertise (very appreciated in B2B), a white paper, webinars, infographics (which are very appreciated visual elements).
6. Add visible and attractive CTAs
Since it represents the corridor that leads directly to the conversion, the CTA must be as visible and inciting as possible. There are two requirements in this case. First, you will need to make your CTA buttons visible and readable. Then they have to be placed in the right places.
The text of each CTA button should be designed so that the visitor knows roughly what to expect when they click on the link. Choose a readable font and an optimal size. The background of the text should be of a color that allows the text to stand out as best as possible. Choose contrasting colors.
This being the case, CTA buttons will need to be placed in multiple locations. It is a way of insisting without nagging. Also, seeing the same button in various places as they view your content will tempt the visitor to click on it more than if you put a single CTA. At the very least, you need a CTA towards the beginning and another towards the end of your page.
7. Distinguish yourself with a strong value proposition
Want to convert more prospects into buyers? The best way to convince is to offer products or services with high perceived added value. Your value proposition should be as clear as possible.
Adopt a strong and captivating speech, and you will gain the attention and trust of more potential buyers. On the other hand, be vague, imprecise and modest or use highly technical and not very accessible language and your conversion rate will not really increase.
Your value proposition should be presented in a refined text and in a level of language and style appropriate to the maturity of your audience. Such a quality value proposition positions you as a credible and reliable company.
8. Add reviews and testimonials from your customers
Convincing is about commitment. But to engage, you need to find captivating elements that the prospect can identify with. The great thing about testimonials and reviews is that they prove that you have the ability to deliver on your promises.
To do this, consider asking your satisfied customers to leave a review of your services or share their testimonials. Knowing that your company manages to maintain good relationships with others is a very attractive feature in B2B. The conversion rate will be improved.
9. Improve page load speed
Imagine a page that takes 10 seconds to load. That’s all it takes for a visitor to shut up. In fact, statistics clearly indicate that nearly 53% of a website’s visitors stop their journey if they find themselves waiting more than three seconds on a web page that takes a long time to open.
More than a simple question of patience, the slowness of loading a web page can make its bounce rate rise very quickly. However, as soon as the bounce rate starts to increase, search engines consider that your page does not offer useful content.
As a result, your page may be downgraded in the search results, which will reduce your visibility and therefore your traffic. In the end, it is your conversion rate that will be affected.
So, if you notice that your site or landing page is suffering from slow loading, fix the problem as soon as possible. You may need to optimize the size of images and videos uploaded to the page or increase the quality of your hosting. Among other tools to monitor the loading time of your web pages, you can use GT Metrix or Dareboost.
10. Track your conversion rate
Optimizing your B2B conversion rate requires follow-up work. In fact, you need to set up a routine for evaluating your various key performance indicators. Good monitoring ensures that objectives are met and minimizes deviations from them.
By regularly monitoring your conversion rate, you will be able to quickly detect malfunctions and understand how your actions influence your ability to convert your prospects.
This will allow you to take corrective action in a timely manner. And most importantly, don’t forget. Give your conversion rate your full attention, as it determines the level of your sales figures.
