Is your financial firm struggling to generate – or improve – conversions such as contact form submissions on your website?
Given that this is the true goal of financial marketing, conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is a crucial aspect of a successful marketing strategy. Is it not enough to simply set up a campaign and let it run indefinitely. You need to continually refine it.
Doing this helps to improve your return on marketing investment (ROMI) and makes the whole system and process more efficient.
How can you engage in CRO effectively as a financial firm? Where do you even begin? Below, we offer 8 ideas to help financial marketers improve their conversion rate. We hope this helps you.
Please contact us if you’d like to discuss your own financial marketing strategy with us via free, online consultation.
#1 Use brevity on forms
Contact forms are the typical “entry point” for a conversion action. Most financial firms would like to see more inquiries coming through their website forms – or, certainly better quality ones.
Yet convincing people to fill out your form is not easy. Even if the person is interested to do so – even keen – they will be put off if the form is too long. Consider limiting the form to just 3-4 fields, to be safe.
Also, be careful not to ask for information they might not be comfortable sharing.
#2 Review your offer(s)
Why would someone want to fill out your contact form? What do they get out of it?
Here, think about how appealing your offer is when the user visits your website and contact form. Put yourself in their shoes.
Are you offering something which they are excited about and see the value in? Is your offer gimmicky, or manipulative? Does it require too much commitment or effort with little apparent, immediate reward?
You may benefit from testing different offers and calls-to-action (CTAs) and comparing the data, to see which one(s) perform better.
#3 A/B test
Have you tried testing different versions of your landing page – and/or contact form – to see which gets the best results?
A/B testing like this (or “split testing”) is a great way to refine your conversions. Here, it is a good idea to set up two versions of a page and then run them simultaneously over, say, 2 weeks – showing one page to one set of users, and the other to another set.
After the testing period, check your Google Analytics (or other reporting tool) to compared. When you find the winner, split test this version by changing another key variable – such as the headlines. This lets you make continual improvements, month-by-month.
#4 Improve calls to action
Calls to action (CTAs) are typically buttons featuring invitational text, intended to spark an action from the viewer (e.g. submitting a form).
The issue is, CTAs are not always written well. Perhaps the wording is not quite appropriate, or sets the wrong tone. Maybe it invites the user to do something they’re not yet ready for. Here, you can improve conversions by trying different CTAs.
This might involve taking a bigger look at your overall customer journey – not just the wording in the buttons, themselves.
#5 Reduce distractions
It is easy for people to lose focus on what you want them to do on your landing page.
A common example is the pop-up form. Here, your user might be checking out your contact form, interested in filling it out. At just that moment, however, a pop-up appears and blocks their view (e.g. an invitation to get your latest PDF guide).
This is a frustrating user experience and can stop the user from carrying out what you wanted them to do in the first place!
Other distractions are more subtle, however. You may need to think carefully to identify them. For instance, a busy or cluttered landing page can be hugely difficult to read and stop people from staying on the page long enough to even see your CTA.
#6 Include a live chat
This might sound contradictory to the aforementioned point. Wouldn’t a live chat pop-up distract the user?
If used in the correct time and place, no. A live chat feature can be very helpful to generate engagement and conversions – especially if the visitor is not ready to perform another conversion action.
For example, a user may not be prepared to book a live consultation via your online booking feature. However, they may feel comfortable having a conversation with a member of your team over the website. From here, this could reassure them to book the meeting!
#7 Integrate social proof
Is there evidence of other clients’ past experience on your page? Or, perhaps Google Reviews or testimonials?
These can be vital for helping put prospects at ease. When they see a client story, they often feel reassured that your business is the real deal – since you can demonstrate past experience of working with people “just like them”.
Consider including these strategically on your pages, to help drive your conversion rates.
#8 Make your page faster
One of the biggest hindrances to conversion rates is a slow website. Indeed, 47% of customers expect a page to load in under 2 seconds!
Any slower than that, people start to bounce off your page. Each extra second of load time can massively undermine your conversion rate, so make sure your financial website is as lightning-fast as possible.
A great tool to check your speed is Google PageSpeed Insights. This gives a step-by-step breakdown of your website on mobile and desktop, allowing your developer(s) to make targeted improvements to your performance.
