The 3 Best Strategies to Connect with Your Site Visitors (Before They Leave Without Converting)

Why connect to the site visitor

The hard truth? The vast majority of visitors to your site will abandon it without converting. A study by Gleanster Research confirms that up to 50% of qualified visitors (targets or prospects) to a site are not ready to buy. Of the remaining 50% the first half (25%) are not interested, the other half are ready to buy.

lead magnet

No Connection, 3 Problems

At this point we have 3 problems, which are direct and indirect economic damage to your website:

Problem #1 (Direct Economic Loss): Failure to Convert

If half of the visitors to your site aren't ready to convert (for reasons we'll see below), there's direct financial damage, derived from missed sales;

Problem #2 (Indirect Economic Damage): Lack of Return on Investment in Advertising

If that's not enough, to get that 50% of visitors to the website you may have invested in activities such as advertising campaigns Google Ads, Facebook Advertising or in the acquisition of organic traffic through activities SEO and therefore suffered an indirect economic damage, given by the frustration of the advertising investment;

Problem #3 (Indirect Economic Damage): Failure to Return to the User

Ok, you'll say, but if the user is not ready he will be sooner or later, and he'll be back. Are you sure about that? According to statistics reported by Tony Haile of Chartbeat on a well-known article in the Time, 55% of visitors will spend less than 15 seconds on the page and the vast majority will not return. Why? Let's figure it out together.

The eternal (non) return of the visitor

Imagine you are walking in a new city: you notice a shop, you go in, you see something you like and then you go out because you "have to think about it" or you don't have time.

The next day you decide to go back, but you don't remember exactly where it was: you can easily find it again by thinking of some physical references like monuments, other shops...that help you find your way back.

On the web, however, it doesn't work like that, precisely because of the absence of precise references. Imagine entering a ecommerce via an advertising link found on Facebook or Google Adds. See something you like and then exit. Unlike the previous example, you won't be able to find the site easily., especially if you got there by linking to an advertisement that has currently disappeared.

The solution: connect to the visitor

Let's summarize the situation: it is physiological that a good part of the targeted traffic that enters your site leaves without converting. It's just as plausible that they won't remember the name of the site or how they got there, losing any chance of returning and converting.. It is therefore necessary to connect to the visitor as soon as they enter the site.

How? There are 3 possible ways.

3 ways to establish a connection with the visitor

Mode #1: The Email address

Acquiring your website visitor's email address is the most commonly used strategy for establishing a connection. However, there are pros and cons.

Pro

The vast majority of emails comes: it can be rejected by the server, or end up in spam, or not be read, but it arrives (within the limits of the rate of delivery or deliverability).

Against

Visitors to your site they won't leave the mail easilyfor fear of spam or the processing of sensitive data. So you need a way to acquire it, or it would be better to say attract it as with a magnet, a Lead Magnet which is what we're going to talk about now.

You don't give anything for nothing: I Lead Magnet

Let's go back to connection mode #1: the email address. As we were saying, the visitor of your site will not be so inclined to leave their email address, for fear of spam or who knows what else.

Statistics published in the Email Marketing Benchmark Survey 2013 by Marketing Sherpa show that to get an email address you need precise methods, with greater or lesser effectiveness depending on the case.

You can download now for free the Marketing Sherpa 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report here.

MarketingSherpa 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report

The 3 fundamental aspects of a Lead Magnet

The lead magnet is a method of boosting the email list. of visitors to your website (list building) with aoffer.

Let's try to understand what are the 3 fundamental aspects of a Lead Magnet:

  • give something back for free: If you want your visitor's email, you must be ready to exchange it for something;
  • give something for value: If you want your visitor's email, you have to be prepared to trade it for something worth giving it to you for;
  • convincing you of the value of what you give in returnHow does the visitor to your site know if what you're offering is worth his email? He can't know, you have to convince him.

What to give in return (for free): the 2 best strategies

What to give in exchange for the email? Something that will interest your visitor. Here are some ideas:

  • A ebook, a whitepaper, a video, a tool on the subject, maybe themed on the content itself of the page, such as Hubspot,:
How to Create a Traffic Leads Waterfall Chart to Track Your Marketing Progress
  • A coupon, discount or deal, as in the case of Zalando.com:
zalando newsletter

Mode #2: Like us on Facebook

A second way to connect with the user is to have them click like on our Facebook page.

Pro

The like on the Facebook page is easier to get than an e-mail.

Against

Have you ever noticed how your Facebook status updates fail to reach the 100% of people who have clicked like on the Page? It depends on Facebook's algorithmwhich gives certain content greater visibility than others. The practical side of the story is that Facebook Likes,  while being an easier connection to get than email, it doesn't allow you to reach a similar amount of people.

The Page Plugin

An effective way to capture the visitor to your site through Facebook perhaps by implementing in the site the Page Plugin (formerly Like Box) in a visible position on all pages of your site.

The Page Plugin, showing the number of likes and the smilies of your friends (if you are logged in) exploits the persuasive mechanism defined by Robert Cialdini Social Rehearsal, which incentivizes users to click like on the Page.

Mode #3: Remarketing

If you've ever tried to browse sites like Amazon, Ebay, Hoepli or others and maybe add a product to your cart and leave the site without completing the purchase, you may have noticed how the advertising of that product or site "follows" you in every site you visit. It's the remarketing or retargetingThis is an advertising method that uses cookies to follow the user who has entered a certain site and remind him of his visit. Remarketing is possible with Google Ads. Facebook Ads,, Linkedin Ads.

Pro

Automatic. No way out.

Against

Impersonal and sometimes intrusive.

Conclusions

We started with a hard truth: if you let your website visitor run away before they're ready to convert you have a double loss: the only way to avoid it is to connect with your website visitor by requesting their email address, Facebook Likes and Remarketing. These are different approaches, with pros and cons: which one do you find better? Let's talk about it in the comments.

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