Franchising World, April 2007

Having clear objectives converted into clear calls to action will give a design team a boost in determining exactly what the franchise company wants to achieve. 

By Boris Bugarski 

Converting your Web site visitors into franchise leads is not an easy thing to do.  There are visitors coming to your site for your product and services and the franchise system must carefully choose those with entrepreneurial spirit out of the bunch to lead them into a new direction as possible franchisees.

Many companies fail to optimize their design for conversion or fail to at least guide each visitor effortlessly to where he wants to go by separating each call to action without disturbing their initial intent.  Their goal is to deliver an attractive Web site, but companies often don’t go through the tasks of looking at the site as a marketing tool for lead generation; that is, make the appropriate paths clear and evident.

Think about two different types of conversion: to convert visitors into sales and to convert visitors into franchise leads.  These two types should be addressed on your site with two distinct paths.  Remember, the key word is “distinct.”

Effectively, a company wants to keep its site clean of clutter or anything that doesn’t seem to add value for it visitors.  In conjunction, the site must have clear, redundant navigation that gives visitors multiple ways of getting to their “end zone,” or the page they are looking for, in this case, the franchise opportunities section of your site.

Distinct means clearly demonstrating the uniqueness of the path separate from your regular business.  For instance, choosing a different color, button, text, navigation area, or position to separate it from your day-to-day business and it will visibly create variation.

Give your Web designer the challenge of marketing.  Let them know precisely what each objective on each page is and watch their minds go to work.  Here are a few suggestive tips to get started with turning your Web site into a lead generation work of art.

Redundant Navigation
Does your site have multiple ways to find information regarding franchising other than seen on the left or top navigation?  Regardless of information sought, your site needs multiple places to find all of your main pages.  Those pages the franchise system wants to focus on should stand out like a sore thumb from the regular products and services, such as franchise opportunities.

Consider text and button alternatives.  One doesn’t know what is going to compel visitors to take the bait.  So, try different methods to gauge what makes them eager to click and what doesn’t.  And, one never knows when visitors are eager to click, so the more ways to find something, the better redundancy.

Try creating hot buttons to place throughout the site calling for franchise opportunities.  Adjust copy in the button and test different “calls.”  Consider “Start a Franchise Now” or “Own a [Company Name] Today.”  Make the button red with white text or any color that looks clean, but doesn’t go with the color scheme of site so it will stand out.   If it’s worth mentioning, it’s worth a clear line of sight.

One of the best places for a call to action is in the upper right corner of a site.  This is one of the first places people look as the site is loading.  Imagine as the site is loading, the logo on the left first then the eyes move to the right, if one knows what the typical user is looking for, this is the opportunity to ask for the sale.

Make it Obvious
When leading someone to a destination, map it out and make each step in the process obvious.  Tell people exactly what to do in the most simple of ways to do it.  Grind down franchise pages into steps with numbers.  Make the steps obvious and try to let site visitors know at all times exactly where they are at in the process and how far they have to go to complete it.

The Web is a massive place with too many distractions.  When leading a visitor to your Web form, which is ultimately the intention in capturing a lead, make the necessary steps and information obvious with minimal distractions.  Use obvious words such as “Go here,” and “Next step, click here.” 

Curiosity did what to the cat?
So many franchise Web sites have all the information one needs to make a conscious decision right there in the franchise section.  The problem is that people are making decisions right there and they don’t convert into leads.  Remember, curiosity killed the cat.  Make information bite-sized and build the curiosity.  Create calls to actions such as, “Find out more,” which leads to a form.

By putting information that allows people to make a decision, a franchise system is leading them out of the sales process.  A team is the best sales weapon.  Less information will create more curiosity and more leads.  Let the team do the selling and keep information to a minimum.  Remember, the Web page is a brochure, not a sales person, and like any other sales collateral, it needs to focus on the benefits and the creation of a desire to act.

Forms, Forms, Everywhere Forms
mUrgent changes its Web site monthly.  Although not always an overhaul, subtle changes to colors, calls to action, wording, the positioning of buttons, underline, no underline and the like are made.  One of the elements added was a form on every page.  These forms not only let the company know which pages were creating the curiosity, but also increased lead generation by nine times.  A franchise company doesn’t have to put a form on every page, however, it should keep asking for the sale in more ways than one.

Redundancy in Asking
To make a sale, continually ask for it.  If the question isn’t asked, the answer is always, “No.”  Most sites have one call to action, usually at the bottom of the copy with no redundancy in asking. 

A site needs to have at least four to six different calls to action to ask visitors to convert into leads.  Too often franchise opportunity pages list all the benefits and stories, and then the call to action at the bottom.  What happens if visitors don’t get that far or don’t see the text?

The majority of people don’t read over the Web because it starts to affect their vision.  Most people skim through text and look for clear navigation leading them to where they want to go.  That is why franchise companies should separate their copy with sub-headlines and have them appear in bold text to create obvious links.  Visitors know what they are looking for and companies need to provide that up-front, in the middle and at the end because one never knows where people are looking.  Don’t expect visitors to find your call to action just because it’s assumed it’s natural to put it at the end of the copy.

Ask. Ask. Ask.  Keep asking for the sale throughout the site and on each page in more ways than one.  Know the objective, which is to convert the visitor to a lead, and don’t stop asking until it’s received. 

Evidence and Testimonials
Upon visiting a few sites that offered franchisee testimonials, there wasn’t specific evidence that it is a success for them.  Make testimonials quantified; use numbers to drive curiosity.  People who are interested will do the proper research. 

Provide visitors with a driver to fill out your form, such as testimonials from people that are a true success within the system.  Site visitors are looking for something that indicates the amount of money to expect or how fast their return on investment will come after the initial investment.

Testimonials should focus on the benefits of becoming a franchisee, not the benefits of the product or service.  Testimonials need to answer the following question, “What is in it for me?”  Therefore, packaging testimonials should be one of the strongest points throughout the franchise section of the site.

People Like People Like Me
People who are like-minded always tend to congregate.  Has your company conducted research on system franchisees?  What does the system like about them?  What would the system like possible franchisees to be like?  What type of audience is the franchise company trying to attract?  Is the company looking for young entrepreneurs, accountants, stay-at-home parents or home owners with equity?  What age?  What characteristics?

Create a master list of the target audience’s make up and select current successful franchisees who meet the criteria.  Portray these franchisees to visitors and let them know that people, just like them, have been successful with your system.  This is a great step toward increasing the chances of duplicating the success and finding like-minded people.

Converting site visitors is not an easy task for any company, especially when relying on other designers or teams to do the Web site without your industry marketing savvy and objectives.  All in all, the best advice to give any company trying to increase lead generation is to write down the top two to three objectives for your Web site.  What does the company want visitors to do?  Buy something? Convert to leads?  Write them down and make them the focal point on each page with distinct calls to action.

Next, divide the site’s major pages, such as “About Us,” “Products,” and so on and write down the main objective for each page.  Finally, write down the objective for each page of the Web site.  Give these objectives to a site design team so that it will know what the main objective is for each page and exactly where visitors are to go.

Having clear objectives converted into clear calls to action will give a design team a boost in determining exactly what the franchise company wants to achieve.  Converting visitors into leads can be daunting, but the more that is written down about where the franchise system wants them to go, the better path the franchise company, the design team and visitors will have toward greater results. 

Boris Bugarski is CEO and president of mUrgent Corp.  He can be reached at askboris@murgent.com.