The focus of most businesses when they first get up and running online is to convert site browsers into customers.

That’s what it’s all about, right? Getting customers.

But there are actually two core types of conversions on a website: checkout conversions (customers), and lead conversions (not-yet-customers).

If you’re only focused on optimizing your site for checkout conversions, you’re failing to do anything to reach those not-yet-customers that aren’t ready to purchase today, but may be willing to keep in touch with you until they are.

“Sale” or “no sale” shouldn’t be the only options you present your customer.

This is where the lead capture tool comes in.

An Example

Let’s say your current checkout conversion rate is 5%.

Without a system to capture leads, you are collecting no information from the other 95% of visitors to your site.

That’s a lot of people to miss out on.

You probably wouldn’t show up at an art fair without a mailing list sign-up sheet or “drop your business card” bowl, so why not have the online equivalent on your website?

Implementing a lead capture tool will allow you to collect an email address from something like 10-20% of that remaining 95% non-buyer segment. With their email address on your list, you can remarket to them via Facebook Ads, send them a note when you release new work, and/or promote a holiday offer.

By doing so, you’ll turn a certain amount of these leads into eventual customers.

So it’s pretty simple: More leads = more customers = more sales.

Unsurprisingly, many of the top online art retailers quickly caught onto this. Take a look:

Art.com

UGallery.com

SaatchiArt.com

These guys are reaping the benefits of having a lead capturing tool in place, and now you can to.

Using the Right Tool

An example of the ASF lead capture tool in action.

It all starts with a good email capture tool, like the one we’ve just launched.

Our lead capture tool is built straight into Art Storefronts, meaning all of your new leads will become contacts within your centralized ASF contact manager and be placed on your external email marketing list (ie: MailChimp).

Having the tool originate from ASF (as opposed to a third party tool) means that lead capture data will be tracked and placed straight into your analytics in the “stats” section of your ASF dashboard.

By tracking this data, you’ll learn what is and isn’t working with your lead capturing strategies, enabling you to confidently try out new ideas and further optimize your techniques. This key benefit simply isn’t available with a generic, third party tool because it is not connected within the ecosystem of your eCommerce store.

You’ll also be able to take advantage of more conversion features we plan on building later on (such as integrating the capture tool with a system that allows you to send new leads a one-time use coupon).

Display Options

The lead capture tool has options that allow you to fine-tune it for your particular site and audience. Change the text, colors, background image, and types of information you want site visitors to input. Have it pop up when the user clicks on something, or have it pop automatically after a certain time delay.

You can even set it up so that if a user dismisses your email capture pop-up, it won’t appear for them again for a given amount of time (two days, for example).

We’ve been seeing great success with the print studios and artists using it so far. We recently put together an in-depth case study here on the blog to document how an ASF artist captured 800+ email addresses in the month after installing the tool.

For more info on how it works, take a look at that case study, as well as the relevant knowledge base entry.