Getting someone to open an email. Getting someone to click on a download and fill out a form. Convincing them to sign up for a webinar. These are examples of the much-coveted conversion.
A conversion is when a visitor to your site responds to your call to action. It is the point at which the recipient of a marketing message performs the desired action. Buying the product or service, is, of course, the ultimate conversion.
Drawing customers to your website (inbound marketing) through activities like blogging and social media are more effective than outbound marketing, the traditional type of marketing where salespeople had to go out to catch prospects' attention. Cold calling customers is an example of an outdated outbound marketing technique. Customers are no longer receptive to outbound marketing and know how to filter these attempts out.
In today’s world, savvy businesspeople use content and conversion strategies to gently work their customers through the sales funnel, by generating traffic and leads, then educating prospects and ending in sales. You might have different conversion strategies for each part of this funnel. What you do to generate traffic may not be the same as what you do to generate leads, prospects, or sales.
You need to have a clear understanding of who you are trying to target and why. Are you trying to get more social media shares? Are you looking to build a strong online presence via branding? You can measure the effectiveness of your blog, for example, by measuring the number of comments and pageviews. Measure the effectiveness of your ecommerce store through purchase numbers, reviews and ratings.
Different types of people are visiting your site for different reasons and at different stages in the buying cycle. Understand what is driving them to the site and what they are looking for. What mindset are your visitors in and what information would they find valuable? What's going to move them through the sales funnel?
Match your customers’ mindset with a conversion strategy:
It's almost impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of your goals without a way to track and measure the performance of your conversion goals. Use Google Analytics to determine how people are entering and exiting your site. It’s a great way to see where you are missing opportunities! Digital tools allow you to see more clearly what is working and what is not. You can look at the analytics of these conversions to see how they are performing--- maybe it's working well, perhaps it's not working at all, or maybe it's only working up to a certain point. Tweak your strategy based on the data. Rinse and repeat.
When people ask “is this a good website?” the response is: does it perform the way you want it to perform? You can find out with A/B testing. Also called split testing, this technique allows you to compare two versions of a web page to see which performs better, Version A or Version B.
Visitors to the website are unaware that their movements are being monitored by the software, but you’ll know exactly which copy, which colors, which anything gets people to convert at a higher rate. After a certain amount of traffic and testing, the winning page is declared. Then the process repeats with a new control and new variation.
You can test all kinds of things with A/B Testing: headlines, buttons, particular copy, placement of items, color, etc. Even the tiniest differences in design or copy can lead to big results. Let your visitors decide what they want to see.
With a conversion strategy, you are continuously measuring and testing. Every measurement and test leads to insights that lead to new ideas. By analyzing your conversion strategy, you’ll discover what works and what doesn't work and will continually optimize your site for ever higher conversions.
People do business with people they like and trust. People do business with brands they like and trust. Conversion strategies allow you to tailor your conversions and content to the needs of your customers. In the 21st century business model, you simply cannot get away from content. More content equals more opportunities, improved SEO, and better brand positioning which leads, ultimately, to more sales.Your digital platform and the content you deliver builds credibility, positions your brand as an expert, and engages fully with your audience.
The best things our customers have done to drive leads in sales this past year is to embrace social media, establish a blog, and implement inbound marketing strategies. Ask us what we can do to improve conversions for your content.
