You want your potential customers to make that final purchase from your website, but unfortunately there are many instances where they’ll drop off. Even a one second delay in presenting results to customers will bring you a seven percent drop in conversions, according to data shared by Small SEO Tools and Strangeloop. But what does this seven percent decline mean for your business?
Let’s say your business makes $100,000 in sales in a month, then your loss in conversions in a year will amount to $2.5 million. You don’t want this, so let’s look at how you can improve your conversions by employing growth marketing strategies that work for your needs.
What is a conversion rate?
What are conversion rates? Your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website or landing pages that completed a desired goal (a conversion) out of the total number of visitors.
This metric is not restricted to product purchase alone, it can be anything from engaging with your live chat agent, registering on your website, signing up for a subscription, downloading an eBook, upgrading a service, or even submitting an online form.
Let’s say your landing page received a web traffic of 1000 people, and 100 visitors purchased your product. Your conversion rate is 10 percent.
Here is how you calculate your conversion rate:
Conversion rate (x) = [{Number of conversions}/{Total number of visitors}] * 100
Why should businesses watch this metric? One good thing about it is that it helps you take advantage of the audience that is already within your reach and drive them to convert as your customers. This will help you to reduce your customer acquisition costs, increase revenue per customer, boost your customer lifetime value (CLTV), analyze which campaigns perform better and invest in them accordingly. Here are some conversion rate optimization strategies that you can use to improve your conversions.
1. Build a sales funnel
A sales funnel is a visual metaphor that describes which buyer’s journey stage a customer is in and how close to purchasing from your company a consumer is. As the width of a funnel narrows down, different sections represent the targeted audience at each stage and eventually narrows down to those who convert. This helps marketers sketch out a concrete plan to capture leads and convert them into customers at each stage.
It is said that it takes about seven to eleven contact points before a consumer is ready to purchase a product. Fueled by your marketing activities, the sales funnel helps you understand who your target audience is and the number of people that will or are likely to convert. One of the fundamental rules for a sales funnel to work is the more value you provide to your customers in the long run, the easier you can build lasting customer relationships. Incorporating a sales funnel in your marketing plan assists you in increasing your conversion rate as it helps your team handhold customers through every stage of purchase.
2. Strong, sharp CTAs
Direct, strong calls to action (CTAs) are fundamental to any successful marketing campaign, and can either make or break the deal between you and your potential customers. Whether you want your audience to sign up to your newsletter, download an eBook, share a post on social media, sign up for a contest, or give you their contact information, you need to bear in mind that your CTA needs to drive audiences to take immediate action.
Creating engaging content is the key to triggering customer engagement. You can create content that spurs your audience’s interest only when you understand their needs and wants. Try content that gets the best click rates rather than the generic posts. For instance, “sign up” doesn’t have any emotional appeal, whereas, “yes, I want a 60% discount” is bound to trigger your audience and get more positive action. CTAs like these pique the interest of your target market and help in improving conversions. Marketers can also use CTAs to promote special offers, advertise intellectual property like ebooks, or even grow email lists.
3. Keep your forms short and simple
Lengthy forms can turn your potential customers away from taking the necessary action. You don’t want your business to lose potential leads. Therefore, when incorporating forms in your landing pages, remember to keep them short, simple, and to the point.
Eliminate any unnecessary fields which may seem intrusive. Keeping your forms short and simple not only knocks out any sort of hesitation from your target audience, but also bolsters customers’ trust in your brand and takes less time to complete the necessary action.
4. Remove distractions
A website that is cluttered with unnecessary ads and a messy layout will be an obstacle to your audience. Having too many elements on your landing page deviates your potential customers from the prime purpose for which they visited your website and it makes it difficult for them to navigate through your website. To get rid of any customer bounces, you need to keep your landing page concise and clear to assist your audience.
A good website design needs to be user friendly, have engaging content, and provide customers with the best user experience.
- Headings
- Sub-headings
- CTAs
- Product features and benefits
- Reviews & testimonials
- Visually appealing images
A smart approach to knowing what your customers are looking for and avoiding what they ignore is heatmaps, which show you the patterns users take on your website.
5. Make your deal the first thing they see
Done well, a pop-up can be your ticket to conversions. If implemented and optimized correctly, you can capitalize on them easily. Generally, pop-ups have a conversion rate of 3.09 percent. However, if implemented cleverly, the average conversion rate triples and hits an impressive 9.28 percent and can even reach as high as 50 percent according to Sumo.
To make the best use of pop-ups you should:
- Try different offers and finalize the one that works
- Incorporate an auto close timer for the pop-up to close. Additionally, you can also incorporate a visible close button for your audience to close it.
- Include a piece of code in your website that the pop-up appears only once per user
6. Add testimonials and reviews
A survey by Fan and Fuel showed that 92 percent of audiences are uncertain of purchasing from websites that have no reviews, and a staggering 97 percent of consumers claim that reviews play a major role in their buying decisions. In the light of this, ignoring the implementation of reviews and testimonials will have a major impact on your conversion rate.
Consumers in this digital age consider reviews and testimonials the same as they would personal suggestions from their close friends and family. As a business owner, including these elements is as good as a form of word of mouth publicity which boosts your credibility and thereby, improves your conversions.
7. Chatbots are your friend
Your team probably isn’t available around the clock to assist customers in their buying process. In times like these, it is beneficial to have a helping hand. Incorporating chatbots or live chat tools assists your customers with any lingering questions or clarifications they need during the time of purchase.
Use your FAQs to help you determine what kind of information your chatbot can help with. Or, if you have the capabilities, customers who engage in a live chat end up purchasing a product 2.8 times more and as many as 38 percent of potential customers report that they’ve made a purchase after a positive chat session with businesses, as mentioned by Campaign Monitor. Additionally, organizations that incorporate this feature witness a 20 percent spike in their conversions.
8. The psychology of marketing
Al Ries, known as the Father of Positioning stated, “Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions”. This statement leads us to understand that the psychology of marketing relies on how you make your customers feel, showing them what’s in it for them – not how excellent your product is.
If you can establish that emotional connection between your audience and your business, you’ve laid the foundation for a successful customer relationship and excellent customer experience. One of the most used psychological marketing techniques by marketers is by promoting a fear of missing out on something great.
For instance, promoting an exclusive and enticing deal for a limited time can boost your sales by making customers feel like this is their only time to buy. After all, making the entire purchase process easy for your customers is a great way to close your sales. A growth marketing agency can help you in all your marketing endeavors and assist you in reaching your business goals easily.
9. Third-party signup bypassing
Many businesses request customers to create customer accounts on their sites. One of the best ways to do this is by asking your audience to sign up using another account such as Google or Facebook. Opting for this type of customer account registration boosts your conversion rates even more.
10. Check out your competition before your potential customers do
Competitor research is what successful businesses never ignore. Studying your competition helps you understand what works and doesn’t work in your industry. Here are four easy steps to help you carry out your competitor research:
- Identify your top direct and indirect competitors
- Check their websites’ aesthetics
- Study your competitors strategy
- Analyze the possible outcomes in terms of performance
More importantly, this helps you capitalize on your competitors weaknesses and assists you in presenting better offers to your target market. This step is crucial as your customers may check your competitors’ websites before they end up at your company’s. Outdoing and outpacing your competition will place your business ahead of them and increase your conversion rates drastically.
Every business wants their conversion rates to be high. Though these strategies may seem like they are a cakewalk, they require expertise to hit the number of conversions to make your business profitable. Therefore, teaming up with a growth marketing agency can ease your burden.
By choosing Growth Marketing Genie as your growth partner, you can leverage the experience from our seasoned professionals to put your business on the map and stay ahead of the competition.
To learn more about how we can help you, talk to our team today!
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