SEO, social media, paid ads. Businesses spend so much time, money and effort to get potential customers to visit their site. However, once the visitor is on your site, if they leave without being converted into a customer, it is all essentially useless.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is an extremely important field for businesses, and a vital step in the customer journey. Once a visitor lands on your site, the exact nature of the conversion may vary. Of course, you could convert them into a customer in one step, through making the sale on the spot. Depending on your business, however, the journey may be less direct, and the vital conversion you are looking to make is to sign them up to your newsletter, book a discovery call, or something else.
Regardless, there are certain conversion tactics which are essential to make this a reality, and help to grow your business. Here are the top strategies for converting your website visitors into customers which you should definitely know if you want your business to be successful.
Know Your Sales Funnel.
The sales funnel is vital to successful conversions, so before anything else it is important to have a solid understanding of the funnel. This is essentially a way of viewing the customer journey from prospect (or site visitor) to customer. The visualisation of the funnel is used to represent catching many people in the top of the funnel (which is comparatively easy) and then guiding them through to finally pass through the bottom of the funnel and make a purchase (each part of this being increasingly difficult).
The top of the funnel is where your potential customer first becomes aware of your brand, products or services. This is usually when prospects are looking for a solution to their problem, and is also known as the discovery phase. Once they have found your business, they will then enter a stage of consideration, examining your (and others’) products and weighing up their options. Finally, they will hit the bottom of the funnel, which is decision time. This is where the conversion happens. The key to a successful funnel is making your prospects aware of your business, and then effectively communicating the features of your business in a way that they will ultimately convert.
Be Specific and Interesting in Your Pitch.
These days, online competition is tough. Users are exposed to brilliant, sophisticated marketing every day and in order to capture their attention (and their dollars) you need to present them with only the best. Make your call to action captivating by using innovative and interesting presentation. One great way to do this is by using animation with your call to action button, something like a button which moves or wiggles periodically so that the user simply cannot ignore it.
Another way you can make your pitch stand out is by personalising it to the visitor. One very effective what to do this is by making your landing page specific to the user’s location. This is a way to speak directly to your potential customer in a very appropriate way. Location is a good way to do this because it is something which you can detect and then tailor your landing page to their area.
Use First Time Offers to Convert New Customers.
One of the most difficult challenges for businesses is getting new customers to make that leap from the consideration stage to actually taking the action you want them to. Competition is fierce is today’s online world, and consumers have so much choice. Therefore, no matter who persuasive your site, it can be difficult to convince your prospect to much that final jump, rather than choosing another company, or simply closing their browser and doing something else entirely.
One great way to get your visitors to take the leap and pass through the final stage of your sales funnel is through a special, first time offer. This may be a month’s free subscription, a one-off purchase of your product with a heavy discount, or even a free sample. Even if you are giving them something for free, this means that this person is now a customer rather than a cold lead, and it is much easier to sell to them a second, third and fourth time.
Garner Repeat Customers.
An important, and yet often overlooked, conversion strategy is converting customers into repeat business. A repeat customer can be worth twice, three times or potentially many times more than a single sale. Previous customers are also much easier to convert into a new sale compared to cold canvassing new customers, as they are already familiar with your brand an your product. Convert previous customer again and again by maintaining an on-going relationship with them through newsletters, offers, blog posts, social media and paid ads.
This is particularly effective for ecommerce businesses, especially Amazon sellers. Amazon conversion strategies are almost identical to more general conversion tactics, with a few exceptions. However, courting repeat business is often as aspect overlooked by Amazon sellers and other ecommerce businesses, who tend to focus almost exclusively on marketing and ranking tactics to attract new customers. This means that they miss out on a large amount of very lucrative repeat business.
