Conversion.
It’s the process of getting someone to take the action you want them to take by responding to your call-to-action. The action can be as simple as clicking a link, opening an email, booking a call, or signing up. Although all these different types of conversion have their place, this article is focusing on converting leads into paying customers.
In practical terms, lead conversion requires a whole system designed to create that want or desire that pushes people to pay for your product or service. While that system does include all your marketing, that’s not all it includes. Grab yourself a coffee, we’re about to deep dive into what makes people convert to paying customers.
How to Calculate Conversion Rate
Before you go about trying to improve your conversion rate, you need to know exactly what it is and how to calculate it. Simply, conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to a page on your website that performs the specific action you want them to perform. Although it varies from industry to industry, the general method for calculating conversion rate is the same.
Conversion rate = (conversions / total visitors) x 100%
There’s no hard and fast rule about what constitutes a ‘good’ conversion rate as that depends on several other factors. As a starting point, let’s take a look at the average conversion rates for some industries.
- Professional or financial services - 10%
- Media or publishing - 10%
- Education or healthcare - 8%
- Software/SaaS - 7%
- Retail or Ecommerce - 3%
Source: Marketing Sherpa
What Makes People Convert?
Conversion doesn’t happen out of the blue. It’s not enough to put your product or service online and hope that people buy. You need to convince them, which takes work. Here are 3 factors that contribute to whether or not you get the click.
- Brand messaging that resonates
How you communicate your brand messaging matters. A clear, concise, and persuasive brand message encourages conversion because people don’t like being confused! If they can clearly understand what you have, how it’ll help them and how they can get it, that’s often enough.
- Clear directions
Average attention spans are getting shorter by the day and digital distractions are increasing by the minute. If you convince a person, for a split second, to hand over their money, your website needs to make it as easy as possible for them to complete the transaction. If they can’t find the button or the page is missing some crucial information, you probably just lost the sale.
- User Experience
Imagine you’re craving lasagna. You step into a nearby Italian restaurant and the service is slow, the menu is hard to read, and the chairs are uncomfortable. Even if the lasagna is great, your overall experience was not. Great user experience happens when you have great visual appeal, effective brand messaging, and seamless website navigation. Remember, your duty as a marketer is to convince your leads to do business with you and one way to do that is by creating a smooth, memorable user experience.
How to Increase the Conversion Rate on your Website
Your website is often the first interaction people have with your business. We all know that first impressions are important, so make sure your website makes a good one. Here are two ways to nudge first-time visitors towards conversion:
- Make your value proposition visible
Your value proposition is what separates your brand from others, even other brands that offer something similar. Get as many eyes as possible on it by placing it front and centre on your home page. If well crafted, your value proposition alone can convert a considerable number of visitors.
- Create relevant content
A piece of content is relevant if it is exactly what your visitors are looking for. It’s the type of content that addresses people’s concerns and helps them move from where they are in their customer journey to another stage. Doing this shows that you understand the pain points of your potential customers and that you can help.
How to Increase the Conversion Rate in your EDMs
Email marketing, or EDMs (Electronic Direct Mail) or emails have proven, over time, to be among the most powerful lead conversion strategies. Here are two approaches to boost their effectiveness even more:
- Personalise your emails
This goes beyond mentioning your subscriber’s names in every email. Although important, people know it’s the autoresponder at work. Rather, you want to address their challenges and talk as though you’re having a heartfelt conversation with them. You can do this even more effectively with considered segmentation and automated triggers– what they do or don’t do will give you valuable insights into what information they need before converting!
- Make your emails appealing to read
Nobody wants to read boring emails. To write emails that won’t end up in the trash, focus on crafting catchy subject lines and headlines, using attractive designs, and creating concise and interesting email copy.
How to Increase the Conversion Rate in your Paid Ads
Money solves a lot of problems, but ad conversion isn’t one of them! Couple your budget with proven strategies that actually bring about real conversions. Here are two tips to follow.
- Embrace split testing
Crazy Egg defines split testing as the process of comparing two versions of a web page, email, or other marketing asset and measuring the differences in their performance. Basically, split tests help to choose winning ads. If you look at it from another angle, it helps you save money that you could have spent doing guesswork. Once you realise you can split test your images, your headlines, which pain points you address, and more– it’s a game changer.
- Use Pay Per Click retargeting
Retargeting is the act of directing your ads to people who have already visited your website or landing page. Because they’ve had contact with your brand before, it becomes easier to convert them than first-time visitors. According to Spiralytics, retargeted website visitors are 43% more likely to convert. Don’t leave money on the table. Retarget your website visitors.
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