It is anticipated that by 2040, up to 95% of purchases will be made online. With ecommerce on an exponential growth rate boosted by an ever-increasing cyber populace, simply maintaining a website or social media presence won’t be enough for your business to make a sale.
The digital marketplace has vastly leveled out the playing field as over 12 million e-commerce stores vie for market share. Having thousands of website visits or ad impressions ultimately won’t matter if the users don’t become customers. This tipping point in a consumer’s path to purchase is called lead conversion.
How do you develop a strategy that both generates and converts these potential clients into loyal customers? What can you do to set your business apart from the deafening noise of mass digital marketing? Below are tactics you can pull up your sleeve to accomplish just that.
1. Create content that stands out
Killer content is your best friend and is the foundation of a number of ecommerce success stories. Whether you are using text, images, videos, producing podcasts, or dabbling into a mix of these media, you need to invest in getting to know your target demographic in order to create content that is unique, relevant and shareable to them.
As well, cultivate relationships with your existing customer base. What are majority of their inquiries about? Which kinds of content do they engage with the most? Equipped with the knowledge and understanding of your audience’s interests, challenges, and aspirations, you will be able to tailor-fit content that can further improve your ecommerce conversion rates.
2. Don’t ditch the pop-ups
Pop-ups have gotten a bad rap for being notoriously annoying. But when properly executed, such as with smart exit intent pop-ups, this last line of defense can work miracles—driving up 1,375% more email opt-ins and conversion rates by up to 25%.
Exit pop-ups employ cursor-tracking tools that offer one more opportunity to convert a lead. Make sure that it is well-designed, properly contextualized, and written with copy that uses your customer’s language. Below are key elements to keep in mind:
As you can see with Visme’s, exit pop-up below, they use an eye-catching image that leads users’ eyes to their main copy, with the benefits of opting in placed right above the CTA.
3. Publish ebooks
If your product or service caters to a niche industry, one strong way to showcase your know-how is to publish ebooks. While this may sound like a tedious task, creating these downloadable guides can especially deliver gains within the B2B market, as it enables you to position yourself as a thought leader and professional resource.
Keep in mind that ebooks serve to inform and provide insight—not blatantly sell your service. And don’t forget the crucial promotion phase, your ebook’s landing page is where the valuable trade of information happens.
4. Generate top-ranking content
With 90% of users undecided about a brand before beginning their search, simply googling your competitors can help jumpstart your search engine optimization (SEO) game plan. Take note of what your rivals’ top-performing pages are and use tools that can analyze which keywords are helping them rank.
As well, capitalize on your long tail keywords—those distinct search phrases that can help you land a customer off the bat by providing the best solution to their query. Lastly, pay attention to Google’s related search results. This eight-item list at the bottom of the search page is an asset to your keyword planning.
5. Drop the jargon and KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid)
Sometimes, in an effort to come off as experts, businesses use highly-technical parlance that can put potential customers off. This unfortunate blunder can be avoided by taking the time to get to know your target audience.
Scour their social media profiles. How do they speak and interact with your company? What kind of customer reviews are you getting? Conduct interviews and focus group discussions to get yourself familiar with the kind of words they use when describing your products. Surveys are also an easy way to get feedback.
Remember that while these customers may see you as a solution, they won’t necessarily be acquainted with the jargon that comes with the service. Convey your brand’s message in a manner that resonates with your audience and adhere to the KISS principle.
6. Offer free trials
Everyone loves freebies and giveaways. Not only does offering a demo version of your product or service pique interest, but it also communicates to customers that you have confidence in what you’re selling. Free trials and product demos have also ranked first and second as the most helpful and trustworthy information sources and have a 6 out of 10 conversion rate.
Netflix does an excellent job at this, not only by providing a month-long service for free, but by clearly indicating that users can cancel anytime.
7. Put up quizzes
Many of us may not have been fans of these at school but quizzes have been a hit online. 82% of people who see a quiz on their timeline are likely to take it. So, whether it’s finding out what kind of superhero you are or providing an in-depth assessment that relates to the service you’re offering, add quizzes to your website or social media accounts to better engage your audience.
Quizzes are also a goldmine for email list building, so don’t forget to use a pop-up or create a landing page to collect their information. Below is an example of a content-creator’s quiz that resulted into a 55.8% conversion rate for her business.
8. Turn up the trust with safety language and badges
With increasing reports of data, mobile application security leaks and other cybersecurity threats, consumers are getting more cautious and want to be assured that information they share (especially payment details) are secure. A range of these trust badges exist—from paid third-party security providers, your payment processor’s icons, or your own “money back guarantee.” Whichever you decide to use, taking this seemingly small step is known to increase conversion rates by up to 40%.
9. Colors matter
Don’t be so quick to dismiss those art classes you had back as a kid. Remember the color wheel? Contrast (think complementary colors) plays a key role in getting your call-to-action buttons noticed. With a human being’s average attention span pegged at eight seconds, it is crucial for this important element of your website to be able to draw attention to itself as shown in the example below. The CTA button utilizes a larger font size, and the red CTA provides a stark contrast to the page’s gray background.
10. Get polling on Twitter
The polling feature on Twitter was introduced in 2015 for users to increase audience engagement. With an average of 326 million people using the social media platform per month, polls enable a consumer-to-business interaction that can be a useful source of data and insight that can help you decide what kind of content to make or which products to further promote.
11. Develop and make the most out of your conversion funnel
A conversion funnel basically tells the story of your customer’s purchase journey from when they start searching for your product (awareness), up to when they click your CTA button (action). Conversion funnels vary from one business to another and are specific to their various audience segments. Below is a representation that can help you assess your company’s conversion funnel at each level, so you can formulate appropriate strategies.
At the end of the day, what matters is that the transition from each course of action is as seamless as possible for your customer.
12. Engage regularly through emails
For as long as your customer doesn’t unsubscribe, email marketing is known to provide an ROI of 3,800%. Hence the need to develop email marketing sequences or automate regular emails to consistently touch base with an already-warm audience.
Whereas social media provides you a platform to create awareness and distribute content, getting into your customer’s inbox is the closest you can get to conversion. Make sure you maximize this opportunity by tailor-fitting the message to your audience’s current stage in the conversion funnel.
Conclusion
As with any digital marketing strategy, knowing which combination of these tactics to use depends on continuous utilization, testing and data gathering.
Equipped with these new tricks, get out there and start tweaking to further boost your conversion rates!
Author Bio
Vincent Sevilla is a professional graphic designer for Grit, and writer on Metapress. His goal? To innovate ideas, create good music, digital art, and to travel all thev best places in the Philippines.
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