Tested methods for improving your conversion rate

Digital marketing strategies differ significantly, as every business differs and every campaign has different goals. However, all strategies share a fundamental common goal; to drive sales. The practices that lead to increased sales vary, naturally, but they all focus on encouraging customers to progress through the sales funnel. This journey begins at lead generation and ends at conversions – or post-sale engagement in the case of flywheel models. We at Digital Dot New York have frequently explored the former, so this article we may devote to the latter. Specifically, let us share some tried and tested methods for improving your conversion rate.

Addressing conversion inhibitors

An excellent starting point for such a discussion can be found in the late sales guru Zig Ziglar’s conversion insights. He famously argued that “people don’t buy for logical reasons, they buy for emotional reasons”. Naturally, this is a tenet that B2C marketers adhere to much more closely than B2B marketers, by definition. However, this establishes an important, psychological frame of reference.

Equally importantly, in this context, he argued that there are 4 main conversion inhibitors:

• A lack of need
• No sense of urgency
• A lack of money
• A lack of trust

One may likely argue that, among all four inhibitors, marketers can mostly affect trust. Indeed, Search Engine Optimization statistics show us the importance of building trust with both search engines and users. However, we’d argue that improving your conversion rate hinges on your ability to affect all four inhibitors – within reason.

Need: examine your value proposition

First and foremost, most purchases do indeed depend on perceived need. Thus, your value proposition should be able to convince potential customers that they need your offer. Customer segmentation can assist in this regard; consider price points, style, tone, and other factors that resonate with your audience.

Time-sensitivity: incite urgency

A sense of urgency can also be an asset toward improving your conversion rates. Neuroscience Marketing finds that countdown timers incite a sense of urgency, and thus increase conversions. You may thus use such timers on promotions, limited offers, and other sales material.

Affordability: promote your proposition’s features

Affordability is, of course, a factor marketers cannot fully address. They can, however, ensure they promote optimal price points for different segments. Moreover, they can strive to promote your proposition’s most alluring features. In this regard, they may promote great value for money (VfM), ensuring customers that they stand to gain from their purchase.

Trust: foster trust

Finally, marketers rightfully value fostering trust with customers. Even outside of Zig Ziglar’s emotional purchase framework, trust is a cornerstone of conversions. There are multiple ways to do so, but, for the sake of text economy, let us list three main ones:

• Use Google My Business (GMB). A GMB profile can project professionalism, increase visibility, and enhance your local SEO. As long as your business can make use of GMB, this is an excellent option.
• Feature testimonials and reviews. Testimonials and reviews offer invaluable social credit and reassure potential customers of their choices. They also factor into SEO, so you should feature them prominently.
• Offer a money-back guarantee. Finally, money-back guarantees project professionalism and genuine care for customers’ satisfaction. If they can fit your industry and business model, they too can help foster trust.

Other tested methods for improving your conversion rate

Having addressed conversion inhibitors, let us explore some other tested methods for improving your conversion rate you may consider.

#1: Simplify your website and ensure mobile-friendliness

An extremely common suggestion is to simplify your website to improve the user experience (UX). Despite being common, however, it is extremely substantive. Experienced web design agencies understand how a responsive website that caters to the specific needs of customers can improve the overall conversion rate of that business.

From a design perspective, simple website structures help ensure easier navigation and better responsiveness. Both of these factors help reduce bounce rates and thus increase conversion potential. Moreover, these factors are paramount to mobile-friendliness, another cornerstone of SEO. Statista projects that there will be 4.3 billion mobile users by 2023. Already at 3.6 billion in 2020, this is a vast audience to overlook.

#2: Make contacting you as easy as possible

Similarly, a simple design choice that can drive conversions is, simply, ease. Customers value their time, so you should ensure your crucial information and contact forms are as accessible as possible. To do so, you may add contact forms to your header menu, feature your contact information in the header and footer, and other similar practices. Notably, improving your UX in this way can also have a positive, albeit slight, effect on traffic.

#3: Use popups

Popups are another effective resource to consider. Their infamy as annoying may precede them, but popups are indeed effective – and cost-efficient.  In 2019, Sumo reported that the average popup conversion rate was 3.1%, which is respectable by itself. It also reported, however, that the top 10% performing popups boasted a 9.3% conversion rate. You can thus consider using popups in many forms, including:

• A contact form on your homepage
• Content offers on valuable pages
• A “leave intent” popup across pages

Another useful feature worth exploring here would be click-to-call software solutions. Sometimes, customers can’t fully grasp the value of your product without actually hearing it. And that is where your sales department needs to step up and make the pitch. But timing is important here. For example, ConvertMore is a platform that offers a call-back widget that can catch leads just before they leave your website and offer them a chance to speak with one of your representatives. And from our own experience, this is an approach that has shown off a lot of positive results.

#4: Use clear, compelling Calls to Action (CTAs)

Similarly, your CTAs drive conversions by encouraging users to take desired actions. These range from opting into lists and accepting free resources to closing sales but always help drive conversions. It’s thus imperative that your CTAs perform as well as they can. To ensure they do, consider the following CTA factors:

• Placement and color: is your CTA findable, legible, and visually attractive?
• Copy: is your copy compelling?
• Clarity: is your CTA crystal clear about what it offers?

#5: Perform regular A/B tests

Finally, to review the effectiveness of your CTAs and other tactics, it is always wise to perform A/B tests. Insight Association defines this as “randomly showing a visitor one version of a page- (A) version or (B) version”. The purpose of this, they add, is to “[track] the changes in behavior based on which version [visitors] saw”. This practice can help you test the efficiency of your methods in real settings and, in turn, inform your efforts. Thus, A/B tests can assure you of your changes’ merit or lack thereof, and help guide you to success.