For a business, conversions are the ultimate goal for a lot of your marketing efforts. Not “drawing in more traffic” to your site, but actually getting the people who visit your site to do something that will benefit your business. The obvious thing here would be buying your product or service, but there are other forms of conversions you may want to be focusing on as well, such as:
- Getting customers to sign up onto your email list.
- Getting customers to download a whitepaper or e-book you created.
- Getting customers to share a page on social media.
- Getting customers to call/email your business to take them to another stage of the sales funnel.
Digital marketing strategies are at their most effective when conversions are something that’s worked towards, rather than something you “hope” to get. One of the best ways to make this happen is by designing a page from the ground-up to encourage and facilitate conversions from your customers. Here are some of the key elements that many of the top websites out there use.
1. Having a Concrete Goal
Being goal-oriented and running a business go hand-in-hand. Every piece of marketing material you put out there should have some sort of goal in mind, and customer pages are no different. The notion of “jack-of-all-trades, master of none” is exactly what you want to avoid, as your pages will ultimately fail to convert compared to more focused pages.
So, what exactly is the ideal goal you should be focusing on? A lot of this boils down to knowing your audience. For example, say that you’re selling a high-priced item that customers buy very infrequently or perhaps even once, like a boat. You’re not likely to get a sale based off of any one initial piece of marketing.
Instead, you’re going to want to focus on smaller conversions that lead to that sale. A customer page here may focus more on getting them to sign up to an email newsletter that has relevant tips for boat buyers/owners. This newsletter content gives them confidence that you have authority in your niche and moves them down the sales funnel to ultimately buying a boat from you.
2. Have a Strong Call to Action
The call to action generally concludes most marketing materials, customer pages included. At this moment, after you’ve provided the explanation and value of your service, you should make it clear what the customer should do in order to make that conversion. It’s important for the CTA to be featured as clearly and prominently as possible. Most customer pages use a specific button with a “buy here” or “sign up” to leave no question on what to do.
Verbiage counts for a lot when it comes to formulating your CTA as well. You generally want to keep the statement rather brief, so utilizing descriptive words and powerful command verbs can do a lot to stimulate your readers into action. Just make sure that the text you decide to use is on brand with your other marketing materials.
3. Keep Things Simple
Several surveys have shown that simplicity is one of the key driving factors into customer conversions. The main reason for this is that while you can give a lot of technical information on a customer page, the customer still needs to read and process all that before making a decision. In the time this takes, they may decide it’s not worth it and look elsewhere. However, by specifically targeting certain points of relevance to them, you have a much better chance of getting them to move towards that conversion.
Again, just like your goal-planning, effective simplicity is about knowing your audience. By knowing their pain points before a conversion, you can address them specifically, with minimal additional text that isn’t relevant to their needs.
4. Keep Value to the Forefront
When you are creating a customer page designed for conversion, you need to constantly hammer down the value proposition of your product or service. This needs to be in balance with the simplicity that we just mentioned. For example, if you were putting together a landing page for an auto shop, you would want to focus on the affordability and variety of your services.
However, when it comes to value proposition, you also need to discuss what sets your offerings apart from others in your niche. When it comes to this same example, an auto garage may offer a bundled set of services at a value you don’t normally see.
5. Implement Video Content
When it comes to conversion on customer pages, implementing some type of video is one of the strongest additions you can make. Across the board, people have reported more success with conversions after adding video to their marketing. Part of this is because it enhances a lot of the other elements we’ve been talking about.
For example, with video, you can craft a narrative that fits into what your ultimate conversion goal is. Trying to add to your email list? Focus on an informational video. Want people to head to your ecommerce page? Utilize a product video to showcase what you can do. There are also some formats, like video testimonials, that are well suited to landing/customer pages in general.
In addition, it’s a lot easier to concentrate on simplicity and value, because people, in general, have a longer attention span when it comes to video content. You could have the same material in an article and video, and have a better chance of people absorbing the points with the video due to presentation and visual appeal.
Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about charting customer conversions is the fact that you need a level of patience. It takes time for the measures you implement to have an impact you can see in your sales/other data. It’s important that you strike a balance between giving things time and being willing to adjust for prolonged success.
