Ultimately you’ll see revenue increases by boosting conversion rates. It’s often much easier to increase conversion rates than to increase targeted traffic, but the two are hopelessly intertwined…..
There are only two things you can do to boost revenue from your online presence: increase website conversion rate, and grow your traffic. Doing both can net you big gains, but increasing conversion rates can grow revenues, even with declining traffic numbers.
There are some strategies that major brands and their megabuck marketing research departments have discovered that you can apply to your business. It doesn’t matter if you work for a Fortune 1000 company or Joe’s Corner Joe coffee shop. These insights are highly effective, and you should be stealing them for your own use.
Market Segmentation to Increase Website Conversion Rate
What’s a great way to boost conversions? More precise targeting. Appeal exactly to your target consumer, and your conversions will rise, whether conversion means growing your prospect mailing list, or driving sales into your funnel.
Using segmentation to optimize content and landing pages for specific buyers is a huge step in the right direction when it comes to increasing website conversion rates. Multiple landing pages, social media campaigns, and content, each optimized for the target segment, typically demonstrate improved conversion rates, sometimes radically so.
Market Segmentation Bases Create Pinpoint Buyer Personas
Segmentation bases can be simple, such as male or female, to so esoteric and complex, it takes a PhD in statistics to comprehend. That’s because those are precisely type of eggheads who built the segmentation models. The models reveal different buyer personas with uncanny accuracy.
The more complex models take all sorts of factors into effect when creating these personas, from
Psychographic – attitudes (personal and specific product/service oriented) lifestyle interests
Behavioral brand loyalty product benefits sought purchase readiness product/service use frequency
Geographical – region country population density urban or rural location climate
Demographic gender age social attributes (such as ethnicity and religion) income level family situation (single, married, divorced, children, no children)
Note that this info is just used to make segmentation decisions, and not every piece of data is used each time. Relevance is the key to success here. What are you selling, who’s buying, what are your goals, and how does each base correlate with them?
Granularity And Accuracy Drive Sales, But At What Cost?
Big brands discovered that the more granular and accurate their segmentation, the better targeted they can make their content and landing pages, leading to better conversions. For example, GM is not going to do as well introducing their new 2014 Corvette if they produce content about big rig trucks and heavy equipment, then refer traffic land on their corporate home page.
On the other hand, building buyer personas of consumers likely and able to plunk down their hard earned credit for one of the 450hp Plastic
Targeting is Numero Uno, and segmentation enables more accurate targeting.
Fantastics is far more effective. The company can then target content and landing pages for these folks. It’s much more likely to result in test drives and Corvette purchases for their dealers.
GM is fortunate. They have a long history to look at when determining which data to use and what’s meaningful for the new ‘Vette. You may not be so lucky, especially if you’re introducing a new product or service with little comparable in the marketplace. That being said, you can start in by looking at the marketing plan for insight. The research for it should provide at least a good starting point for what to use creating your segments.
Well funded organizations use sophisticated software to create precise segments for accurate targeting. Yours may not be so well funded, however. That’s where careful analysis comes into play. How far can you afford to take things, given the likely ROI increase you’ll get, and the extra time it takes to set things up.
We’ve found that spending just a bit of extra time segmenting is often well worth the extra Starbucks it took to get there. Conversion rates and ROI increase thanks to better targeting, and everyone in marketing gets a nice bonus!
Check this article for more on segmentation.
Test of Wills
Another conversion improvement technique large organizations had the luxury of discovering is in-depth testing processes. Thanks to improved and cost effective software, that sort of testing capability is accessible to just about any sized business today.
Split testing is the practice of changing one variable on a page or piece of content and tracking the conversion differences. Marketers and advertisers have been testing for centuries. It’s nothing new. What’s new is the ability to get results in a finger snap. Modern technology has revolutionized the process.
Multivariate testing looks at several variables simultaneously, speeding up the process significantly. Until fairly recently multivariate testing was accessible only to those with deep pockets, but as with many other technologies, the price of effective multi-variate testing has dropped faster than a falling safe. Now it’s in reach of virtually all businesses.
It’s often shocking and counter-intuitive what improves results, so jumping into the tedious testing process with both feet is a must. While only real data heads can possibly enjoy it, everyone in your business can benefit from the revenue growth and improved ROI testing delivers.
Sometimes it’s simple things. We’ve seen 1 – 5% improvements from myriad different factors. I’m talking about the little things, such as:
color changes
changing one word in the headline
different button designs
link locations
changing the blog sidebar from right to left
bolding keywords
and more
You get the picture. Larger changes, such as completely different headlines or web copy can lead to even more dramatic results. .
The More the Merrier
Data loves company, especially if it’s to be statistically significant. We like to see at least a few hundred targeted visitors before drawing any conclusions, and that’s often not nearly enough to get an accurate picture of change effects. If your landing pages are only getting 30 or 40 visitors daily, it could be weeks before you get a clear picture of what the heck is going on.
The point is this;
Testing is the only way to really get a handle on what’s going on with your conversion rate and why. While each change may only give you a few points, they can really add up.
The recipe for success is test, track, test, track, test, track…..
Make it Oh, So Easy
Look at your order and/or sign up flow. If you didn’t work there, would it be easy to figure out? Could your Grand Ma Ma do it? Sure… Give it to her your iPAD and let her try. One of the biggest and most serious mistakes we see when doing conversion analysis is companies just making things too damn hard.
It’s amazing how many companies don’t go overboard to facilitate sales. Make the entire process as easy as humanly possible. Check every step of the process. Are things easy to find and intuitive? Unless they’re essential to the site form and function, drop all the industry buzzwords, and use plain English. At the very least, use buzzwords and plain English.
Clearly label buttons that navigate to the each step in the process. Make them jump off the page, so even the most web challenged won’t hesitate to find them. Use the Grand Ma Ma test for everything.
Make It Fast
It’s often overlooked as focus groups and marketing teams grow sweat beads over this change and that, but here’s another that can have a huge impact on your conversion rate; speed. If the web and marketing teams used the site on a development server, check on the real thing, too. If
Getting fast page load speeds helps your conversions. It’s simple, visitors hate to wait, and they won’t, they’ll go elsewhere to spend their money or learn about things.
parts of your site make molasses in January look like Usain Bolt, you’ve got a problem. Unless you’re giving away winning lotto tickets, visitors won’t stick around.
They’ll leave, and in a few seconds, be on your competitors site buying what you’re selling or forming a warm and fuzzy relationship with them. That stinks, so don’t let them go. No, don’t use those infernal systems that keep reopening a thousand new windows with your site in them. That’ll just piss them off, and pissed off consumers don’t buy, at least from you.
Just speed up your site. Here are a few ways to do that so your visitors stick around for a while:
Optimize Your Images. Make sure they’re no larger than they have to be. Even if the browser re-sizes them to ft on your page in your defined image area, that slows things down. Save them at the lowest resolution and quality settings possible without adversely affecting visible image quality. That’s important, because your site is your organization’s online face. You don’t want it to look like crap. If you’ve taken your images to the point they are no longer sharp and crystal clear, you’ve gone to far in your speed quest.
Install a Caching Plugin. That speeds page loads by only having the browser load what’s absolutely necessary. What happens is that the first time you visit a web page, it’s stored locally on your device. Only the changes are downloaded until the cache has expired. That speeds page loads considerably and saves valuable server resources, since many parts (or even all) of the page don’t need downloading. Your IT guys appreciate that too. Don’t let them say you never did anything for them.
Minimize Scripts and CSS Lightening the load goes a long way to chopping page load speeds. The less going on, and the smaller the files coming off the web server, the better. This is especially true in areas where the average Internet connection isn’t very robust.
Remember, just because you all have 50M/s Internet doesn’t mean your visitors do. Design for slow connections.
Look the Part
Look like a real company. Have all the obligatory pages i.e. About Us, Contact Us, Staff / Team, Investor Relations, etc. Make sure you have your address and phone number visible and your design looks professional. These days, what with the proliferation of easily customizable themes and content management systems such as WordPress, there’s really no excuse for anything else.
Return to Sender
If you’re selling hard goods, have a generous return policy and clearly state it before your visitors get to the shopping cart or order form. Reversing risk leads to greater sales. This is especially true online, where people can’t get all touchy-feely with their products before they buy.
On the Move
If you have a local business, strongly consider a mobile site. Just using a responsive version of your existing site doesn’t really do the trick on many occasions. Local businesses need to present different information, in a different format, over a crappy connection, for customers browsing on their phone or small tablet . Those visitors are probably out and about already. If you want them to stop by, make it easy (see above). That’s what a specialized mobile site does for you. Even better, they’re dirt cheap, all things considered.
In The End
They’ll be more on how to increase website conversion rates this later. After all, if your site doesn’t covert, no one gets paid.
For now, think about this:
Segment – Optimize content, social media, and landing pages for each segment. The more accurate targeting will boost conversion rates.
Test / Track / Refine – Incremental improvements can add up big time, and are often counter-intuitive. You’ll only discover the truth through testing.
Facilitate It – Make the entire sales or sign up process as easy as possible, an oft-neglected conversion aspect, but one that’s vital.
Speed Kills – In the best possible way, of course. Faster page loads make for happier visitors, much more inclined to buy. As an added bonus, faster load times have an SEO benefit too.
Pretty is As Pretty Does – Make your site look professional and trustworthy. Think of the alternative…
Reverse Consumer Risk – Not only give them a return policy, but clearly and prominently state it before they get to the order form.
Take it On The Road – Mobile optimized sites, not simply responsive copies of their “big” websites, are great conversion boosters for local businesses
These conversion rate increasers should give you something to chew on. Take a look at your site. Chances are you can see some changes that will improve conversions you can jump on right away.
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