Let’s be honest:
There’s no online business that isn’t looking to drive up its conversions. In fact, for most online businesses, conversions are one of the most important metrics measuring the brand’s success.
So, how do you go about improving conversions?
In this article, we explore 8 simple tips for increasing conversions for your online business. So get reading, and make sure to include these steps in your marketing strategy today.
8 SIMPLE TIPS FOR BOOSTING YOUR CONVERSIONS
1. PROVIDE VALUE
There’s a simple reason we’re leading with this point:
Because it’s one of the most important.
Before you do anything else, make sure you provide value to your customers. Value should be spread all throughout your sales funnel.
From the first contact you make via social media, email, or a blog article, to the moment your customers are about to hand over their payment details, there needs to be consistent value for them.
Regardless of how you market your business, remember to constantly ask yourself this one question: What value do I provide my clients? No matter how simple this question seems, you’d be surprised just how many marketers are stumped by it.
To help you better understand the value of your brand and its products/services, step back and ask yourself these questions:
- What problems do my target customers face?
- How do my products/services help my customers deal with these problems?
- Do my products/services provide something positive or remove something negative in the life of my customers?
Once you understand how you provide value to your customers, make sure they understand it too. Any part of your business that showcases your products and services should make it crystal clear what benefits they provide.
Forget about listing features or using convoluted jargon to sell your products. Instead, get straight to the point by saying things like:
“Do you struggle to make great music recording at home? Sign up to my mailing list and get free step-by-step instructions to producing great music at home.”
“Want to learn how to get in shape fast? Click here for a simple 15 minute daily workout routine that’ll help you shed fat and tone up in just 3 weeks.”
Some simple ways to provide value to your customers include:
- Becoming an authority: By being an expert in your field, you provide your customers with a huge sense of security that they can trust what you’re saying.
- Understand your customers: Make sure your customers know that you understand their position. Only then will they trust that you know how to provide them with value.
- Get feedback: Ask your customers to review your website, buying experience, content, etc. Use that feedback to tailor your products, services, and experience to them.
2. BE HONEST
Honesty is key to building trust (which we’ll talk about in more detail later). Your relationship with your customers is exactly that, a relationship. And behind any great relationship is trust.
Think about it:
You wouldn’t date someone who isn’t transparent about who they are, where they come from, or what they do for a living, right?
Similarly, your customers won’t be dishing out their hard-earned cash to a company or brand they don’t consider honest or trustworthy. Hence, honesty should be one of your top priorities.
There’s never a good reason to be misleading or promise something you can’t deliver.
This goes for everything from the prices you advertise to the delivery time you promise. Don’t boast about 24-hour delivery when you know it’ll take 48 hours, and don’t advertise prices on Facebook that are nowhere to be found on your actual store.
Trust us, you’ll never be sorry for being honest to a customer.
But any kind of falsehood will eventually find its way around, damaging your brand integrity and your customer relationships.
3. BE FLEXIBLE
When thinking about ways to improve your conversions, remember to keep this in mind; not all your customers are ready to buy right now.
This is simply a fact you’ll have to come to terms with, no matter how much you’d like to see everyone click the checkout button within minutes of browsing your page.
Just like in a regular brick and mortar store, your online business will have customers at all different stages of the buying cycle.
There’ll be those who are just browsing, those who aren’t even aware of your brand or niche, and those who are about to make up their mind, but in no hurry to do so.
The key to reeling in these kinds of customers is to take your foot off the gas pedal a little.
Think of it like this:
You walk into a computer store to browse new laptops. Your old computer is still in working order, but you’re interested in upgrading and want to see what options are out there.
You get approached by a salesman, tell him your situation, and he starts showing you some options, constantly harassing you that “if you buy it today” you’ll get some kind of bonus.
How would you respond?
Chances are, you’d feel pressured into a sale and leave the store within a few minutes. That’s because, in this scenario, you’re simply not ready to make a purchase today. Granted, sales techniques that create urgency can work. But not on all customers.
Hence, when thinking of ways to boost your conversions, don’t try to rush all of your customers to the checkout.
Instead, distinguish between your customers, analyse which stage of the buying cycle they’re in, and tailor your approach accordingly.
Try to find other ways to connect with those that are “just browsing” and continue building a relationship with them. You can do this by amending your sales message and tactics.
Consider leading them to your blog, connecting with them on socials, or even getting their email address. Meanwhile, try some more “urgent” tactics on those that seem ready to make a purchase.
Regardless of your niche or your target audience, you’ll always have to deal with customers in different parts of the sales cycle.
4. TEST YOUR IDEAS
A/B testing is the backbone of any successful conversion strategy.
If you’re not A/B testing your sales material, you’re simply taking wild stabs in the dark at a moving target. After all, how can you be sure your latest landing page design is going to be successful if you haven’t even tested it and compared it to some other options?
Only by experimenting can you minimize the risk involved with making key decisions about various aspects of your online presence.
Hence, we suggest you A/B test EVERYTHING.
From Facebook ads, website copy, and emails to entire web pages, make sure you run consistent A/B tests to find new and improved ways to drive sales.
For those of you who’re reading this and have no idea what A/B testing is or how it works, don’t fret. A/B testing simply involves creating two (or more) versions of something, splitting traffic between the two, and analysing which produces the better results.
When testing landing pages, for example, you’ll want to analyse the sales resulting from both versions and, after running the test for a while, go with the one that performs the best.
With emails, on the other hand, you’ll want to look at other metrics like open rates, click-through rates, or something similar.
Remember, you can A/B test almost anything online, and we recommend you do.
5. SET UP A SALES FUNNEL
Remember how we mentioned that customers can be in different parts of the sales cycle? Well, here’s a way to deal with that. Sales funnels are a great way to work those customers that are “just browsing” and bring them ever closer to spending money on your products and services.
As the name suggests, sales funnels work by gradually “funneling” potential customers and turning them into actual buyers.
A successful sales funnel will work in the following order:
- Building awareness: First, you’ll want to attract people to your niche.
- Build interest: Next, you’ll want to get people interested in your brand and products/services.
- Sell: Finally, you’ll want to convert readers/followers into customers.
Let’s imagine you’re a freelance writer offering an online copywriting course for others in your industry.
Here’s how your sales funnel might look:
- Build awareness: Offer valuable information about copywriting, free tips on becoming a better writer, etc. Begin positioning yourself as an expert in this field.
- Build interest: Offer a free trial course by signing up to your email. Upon signup, give your readers a drip campaign where you drop them a section of the course over a week, for example.
- Sell: After completing the course, link to your full course sales page as the next logical step for up-and-coming writers to hone their skills.
Remember, the longer and deeper your relationship with a potential client, the more chances you have of making a sale.
6. BUILD TRUST
This is closely related to the second point on this list.
But unlike honesty, trust is something that takes a lot of time and hard work to create. And, most importantly, it’s a huge influencer on a sale. Don’t see how? Here’s an example:
Imagine you’re drinking a coffee outside a cafe and someone approaches you, offering to sell you their car for only $1,000. You look at the car and it’s almost new and in great condition. Would you reach for your wallet and make the deal? Probably not.
Why? Because you don’t trust the seller.
One great thing about trust, however, is that you can create it. Unlike some other factors that might hinder you from making a sale, trust is something you can start working on almost immediately. So, how do you build trust among your customers?
Well, there are many different ways.
First of all, make sure all the info on your website is verifiable. You can do this by offering support via live chat, phone, or email. You can also help support certain facts by referencing other respected authorities via links and citations, or by sharing testimonials.
Next, you’ll want to make sure you show that there’s a legitimate business behind your site. The easiest way to do so is to put down a physical address and phone number people can reach you at.
Team pages are also a great way to put some faces behind your business and help build trust. Finally, make sure to highlight your expertise in your given field.
You can do this by publishing great content about your industry, sharing your qualifications/experience, or highlighting team members with specialist experience.
Remember, building trust among your audience is a long process, and there are many ways to do so.
Here are some other ways you can build trust among your customers:
- Share testimonials
- Use great design to convey that your brand is professional and trustworthy
- Make sure your site is user friendly
- Share useful, valuable content
- Update your site regularly
7. MAKE BUYING EASY
Remember, people can be hesitant to do business, especially online.
Therefore, make sure that buying or doing business with you is as simple and hassle-free as possible.
Here are some simple ways to do that:
- Guide your customers through the buying process: Make sure you always point your customers to the action you want them to take.
- Don’t spoil people for choice: The more choices, the easier it is to choose nothing. If you offer a wide variety of products, make sure you have plenty of filters to help customers hone in on something quickly.
- Have as few required fields in your form as possible: Forcing people to give you something is never a good move.
- Offer free shipping: Not having to worry about shipping makes buying something much, much simpler.
8. STALK YOUR COMPETITION
You’re not the only person/company offering your range of products/services.
In fact, there are probably many more entrepreneurs/companies out there offering the same thing as you than you’re aware of (or willing to admit).
That’s because the internet makes buying and selling extremely easy. Hence, the online world has become extremely competitive. And, while competition can be difficult to deal with, it also has a lot of benefits.
As a business owner, competition is a great motivator to help you look for new, improved ways to run your business. All you need to do is observe your competitors.
As a new business, you should have already taken tabs on your biggest competitors. As an established business, you should continue looking to those competitors on a regular basis.
Make sure you analyze your competition regularly and look for things they’re doing right, as well as things they’re doing wrong (or not doing at all).
DRIVE UP YOUR CONVERSIONS TODAY
So, there you have it. 8 simple tips designed to help boost your conversions today.
Remember, this list is by no means all-encompassing. There are countless different tactics for boosting conversions, and every brand/company has their own approach.
These are just some of our favorites.
