No business can ever convert all of its leads all of the time.
Take e-commerce, for example. With new technologies and platforms emerging every day, the environment has become so dynamic that there is bound to be a cheaper product somewhere, a bigger competitor, or a louder promotion.
So what can a retailer do to protect its market share? This article will show you how to sell better and faster, by building a leak-proof conversion funnel.
Leaks? What Conversion Leaks?
Every website has its weak spots, but where to start? Begin the fix-it exercise by tracking down exactly where those leaks occur in your conversion process.
Here are four steps to diagnosing the problem:
- Track your users
As a first step, collect data and start tracking how your audience behaves when they are on your website. Use your go-to analytics tool or if you’re new to the analytics game, find some freeware to try out while you learn the ropes. Our team likes Google Analytics for this because it takes care of the fundamentals and then some, plus it’s completely free.
- Create your first funnel
Now that you’ve got your basic audience information, here is the fun part: setting up your own sales funnel!
Using the data you collected in Step #1, put your funnel in place. In a previous blog post, we broke down the funnel mapping process into three elements:
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- Select the right audience
- Map out the buying process
- Attract qualified leads
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Let the lessons from this initial exercise guide the subsequent decisions you make with the rest of your website.
- Visualise your funnel
Once you’ve created your funnel, you’ll have a nice flow of data coming through, to give you additional insights. Are you able to connect the dots and find patterns? From there, use your preferred tool for visualisation, to see if any trends start to emerge.
Yet another reason we love Google Analytics: It has built-in features designed specifically for this purpose, which allow you to have a clear view of your sales funnel and ferret out any weak spots to fix.
- Spot the leaks
Best practices dictate that you kick off with the low-hanging fruit – that is, your website pages with the lowest conversion rate. Plug every hole you can find, no matter how small, to see some quick improvements in your numbers.
From there, plan to tackle the rest of your site, based on increasing level of difficulty. Leave your best-converting pages for last, because these can be the most challenging ones to optimise.
Conversion Optimisation Toolbox
With a better handle of what really ails your sales funnel, you can now optimise those problem areas and start to boost your conversion rate.
Content analysis
There is more to your content than what is written on your website pages. Take a close look at your page descriptions, headings, calls to action, and even the layout and visual aspects of your text. Are you enticing readers to stay on the page or are you driving them off? In other words, did you optimise your website content for conversion?
- A/B testing. What is the best path for converting your ideal leads? The only way to find out is by testing one variant of your advertising material against another, from entire webpages to specific ads. Select the one that performs better and keep tweaking to make it even more effective. Constant improvement is the key.
- Website personalisation. No two leads are the same. They might be alike in some ways, but there is no cookie-cutter strategy that will work for everyone.
Presenting a personalised customer experience is a fantastic way to reduce your bounce rate but first, you need to be aware of their preferences and interests. Try using the direct approach: Use surveys or feedback forms and ask what you want to know. Based on your results, try to tailor-fit your messages to better resonate with individual customers.
Reporting
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Reporting tools let you do that just.
Map out and create a model of your entire funnel, from the traffic sources and customer touch points to your landing pages and conversion goal posts, so you can:
- Easily add or remove components from your sales funnels
- Store all marketing-related data in the cloud
- Organise your findings into a systematic and presentable form
- Share key insights and better collaborate with your team
Technical analysis
So you’ve fixed your funnel as much as you can but still, you seem to be losing a fair amount of leads. There might be an issue with your on-page optimisation.
Close the loop by checking these off your to-do list:
- Mobile optimisation. Make sure your website performs consistently across different types of gadget, screen sizes, and input devices.
- Cross-browser testing. Equally important, does your website work the same across major browsers? Find ways to become more responsive, so that your viewers enjoy a seamless experience, regardless of the type of browser they use.
- Page speed optimisation. You may write the most engaging content and offer the best product, but if your website loads even one second more than a typical user will allow, you’ve already lost a sale.
While no business can ever convert 100 percent of its leads, you can pinpoint where exactly they tend to drop off. Digital Excellence has worked with some of the biggest online retailers set up conversion funnels that outperform the competition, helping drive leads straight to that final sale. Let’s have a chat about how we can do the same for your e-commerce site.