One of the big hangups with blogging, social media and other branding efforts, especially content marketing, is how to get people to convert to customers.
This has always been a struggle no matter the channel because people are only in buying mode about 3% of the time.
If you focus entirely on that 3% of the time, you’re going to have higher conversion rates than if you focus even a little bit on the other 97% of the time.
When you’re walking down the sidewalk looking at the world around you, you’re probably not in the mood to shop for washing machines.
When you’re read a novel, you’re probably not thinking about researching what type of car to purchase.
When you’re watching a movie, you’re probably not wondering what pitching wedge you might want for the golf course in a few weeks.
It’s good to maximize your efforts to focus on marketing that leads to direct sales. That 3% buying mode is a very important 3%. When people are ready to buy or even ready to research and examine, you want to be in front of them.
But just because someone isn’t in buying mode doesn’t mean you can’t be working to earn their attention, interest and trust. It’s why so many companies focus on branding and early funnel or top funnel marketing. They know that just because someone isn’t in buying mode right now that they won’t be in the future. And these companies want to make sure that when the person gets to buying mode that they’re thinking about their brand.
With all that in mind, here are a few tips for getting website visitors to become customers. Maybe not immediately, but for the long-term.
1. Better Brand Connection
If you’re invested in content marketing, such as blogging, you’re probably getting visitors that started on Google looking for an answer to a question. They see a result for their search and it’s your blog post. They visit, they read it, they get what they want and they leave.
That’s a win. You’ve helped. They’ve gotten what they wanted, but now they’re ready to move on.
The one thing you want to do if you can is to make sure they remember the source of the information. Your brand. A logo. A name. Something that might burrow into their brain that might be remembered later when they’re in buying mode.
Make your logo a little more prominent. Get a tagline that really gets to the heart of what you do…quickly. This might mean getting rid of a lot of “stuff” on your blog or website. Too much stuff leads to confusion and can overwhelm your brand.
I love golf. Most golf tournaments on television have too many commercials. I get it, but I don’t remember any of them. The Masters usually has 1-3 sponsors. AT&T and IBM have been two recently. They’re easy to remember because the logos are prominent and don’t compete with anything.
2. Next Step Attention
Too many websites with top funnel content get too eager, too early.
Most marriages, for example, don’t begin with the question “Will you marry me?” as the second phase of the relationship. There is usually a few more dates in between. Sure, there are exceptions, but it seems to be far from the norm.
But…there are next steps in relationships. The key for you is to figure out what the next step is for your visitor.
If you’re blogging, it might be getting them to read more posts. Or having them subscribe for more posts. Or offering them some kind of content download. Or perhaps it’s linking them to your about page where they can learn about your brand and the source of the content they just enjoyed.
Leading people down the sales funnel you already know you have is a great way to keep them engaged and over the long term it leads to more sales.
3. More Quantity
Lots of people that dip their toe into content marketing overlook the quantity involved. For one, it takes a fair amount of quantity to learn what makes for a great post. And even then nobody really can predict what post will hit with readers. You have to play the numbers game.
Tom Hanks has been in nearly 100 movies. We could probably name…10? Maybe 20? Of those, maybe a majority of people would say that 5 are great? And it’s really subjective. Great to one person may be just okay to another.
Dolly Parton once said that she had written 5,000 songs in order to get 5 hits.
You need quantity to get hit content.
And you also need quantity to continue to earn the attention of people. Again, if you want to keep someone’s attention on your site you need to provide them with something else to consume.
I remember hearing Jon Taffer talk about restaurant marketing. He said that the likelihood of a customer becoming a “regular” goes up exponentially if you can get them to come back a second and third time. I find the same is true with your website. If you get someone to read three blog posts, odds are pretty good that they’ll look at what you’re selling.
4. Better Sales Pages
Another issue could be your sales pages. You might have people visiting these, but not converting. This is a big issue.
I think a major reason for this is that people don’t like writing sales copy. They know so much about their own business and products that they often make things too complex and over the heads of their prospects that nobody converts.
Your website is your online salesperson. Prospects basically follow the same path to a sale that they would in person or on the phone. So take them through that process with your sales pages.
5. Simple Errors
Sometimes conversion issues could be simple. Something as simple as an error in the contact form. Or a missing image or image that has broken.
Set regular times every month or every couple months to test the site. A website is a living thing. It should always be changing a little bit consistently over time. You want to always look for little things to improve and little things that will break along the way.
Regularly have regular prospects test the site to make sure the ability to contact you is working.
Conclusion
This is a really tricky thing. If you want to increase your conversion rate you can do it quickly by cutting out all efforts to attract most people most of the time. Focus only on sales-minded people. But obviously that will cut into your traffic by quite a bit. It’s good to focus on those visitors, but you want to bring in others as well. Just make sure you understand what they want and what might take them to the next step. Doing so will improve your overall sales. It might be tricky to track, but companies have been doing it for decades across many marketing channels.