Starting With the End in Mind: Is Your Website Converting Customers?

Digital marketing in today’s world can prove to be challenging, and at times, painfully frustrating. From new trends that are born daily to algorithm changes that threaten “mobilegeddon,” staying on top of all of the moving pieces and best practices in digital marketing is a problem that most business owners and marketers constantly face when planning their digital strategy.

In digital marketing, as well as with traditional marketing, the focus is on strategy, creative and the execution of the campaign. These are all critically important elements to any successful marketing campaign. But what tends to get little attention is the actual desired result. The outcome – marketers call it “the conversion point” – should influence every factor of the strategy. In the wise words of Yogi Berra: “You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” Starting with the end in mind simply means identifying the results you expect the campaign to deliver then making a plan to do just that.

This is where your website comes into play.

Since most advertising campaigns drive traffic online (even offline marketing) a good quality, converting website, (or lack of) can make or break an overall marketing strategy.  An offline example can look like the following:

A newspaper ad runs on Sunday for Kyle’s Extreme Sports and Outdoors. A consumer sees the ad and is interested in the Orbea Alma mountain bike in said ad. Later that day, the consumer goes to www.kylesextremesports.com to look for that specific bike and find pricing information. OR, the consumer could have gone to Google and searched for Kyle’s Extreme Sports. OR they could have searched for mountain bikes… but that is another article for another day. For this example we are going to say this ad drove direct traffic to Kyle’s website.

When you place the right marketing message in front of an interested audience, further information can be, and usually is, sought online. In this example, if Kyle’s Extreme Sports and Outdoors does not provide pricing, additional information and photos, along with a specific call to action about how to take the next step, the user might bounce off the site and turn to a search engines to look for “Orbea Alma mountain bikes.” Thus, potentially teeing up a hot lead for Kyle’s competition.

The conversion rate is influenced by the advertiser, or more specifically, the advertisers’ website. Like previously stated, a conversion happens when someone clicks on an ad and then takes an action defined as valuable to the business.

So, what factors positively influence a conversion?

1.    Call to action (CTA). Having a strong CTA button or field, highly visible on the landing page, is important in driving a strong conversion. Preferably above the fold to the right of the page. Consumers appreciate a quick, clearly defined path to take action.

2.    Simplicity. It is unnecessary to over-complicate the process of how to engage with a business online. If form fields are present, they should be short and sweet. The user should be able to take some form of action on the page that they land on.

3.    Unique selling proposition (USP). It is important for a business to communicate why consumers should do business with them. This should be done in a short and concise manner and in consideration of what is important to the consumer.

4.    A Logical path. A defined web strategy should be built around the desired action of the user. Businesses should think about this process all the way through so that they can discover potential road blocks. The user may click on several different pages before taking action. Is the path back to conversion a logical one? Can the user easily get to a conversion point from any page that they are on? Many times this step is overlooked.

5.    Enough Information. When determining the conversion point, some consideration should be given to the amount of information that is needed to complete the conversion. What questions might the consumer have before purchasing, calling, downloading or registering?

All of these factors can help ease the path to conversion. There are several aspects that can attribute to the success of a digital marketing campaign, and often times the most overlooked one is the conversion point of a website. If you start with the end in mind and build your strategy around the conversion, a better result can be achieved.

Want to learn more helpful tips about your website’s role in the path to conversion?  Watch my webinar.