Improving Customer Conversion Rates

I’m just out of a very useful Tutors’ webinar with Cambridge Marketing College and we were discussing the upcoming Digital Strategy assignments that our students will be tackling.

A question that resonated with each of the Tutors was around the subject of Conversion. We debated at length what the term Conversion really means and it had me thinking about the importance of being crystal clear about what you mean by a conversion and then why you would want to make it a daily mantra in your marketing and communications.

For most people working in business, a conversion is the moment that a potential customer, or lead, turns into a real customer by parting with their cash, committing to the contract or some other vital measure of their acceptance of the terms of your offer. However, think more strategically and a conversion could apply at every level of your customers’ journey, from their first engagement as they become initially aware of your brand, your products and services, through every step towards the big commitment of becoming a fully-fledged customer.

In fact, it could also apply after the traditional conversion point and deep into the long process of customer retention, as you keep them sweet and engaged with your ongoing marketing communications, encouraging them to repeat purchase and advocate what you do.

So let’s think about this further and see if it would be appropriate to consider conversion at each and every step of your customers’ experience. It probably would, because by caring at this granular level, you will identify specific bottlenecks that you can open up by careful improvements in your marketing channels. For example a little tweak to the position of a ‘call to action’ button might open up the flow of click-throughs to the next step in the journey. Perhaps some tuning to the words and tone of voice in social media posts may increase engagement and throughput to a website from where the customer can more deeply engage with you.

Each and every step is critical in the customers’ experience, so if you were to consider each as a conversion point to the next step in the process, then you may find that your continuous sensing and resulting continuous improvement, greatly improves your conversion optimisation.

So today, think about how you are defining conversion and then delve deeply into each step of your customers’ journey and by considering each step a potential conversion point, figure out how you can increase the flow of customers through each point.

If you need any help with this vital process, do get in touch.