You’ve got a well-functioning modern website. It’s optimised for desktop and mobile. You’ve incorporated the best elements of eCommerce web design into the site, and you also have an eCommerce marketing strategy in place. As a result, your website is getting plenty of traffic and clicks. But your sales are stuck. What gives?
It can be incredibly frustrating as a marketing manager or business owner to put in all of the steps required to attract prospects to your website, only to see them leave without actually becoming customers. Luckily, there are proven ways to increase the rate of conversion of these browsers into customers.
Let’s look at how.
The Customer Experience
The first way to convert more of your browsers into leads is to experience your website as someone who is discovering it for the first time. Unfortunately, since you are the website owner and deeply involved in the business, you are already too familiar with the site and business offering to be objective. But a new employee, friend, or family member can be enlisted to help. What you want to be able to do is to sit alongside them as they navigate the website. Give them a scenario to work with that fits what you imagine your ideal customer or client to be.
Then observe which pages they click to, what content they hover over and read, and finally, how easily they can find a way to contact you. Large corporations do this sort of thing endlessly with focus groups, but smaller Australian businesses can benefit from the same basic strategy to understand how their online storefront (their website) is being navigated.
Make it Simple
The next proven eCommerce strategy that builds the conversion rates of browsers is to put the browser as close as possible to the point at which they think “yes, I want that” before you ask them for personal information or payment details. On a psychological level, this means that ideally, you want customers to be able to experience the benefits of what you are offering before they have to purchase.
So, if you are offering software that will automate business processes and save hours per week, then a live demonstration of that software with a narration of its benefits over the top and in the text on the same page is a powerful motivator. The “ask” of personal details should be as close to the end of the video as possible or embedded within it as a clickable link. An automatic redirect to the “purchase” or “enter details” section of the website is also a proven strategy – if someone has watched a video like this to the end, it’s likely that they are very interested.
Youtube uses the same tactic to increase the time that users spend on the site by automatically suggesting new videos and auto-playing them as the previous one ends.
Fear of Loss
As humans, we are naturally conditioned to be wary and fear loss. This trait is called “loss aversion” and suggests that we feel the pain of loss twice as intensely as we experience pleasure. In an online environment, this sense is heightened, especially when we are interacting with a new business or website for the first time.
Luckily, there are ethical, proven ways to reduce the fear of loss. The logos of businesses that you have worked with previously are a simple visual cue that allows your business to be associated with other businesses that your customer might already be familiar with and trust. Prominently displaying the encryption score of your checkout process (for an eCommerce website) or any safety benefits of your products is also effective. Independent reviews of your product by certification organisations or their compliance with regulatory standards is also beneficial and is used as a marketing focus of many successful hugely successful products.
Time-Based Prompts
Fear of loss is a powerful negative motivation. A powerful positive motivation for potential browsers to convert to customers is the desire not to miss out on a benefit. Retailers have been aware of this for decades, with “limited time offers” designed to play on this desire.
The same methods can be used effectively online to increase conversion rates of browsers who are already on your site by making it beneficial for them to take action now, rather than later. A time-based incentive has been found to be very effective. For example, a banner or popup prompt on the purchase/enter payment details screen could say something like “For the month of May new customers get complimentary access to…/get a free…” at no extra cost. Other ways to incorporate time-limited prompts can centre around the new year, new financial year, first of the month, or a change of season.
Customer Success Stories
Quotes, long-form case studies, video interviews, and even animations depicting customer experiences with your product all serve to increase trust and familiarity with your product or service. Getting the data for these stories is often the hardest part, and may require you introducing a step in your after-sales process to collect and collate feedback from satisfied customers so that you can use it in the future. An automated survey can be effective, but a phone call or personalised email is often more effective to build a connection with the person and get the insight you are after.
To find out what specific eCommerce marketing strategies can help your business turn more of your hard-won browsers into valued customers, the help of an experienced, professional marketing consultant can be invaluable. Swoop Digital has been a leading agency in the field of Australian digital marketing and has the experience to get you the actionable insights you need to solve your online marketing problems. For an obligation-free discussion about the needs of your organisation, we invite you to get in contact today.