Generating leads is hard. You’ve got to target the right customer at the right time and hope that luck is on your side – but that’s not the end of the journey. You’ve simply piqued their interest. Now it’s time to transform them into paying customers that will make repeat purchases.
Converting customers is probably the most challenging job in business. Lots of companies have a conversion rate of 3% or under, which is worrying. Thankfully, you don’t need to get to that point if you follow these four steps that are proven to be effective.
Plan Your Moves
As simple as it sounds, using a planner will help you to identify the areas that need addressing the most. Sometimes, getting started can seem daunting, adding pressure to the process. A planner breaks the journey into bite-size chunks for you to analyze individually.
Examples include conducting a site audit, identifying areas to improve your conversion funnel, and trying to understand how users on your site are welcomed. A straightforward A/B test may reveal issues you didn’t know existed, too. Breaking down the process is always a healthy move, since it unearths features you can easily ignore otherwise.
Shorten Registrations
Modern consumers hate to waste time unnecessarily. To you, collecting as much data as possible is important. To them, it’s boring and gets in the way of the goal – purchasing a service or product. Shortening your registration forms will prevent shoppers from getting annoyed at the time it takes them to check out.
The trick is to cut the indulgent stuff. Do you need a physical address when they’ll enter it as part of the delivery process anyway? Why bother with a landline phone number if they have provided a mobile number or email address? Stick to the basics and you’ll find that fewer people abandon their carts at the final hurdle.
Don’t Forget the Old Ways
The emphasis is on online conversions because eCommerce is a major part of selling. However, you won’t always try and convert customers remotely. Sometimes, you’ll need to do it face to face, and if you don’t know-how, your rates will never improve.
There is an art to in-person selling, and it starts with a perfectly crafted sales pitch that touches on the gaps that your service will fill. Plus, you can combine a pitch with extras, such as a business card to ensure they remember the brand name and the company’s contact details. Neglecting this part of the conversion journey is a mistake too many modern businesses make, unfortunately, and it shows in their rates.
Interact in Real-Time
Imagine you have a problem that needs fixing, but you have to wait on hold to speak with an advisor. Or, picture having to wait for an email reply. It’s too much hassle for consumers, and they rightly resort to different operators.
Conversing in real-time puts out this particular fire. A live chat function on your website connects shoppers with agents who can provide advice. As long as the fix is suitable, people are more likely to finish the process than start it again elsewhere. Another effective strategy is to develop an extensive FAQs page.
Include user testimonials
User testimonials are the necessary piece of social proof your website needs to convince your prospective buyers that what you’re selling is good. It’s one thing for the seller to claim something and list out all the benefits of their products or services, but if others can attest to that, it serves as a powerful tool that validates these claims.
The fact of the matter is, people look to others even when deciding trivial matters like what to wear or how to style their hair (at least if you ask the male audience). Why wouldn’t they be even more vigilant when making an important buying decision? Social proof not only reassures them they’re not going to regret their purchase, but also sheds more light on what kind of issues the customers were facing before the purchase and how the product helped to resolve them.
Add a CTA
Adding a call to action (or CTA for short) is what gives your customers a slight and non-invasive push in the direction you’d like them to be heading (which is completing the order process). Instead of simply slapping “Proceed to checkout” or something similar on the order button, why not try any of the following:
– “Grab your free report here” (if it applies)
– “Start your free trial now” (if it applies)
– “Yes, I want my [product name]!”
– etc.
Once again, the key lies in split testing. Depending on your audience (and other factors such as the design of your website), maybe one will work better than the others and maybe some won’t work at all. So instead of deciding things in advance, it’s healthy to adopt the mentality of testing and letting the facts lead you. In the end, you may very well find that changing the color of the order button to something brighter and more saturated is the secret sauce you’ve been looking for all along.
Conclusion
Boosting your customer retention rates is tough, but it’s certainly not impossible – and by following the tips and strategies outlined above, you can achieve it with the minimum of fuss.
