It is the dream of any company to have high conversion rates. Unfortunately without the right strategy that is a far-fetched dream. A high conversion rate means getting customers faster and a lower customer acquisition cost.
Technology has changed many things, consumers are more aware and thus companies have to align accordingly to remain relevant in the market. This is one of the reasons why in the current age growth driven design is a must as you change based on the changing needs of consumers in the market.
What is a conversion rate?
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to a website or app who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.
Conversion rate optimization
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of increasing the number of users who perform a desired action on a website. The desired actions depend on what a website deals with but it mostly entails clicking the call to action (CTA). Desired action includes buying a product, clicking ‘add to cart’, booking a consultation, signing up for a service, filling out a form, or clicking on a link.
What does it mean to have high conversion rates?
When you have many website visitors but they are not taking any desired action, then it means that you have a low conversion rate. If they are not clicking the CTA button or not doing what is needed, then it means you have to work out some things to make sure that your visitors are converting. As a rule of thumb, if your conversion rate is 1% or lower, then you should be worried and figure out how you can move towards the right direction. A high conversion rate means your website visitors are taking the desired action. They are doing what they are supposed to.
There are many advantages that come with having high conversions. It means that you understand your customers and you are doing what resonates with them. When customers take the desired action it means you have hot leads with more qualified leads. It indicates that those who click the CTA have interest in the product and they just have to be nurtured. High conversion rates means a lower customer acquisition cost and increased revenue.
High conversion rates means you have a product-market fit. The foundation of all this is understanding customers. Many companies have a challenge understanding their buyer personas. This is where Sulma & Sulma comes in. They use data and insights to help you comprehensively understand customers. This will help you have the right product, align strategically according to the persona, and increase conversions.
How to calculate conversion rates
In calculating the conversion rates, you are looking for the percentage of visitors that take the desired action. This can be calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors and multiplying the result by 100.
Conversion rate=(Number of conversions/Total number of visitors)100
For example if your website had 20 sales and 400 visitors, the conversion rate will be 20/400 multiplied by 100, which will be equal to 5%.
Conversion rate = (20 /400)100 = 5%
Average conversion rate
Conversion rates vary by industry. As a rule of thumb, low value leads have less risks involved and thus are easier to convert as compared to high value leads. For instance, buying a jacket is easier than buying a car. The higher the price, the harder it is to convert.
B2B leads are harder to convert than B2C leads. This is because in B2B leads there are many elements involved in decision making as compared to B2C.
In most industries, the conversion rate is between 1 – 4%. There are several factors that affect the conversion rates such as the goal, the type of website, the customer segment, the product, etc. According to Popupsmart, the finance industry has an average conversion rate of 11.19%, while Ecommerce has 3.71%, B2B 4.31%, and legal 4.12%.
Regardless of the industry, the goal should be to have a high conversion rate and a low cost per conversion.
Strategies to maintain high conversion
Research shows that only 22% of companies are content with their conversion rates. That indicates that many companies are facing challenges with increasing their conversion rates. This all boils down to customers.
There are many factors that are debatable to increase conversion rates such as the CTA. It is, however, important to keep in mind that the best practices for a certain company may not necessarily work for you. As much as there are rules that work for all industries, the baseline of all that is customer understanding.
It is paramount for every company to have a customer-centric culture. This is whereby everything that is done best fits the interests of the customer. This is a trick used by companies with high conversions such as Amazon. They work backwards, where they start with the customers then slowly customise and build what the customer wants. Understanding their pain points and the jobs they are hiring the product to do is everything. Knowing their desired outcome will help you know how to communicate or adjust your offering to resonate with them. A winning approach is investing in learning and understanding your users then applying the insight to build an optimization strategy that continuously improves your business.
Customer understanding all starts with an accurate buyer persona. You can only develop a precise buyer persona by researching your best customers and interviewing them. Sulma & Sulma are experts when it comes to buyer personas using data and insights. With the right personas you will know how to align strategically in the market and deliver what they expect. This will help you increase your conversions.
Growth Driven Design
This is an effective and productive method used to design a website. It is where a website is designed with the primary interest of the buyer. Iterations are done from time to time according to the changing needs of the buyer. Growth driven design is all about researching and testing to find out what works. Unlike the traditional style where a website design was a one time job, growth driven design is a continuous process based on the changing interests.
This is an effective strategy used to increase conversions as it ensures a website is relevant to users, and they can easily find what they are looking for.
Stages involved in increasing conversions
It is good to keep in mind that conversion is not a 1-0 game, it has stages involved. It is all about understanding customers, the different stages they are at, and what triggers them to take action.
The main stages involved in increasing conversions include:
- Attract new users
This starts with defining buyer personas so that you may know who to target. Defining buyer personas and their value chains is important. You can know what point of their journey they are, and at what stage do they find value in your product and take action. Knowing your buyer personas will help you know where you can find them. - Convince people to test your solution
To convince people to test your solution, you have to offer a unique value proposition(UVP). Once you understand the “job” the product does for them, then it is easy to make them test your solution. - Onboarding
You have to make it easy for customers to onboard themselves so that when they agree to test your solution they can get started. - Engagement
When they are testing your solution you have to keep them engaged to ensure they are using the product in the right way. Through keeping your hands on it, you can know if they have found the sweet spot of your product and if not what not. This can give you pointers on how to iterate the product to meet the needs of your customers. Sulma & Sulma has a product-market fit engine that makes all that a bliss. It helps you to know who are your true lovers, who are not, and how you can convert those that are not to be advocates of your product. - Customer satisfaction
Once they test your product and you get feedback, you can make iterations based on user preferences to increase conversions. Once you do that, then test users will be advocates of your brand.
How to understand customers
Any form of business cannot do away with understanding customers. Customers are king and they are the main reason the business is in operation. It is only through understanding customers that you will be able to achieve a product-market fit.
There are both quantitative and qualitative methods used to understand customers. You need to understand what users feel about your website, how users use your website, what users feel about your product/service, etc.
We live in an era where data is everything. The data will then be used to depict certain trends and know what works and what does not. This can trigger decision making and help increase the rate of conversions. Luckily, there is a growth in the number of AI tools that can help with collecting and analysing data.
CRO tools
As mentioned earlier, you need both quantitative and qualitative data to understand buyer behaviour.
1.Quantitative data is numerical information to track the activities going on in your website. Quantitative data can be derived from:
- Analytical tools such as Google Analytics
- Funnel tools to track when a visitor leaves a sales funnel
- Form analysis tool to track form submissions
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) tools to track customer satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10
- Net Promoter System tools to measure the likelihood of people recommending your website/product to someone else on a scale from 0 to 10
2. Qualitative tools measure the behaviour of customers and uncover why things happen
They mainly measure behavioural aspects, meaning non-numerical data to know why users behave the way they do.
They include:
- Website feedback tools to ask visitors about their experience. This can be in the form of on-page or external link surveys.
- Website session recording/replay tools to show you how individual users navigate through your website.
- Usability testing tools where leads or customers can give feedback on your website
- Online reviews where you can read more about people’s experience of your brand and product
- One on one interviews will also work well as they will give you direct feedback on why they do what they do.
3. Tools that test any changes and measure improvements
With qualitative and quantitative data, you will know the situation on your website.
You will need to test changes and track the performance. You will need to test and measure any changes you make. With testing and measuring tools, you will know what direction to take to optimise conversion efforts.
They include:
- A/B testing tools. They help you to test different variations to find the best one and apply it.
- Website heat map + session recording tools: They allow you to test different behaviour with the different variations you are testing.
- Conversion-tracking analytics tools: They track and monitor conversions
- Website feedback tools (like visual feedback widgets or NPS dashboards). They help you collect qualitative feedback and quantify it to easily make judgement of what you are testing.
Even though there are plenty of tools available, there are those that are commonly used that can help you increase your conversions. They include:
Google Analytics: This free tool allows you to track key metrics, such as the number of visitors to your website, the average time they spend on the site, and the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form.
Crazy Egg: This tool provides heat maps and other visualisations that show how users interact with your website. This can help you identify areas of your site that are driving conversions, as well as areas that may be hindering conversions.
Optimizely: This tool allows you to run experiments on your website to test different versions of elements, such as headlines, images, and call-to-actions, to see which ones are most effective at driving conversions.
Hotjar: This tool provides heat maps, recordings of user sessions, and other insights that show how users are interacting with your website. This can help you identify any issues that may be hindering conversions and suggest solutions to improve them.
Google Optimise: This free tool integrates with Google Analytics and allows you to run experiments on your website to test different versions of elements, such as headlines and call-to-actions, to see which ones are most effective at driving conversions.
By using these tools, you can gain valuable insights into how users are interacting with your website and identify ways to improve your conversion rates.
Conclusion
To achieve high conversion rates, you have to be intentional about your moves. As mentioned earlier it is all about the customers and thus you have to understand them to deliver what they need.
Some of the proven ways you can use to optimise conversion include:
Optimise the user experience: Making the website or app easy to navigate and use can help improve conversion rates by reducing friction and making it more likely that visitors will take the desired action.
Offer clear value propositions: Clearly communicating the benefits of your product or service can help convince visitors to take the desired action.
Test different versions of your website or app: A/B testing can help you identify which versions of your website or app are most effective at converting visitors.
Use persuasive design: Applying principles of persuasion, such as social proof and scarcity, can help convince visitors to take the desired action.
Provide excellent customer service: Providing high-quality customer support can help build trust and increase the likelihood that visitors will take the desired action.
As we all know now it is all about testing what works. You should be flexible to change whatever is not working out. As mentioned earlier, Sulma & Sulma is your go-to solution when it comes to understanding customers and increasing your conversion rates. It does all this through data and insights to ensure you implement what works and achieve your goals.
