You’ve built up a good customer base, and you’re getting plenty of visitors through the virtual door of your business’ website and social media platforms: but you’re not seeing the conversion rates you’d like.
Use the tips below to improve your conversion figures and keep up an effective dialogue with your current clients and your potential new clients, too.
Check Your Website’s Load Time
This simple little hack could make a big difference to your conversion rates. Gone are the days when we were all quite happy to wait, make a cup of tea, and wait some more for a dial-up connection to load. Approximately 40% of users now are likely to click away from a screen if it takes, on average, more than three seconds to load.
This means that even existing customers aren’t likely to hang around if your website load time is longer than this, which could be having a huge effect on your conversion stats. Luckily, this one’s an easy solve.
Check your site’s load time on several devices; if it’s dragging its heels, then start by optimizing the size of the images that are featured to make sure these aren’t in the form of unnecessarily large formats that may be putting the load time on a go-slow. You could also consider using a caching mechanism, which could drastically speed things up too.
If things are still on the slow side, next check the plug-in situation to identify if there’s one that’s slowing you down that could be removed, and remove any image hotlinks present, too. If you’re still not seeing the load time you should be after running through this process, then it might be worth considering an upgrade to your web hosting platform.
Get Top Quality CRM Systems In Place
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems are vital for the optimal functioning of your business and can be a powerful tool to drive both conversion and good customer interaction with your business.
For small businesses especially, incorporating a multi-functioning solution into your model is a cost-effective solution. There are a number of CRM platforms available that combine customer interaction optimization with other tools, such as accounting and finance functionality, plus reporting dashboard tools and support for marketing and sales teams.
Have a look here for a review of an example of an all-in-one CRM solution to get an idea of pricing, and for more details on the benefits that this type of software can deliver to your business. The specific system reviewed can be integrated with Mailchimp and Mailjet, creating further opportunities to supercharge your conversion rate through targeted marketing campaigns.
Highlight Your Trustworthiness
Research has shown that about 70% of potential customers will check out reviews of your product or service from past customers before deciding whether or not to buy.
An easy tip to quickly boost your conversion-to-sale rate is to provide testimonials on your website and social media: this could be one of the simplest things you can do to convince the person browsing your site to press ‘add to basket.’ Make sure these testimonials are highly visible: as well as having a page dedicated to past reviews, think about adding a few to specific pages relating to each product or service you offer.
Of course, the key to building brand trustworthiness going forward is to ensure reliability and to maintain consistently high quality in terms of the service of the product your business offers. And when you receive testimonials from your customers highlighting this – be sure to post them online!
Think About Your Online Content
Go through your website and social media content with a fine tooth-comb. Check carefully for typos and grammatical inaccuracies: these can be subtle yet powerful things that could be adversely affecting your conversion rates, as little errors in the text can result in your business appearing unprofessional.
Make sure that your content is visually appealing and that text is broken up into readable chunks, rather than being in a few unwieldy sections, which is often off-putting for visitors. Also, consider how easy your site is to navigate and run some basic checks to make sure that all the pages are loading properly and that no broken links are lurking anywhere.
Lastly, assess your calls to action throughout. Are they working well for you? Experiment with different calls to action to find out if a few little tweaks could drive up your sales stats.
Incorporate a Money-Back Guarantee
This is another easy way to build trust and push your visitor over the fence and into making a purchase. If you’re offering a similar product or service, and at a comparable price, to a competitor, then a money-back guarantee in the event of dissatisfaction may well be the deciding factor for folk who aren’t sure which business’ products or services to opt for.
A word of warning: while it’s good to include a money-back guarantee, be sure that any stipulations are clear. If you state in your terms and conditions that customers will need to pay the return postage themselves if they want their order refunded…then people will question whether or not you should still be offering them this option in the first place.
Take Advantage of Upselling and Cross-Selling Opportunities
Research has shown that including a couple of different options for customers to upgrade or add extras when making their purchase can help boost your conversion rate by around 20%.
An easy way to do this is to include variations on the main product, such as additional flowers with a bouquet you sell: another option could be accessories or items that complement an order perfectly. You could also think about cross-selling, and then using upsells to offer products that fit simply alongside but don’t clash with your existing products.
Best of all…these types of sales opportunities won’t take extra time or money out of your pocket: it only takes a little thought to create these opportunities, and then your future customers can make the choice whether or not to buy them.
Make it Easy for Customers to Purchase
We all know that shopping online has become second nature these days – but just because most people are buying online doesn’t mean you should forget about making it easy for them.
When they click ‘add to basket’, do you then present them with an array of additional options? If so, consider changing this up by offering fewer choices up front: having too many alternatives might distract potential customers from actually buying anything at all.
Think about limiting choice in terms of delivery methods (one option is often better than several) and payment types (a few different methods are sometimes easier for customers to fathom). If you’re adding one item to the cart, make sure that this process is quick and hassle-free.
Test Different Prices for Your Products
Pricing your products can be tricky work – but if you want to boost your conversion rate, then it may well pay off in the long run. They say that people are more likely to buy when they feel like they’re getting a good deal, so how do you find out whether or not your prices are already competitive?
Actually test different pricing systems – raise them higher or lower to see whether or not this changes your sale statistics. You never know what could happen until you try!
Know Where Your Audience is
While it might be tempting to go after everyone out there with your product or service, it’s often more beneficial to pinpoint your customer. For instance, if you’re selling wedding dresses online, then targeting brides-to-be selling their own gown would make sense – they probably know how much money you’ll need to make for the sale, and what the potential returns are likely to be on an item like this.
On the other hand, if you were selling personalized teddy bears online, then aiming for parents who already have children may well net you more sales than aiming at people who don’t yet have kids themselves. Your niche determines who will buy from you – so be sure to know who you’re selling to before committing yourself.
Make Sure You Have the Right Images
It sounds obvious, but it’s surprising just how many online stores neglect this point. You need high-quality imagery of your products for customers to be able to see what they’re getting – and if your images are fuzzy or unclear, then it can seriously impact on whether or not potential buyers will place an order with you.
There are plenty of photo editing tools around that make it easy for even amateur photographers (or non-photographers) like me to take excellent photos without needing expensive equipment. The investment is worth making: your conversion rate will thank you for having decent pictures to show off your wares.
Photos of products don’t have to be boring, either. Check out Amazon for some great ideas on how to photograph your wares in fun and exciting ways! If you make your product look like it’s a ton of fun, then people will feel the same way when they buy from you – and that can only help boost your whole conversion rate with them!
A/B Testing: What is It and How Can it Help Me?
Are you struggling with an issue like low conversion rates? Do customers seem put off by what they see online, or do they leave before making a purchase?
You may well consider A/B testing as a solution; this is essentially where you compare two versions of a page and see which one works best. For example, let’s say you have a website selling wedding dresses.
You could split your users into two groups and show them either a version of the page incorporating images or another with product descriptions instead. The more people who buy in the version that has the right imagery, the better – this means that customers are much happier when deciding what to buy!
Conclusion
Ensure that this guarantee is highly visible across your entire online business presence and incorporate it into all other marketing and advertising material to reap the full benefit.
