How can you improve your company's conversion rate through eCommerce?
Conversion rate optimization needs to be approached in two ways. First, consider the Journey of your customer conversion. It breaks down into the following general steps:?
Each step converts the customer to the next step and can differ in approach by industry type. For example, in eCommerce generating a lead is getting the website visitor to add something to their cart. In other industries, this step can resemble downloading a prospectus or filling out an email contact form. Overall, the concept of each step remains the same: get the customer to the following converting step.?
These steps are important because the success rate of each one is determined by a different activity in your digital marketing strategy. To improve customer conversion (including increasing online sales), it's essential to look at the whole customer journey and eliminate the bottlenecks in each step, starting with the weakest performing metrics first.?
Second, consider the mindset of the user as they go through the conversion process. Before converting into a customer, people typically go through 4 mindset stages. These include:?
The good news is that these stages can be looped back to with follow-up activities if the initial process to convert did not transpire. For example, 'discovery' can be "re-influenced" by additional marketing exposure via targeted ads; 'Understanding' can be expanded through further follow-up on leads. This way, 'observation' and 'decision-making' can be promoted with additional fine-tuning to your digital marketing strategy.
Bringing together these two approaches increases your conversion rate optimization successes. How do they work together? Consider the following example:?
Suppose you have a great Click-Through-Rate but a poor Add-to-Cart rate, resulting in low sales, CLV, and user reviews. By looking at the conversion rate steps, it's clear that there is a roadblock preventing the conversion of website visitors into leads. However, by looking at the conversion mindset, it's easier to uncover what those roadblocks may be. In this case, your problems likely stem from either (1) users either not getting sufficient information for their purchasing decisions or (2) poor UX design that makes it challenging to check out. In this instance, your best solution would be to focus on the more technical aspects of your website and less on the outbound digital marketing components. Reassess whether:
Okay, so all of that is to answer the question, "how can you improve your company's conversion rate through E-commerce?"
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Easy: By exposing the worst-performing conversion step, identifying the underlying reasons for its lackluster performance, and improving the process until the conversion roadblock clears. Then rinse and repeat indefinitely. There is no one-step solution because it's an ongoing process that requires continuous attention. Without this approach, your website can fall behind by failing to adapt to changing internet user demands and evolving algorithms.?
If you have further questions on the process, don't hesitate to reach out.? I work with all of my coaching clients on this form of digital marketing and conversion optimization strategy and can attest to the effectiveness of these steps based on my own and my clients' experiences.
Here are some additional resources to check out:
And a case study of one of my clients in eCommerce:
Cheers!
-J Toral, Conversion Rate Optimization and Digital Marketing Coach