Conversion Marketing

  Converting site visitors into paying customers

In electronic commerce, conversion marketing is the act of converting site visitors into paying customers. The efficacy of conversion marketing is measured by the conversion rate, i.e. the number of customers who have completed a transaction divided by the total number of website visitors. The conversion rate is the proportion of visitors to a website who take action to go beyond a casual content view or website visit. Depending upon the business, successful action could be buying a product, booking an appointment, downloading software, subscribing for a newsletter, or asking for more information.

Strategies to increase conversion rates include:

• Generate user reviews of the product or service.
• Create a self-serving customer service format by letting the user reach informative answers quickly with a constantly learning database.
• Gather a baseline user experience by recording user actions and compiling key objections.
• Clear tracking of standardised metrics using website analytics software for a predetermined conversion goal, e.g. increase volume of newsletter subscriptions.
• Improve and focus the content of the website (which may include text, pictures and video) to target conversion.
• Increase usability to reduce the barriers to conversion.
• Improve site navigation structure so that users can find and browse without thinking too much about where to click.
• Improve credibility and trust by showing third-party trust logos and by good site design.
• Offer active live help (e.g. live chat, co-browsing).
• Use AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) to move the user through the conversion funnel.

Since conversion rates for electronic storefronts are usually very low, conversion marketing can be a useful way to boost this number, online revenue, and overall website traffic. Conversion marketing does this by focusing on improving site flow, online customer service channels, and online experience.