On Friday, I explained how SEO, advertising, email marketing and social media marketing can all work together to improve your digital marketing performance. In short, each of those 4 channels benefits from the others. For example, as you improve your advertising campaigns, you’ll naturally generate more traffic and sales from SEO because more and more prospects will begin to search for your brand, your products and your services.
These channels enhance each other, but unfortunately they require very different skill sets so you need to focus on each one separately. Think of it like the different positions in baseball. Outfielders need to be fast to track down fly balls and they need strong arms to throw to home plate. Infielders need to have soft hands for ground balls and precision to turn double plays. Pitchers need to, well, be good at pitching. :)
And to improve the overall performance of a baseball team, you need to improve the different positions separately.
But there is a shortcut. There is a single skill that all the players use and it can overcome weaknesses in individual positions. I’m referring to hitting. Hitting is the one area that spans all positions (at least it does in the MLB National League) and as hitting percentages increase, then you’ll tend to score more runs and win more games.
So what’s the equivalent to hitting in digital marketing? Where could you focus in your marketing that would instantly improve the performance of ALL of your different channels like SEO, advertising, email and social media?
The answer is…
Your Website Conversion Rate
Think about it. If you can improve your website conversion rate, then you’ll instantly drive more leads and sales from all of your digital marketing campaigns. It’s that simple.
And if you already have prospects visiting your website, then this is often where you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck. Let’s look at a couple proven ways to increase your conversion rates.
1. Match Webpage Copy to the Traffic Source
Studies show that you have about 3 seconds to capture the attention of a new website visitor before she clicks the back button. That means you have 3 seconds to prove your website has exactly what the prospect needs.
This may sound obvious and simple, but there’s a problem. Most businesses have multiple types of prospects that respond to various sales triggers. For example, men respond to different messages than women in the fitness industry, business owners respond to different messages than employees, etc.
When you’re face-to-face, this is easy. But when it comes to your website, how do you know who you’re talking to and what exactly they’re looking for?
Hint: Look at the traffic source (in other words, where did the prospect come from right before visiting your website?). Often the source of traffic like the keyword searched or the website referral will be a dead giveaway.
If it’s still not clear, then consider ways to funnel your traffic to pages that are tailored for different types of prospects. For example, show two big buttons that say “Men click here” and “Women click here” so then on the next page you’ll know exactly who you’re talking to. Again, the goal is to match your sales copy to your prospect to increase the likelihood he or she will respond to your offer.
2. Improve Website Usability
Even with the best copy in the world, there’s still a chance your prospect will not respond simply because your website is not clear and easy to use. One of my favorite books on this subject is Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.
As the name suggests, the goal of your website design and layout is to ensure your prospect does NOT have to think. As soon as your prospect has to think hard about what to do your chances of converting plummet. That’s because it’s just too easy online to click the back button and go find another site that is more intuitive.
The best way to find problems is to find some fresh eyes from someone who doesn’t yet know anything about your business. Ask him or her to go to your website and then ask some basic questions like:
- What products or services does this website offer?
- Why should a customer buy from this website instead of its competitors?
- What is the next step to make a purchase?
It sounds ridiculous, but I often can’t answer these questions when I review prospective client websites. Clearly that’s a problem… if it’s not obvious what you offer, why buy from you, and how to buy, then you’re going to lose a lot of potential sales.
I promise if you focus on improving these two areas, then you will increase your website conversions and start generating even more leads and sales from absolutely no additional work or investment in other digital marketing channels.
