Why You Must Optimize for Conversions Before Awareness. Conversion marketing is all about encouraging people to perform actions on your website. Split testing your product page, building an email opt-in form and writing persuasive sales copy are all conversion marketing tactics. While you need a certain amount of traffic in order to optimize your conversion funnel, awareness cannot be the end goal if you want to survive. Here are some of the main ways to build a conversion-friendly website: Create a Lead Magnet A lead magnet is something you can give to people for free in exchange for their email address. Ensure your lead magnet is delivered (preferably via email) as soon as the person signs up to your list. Build Email Opt-in Forms Even if you don’t use lead magnets (why wouldn’t you? In these cases, it’s good to have a persuasively written, automated email that you can send to people as a reminder of why they signed up to your list in the first place. Calls-to-action (CTAs) can come in many forms, such as: “Read More” buttons, “Add to Cart” buttons and “Sign Up” buttons. Check out this powerful CTA by Dollar Shave Club that is immediately viewable above the fold: Visitors can see that over 3 million people like the brand on social media (huge social proof), you can try the service with no risk and the CTA button dramatically contrasts with the background.
When marketers plan their campaigns, the objective is usually to achieve one of two goals: increase brand awareness or maximize conversions. These two styles of marketing work together but they’re distinct from one another.
- Awareness marketing involves establishing a reputation within your niche, differentiating yourself from competitors and bringing people into the top of your funnel. A common awareness marketing tactic would be creating blog content and publishing it using Twitter.
- Conversion marketing is all about encouraging people to perform actions on your website. Split testing your product page, building an email opt-in form and writing persuasive sales copy are all conversion marketing tactics. In other words, conversion marketing pertains to the bottom of your sales funnel.
When you execute your marketing strategy, it’s important to optimize for conversions first. If you initially focus on awareness and start sending traffic to an under-optimized website, you’ll be leaving money on the table.
When you make conversions your priority, your awareness marketing suddenly has a purpose: to turn cold leads into paying customers.
Awareness marketing is crucial for establishing a positive reputation in the marketplace (particularly if you value longevity), but sales are the lifeline of any business. While you need a certain amount of traffic in order to optimize your conversion funnel, awareness cannot be the end goal if you want to survive.
Most marketers understand that businesses thrive or die based on conversions but their daily work isn’t in alignment with this. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that only 22% of businesses are happy with their conversion rates.
Before you start focusing on driving significant amounts of traffic to your site, ensure you have a mechanism in place for conversions.
Here are some of the main ways to build a conversion-friendly website:
Create a Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is something you can give to people for free in exchange for their email address. Common lead magnets include: eBooks, checklists, case studies, mp3 recordings and webinars.
By offering a relevant lead magnet to your visitors, you’ll ensure that a percentage of them move further into your sales funnel by signing up to your email list where you can continue marketing.
Features of a great lead magnet include:
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- Immediately actionable – Visitors should gain information from your lead magnet that they can quickly put into practice in order to enhance their lives or businesses.
- Solves a legitimate problem – When doing buyer persona research, it’s important to learn about the pain points your customers have. If you can provide a piece of content that solves the problems these people are experiencing, they’ll gladly give you their email address for it.
- Delivered quickly – It’s not a good idea to make people fill out a bunch of forms or wait for a lengthy download. Ensure your lead magnet is delivered (preferably via email) as soon as the person signs up to your list.
- Builds credibility – While the goal of a lead magnet should always be to deliver value to your audience, it’s important that your lead magnet also conveys your expertise. Case studies make excellent lead magnets because you can deliver value while demonstrating that your expertise has helped others too.
Instead of offering one generic lead magnet for all of your visitors, you may achieve better results by thinking contextually.
Examine your best performing blog posts, then think of a way that you…
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