Conversion in retail is the overriding objective behind any promotional materials!
Every piece of content you publish, each email campaign you send, and every Google ad you invest in needs to be guided by an understanding of the formula for conversion rate metrics.
So, what are the steps for creating a conversion path that delivers, and why might a customizable contact form template to get contact information from your customer be your secret weapon?
Conversion Paths Explained
It's not enough to post some amazing content and hope (against hope!) a visitor happens to trickle through to your Call To Action (CTA).
Instead, you build a path, like a set of skipping stones, to jump nicely from one touchpoint to the next until - BINGO! - they've made it past your finish line.
What that finish line looks like is up to you; maybe buying a product, signing up for a service, registering for an event, or any other action you need to drive your customers towards.
Essentially, it's all about paving a course through the noise to make it easy for the customer to navigate.
Five Steps to Creating an Excellent Conversion Path
If you're unsure where to begin, we'll run through the five steps, from laying the first stone to a successful sale.
1. Define Your Targets
You need to know what the eventual goal is before you can work out the best pathway to get there.
Think about:
- What do we want our customers to do? What are we offering, and how are we demonstrating a best-in-class value proposition?
- Who is our customer, and what are we doing to solve their problem?
- Is this the first time a customer will have come across us, or are we building on awareness to expand brand visibility?
2. Work Out How You're Going to Attract Visitors
As we've said, gold-standard content can't perform if there's nobody there to read it!
Step two is thinking about how you'll draw in customers, so they know about your offer.
Options include:
- Using paid media advertising to direct traffic to your landing page.
- Creating email campaigns announcing the offer and leading email subscribers to sales contact.
- Promoting the offer or service through social media with strategically researched hashtags.
- Writing SEO-optimized content to capture traffic from search engines.
Whichever approach you use, your CTA is all-important!
The best conversion paths use at least two conversion points, so you don't miss an opportunity.
3. Optimize Your Landing Page for Speedy Conversions
Next up, take a look at the landing page or content you want your customer to find - and ensure it's properly optimized to convert your visitors into leads:
- Decluttering so your offer pops off the page, and a customer doesn't get bored looking for the information they want.
- Consider an attention-grabbing headline - make the offer impossible to ignore!
- Build an excellent contact form - a sign-up form, contact page, or registration template.
You need to ask your customer for just the right amount of information.
If it's early days in the journey, you can't request reams of information without a correspondingly high bounce rate, so keep it straightforward.
4. Develop Auto-Responders or Thank You Pages
When your visitor has converted, you might be tempted to pop a cork and celebrate the win!
Not so fast...
An auto-responder or a thank you page is a great way to acknowledge that you appreciate the business.
It's also a good moment to offer additional information or further resources, such as a free download or a secondary offer such as a demonstration or a scheduled callback.
5. Nurturing Your Client Relationships
The final step is to ensure that your conversion path isn't forgotten when the conversions roll in.
When designing the path, you need to think about new workflow triggers.
For example, if a customer has recently bought something or registered, how will you capitalize on that action with a follow-up?
You might transition into a lead nurturing workflow or enhance your service value with excellent customer support - but as long as it's been put together perfectly, your conversion path will keep delivering new customers directly to your door!
