The primary goal of marketing is conversion. There are a lot of secondary goals, such as brand recognition, but companies don’t survive unless people buy their products or services.
Content marketing, like websites and blogs, is the best way to generate conversions in today’s digital marketing space. They start the conversion path that leads to sales on websites. It’s that simple but complicated at the same time.
If the conversion path starts at a website, the question becomes how do you get them to the website? Then, how do you convert that traffic to sales once they are there?
There are no sure-fire answers, but there are proven marketing techniques that can help with such a task. Let’s uncover five of those strategies that marketers use to convert traffic into sales.
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Why Should You Worry About Transforming Traffic Into Leads?
Brands go to considerable trouble to drive traffic to their websites. They post on social media, pay for digital ads, and send emails. But what is the point of having people visit a website? Website visitors are not necessarily buyers, but they can be leads.
Metrics tell you how many people visit a website and what they do once they get there. You use metrics to track:
- Page views
- Time on a page
- Session duration
- Pages per session
- Bounce rates
- Traffic sources
Website metrics tell you about the behavior of your target customer so that you can generate leads. Do they read the blogs, for example? What topics seem to interest them? How about product pages? What pages do they hang around on, and which ones do they open and close again?
Understanding behavior helps you know who is a potential lead and why. A lead is only valuable to you, though, if you have a way to keep them interested. In most cases, that means having some kind of contact information for them, like an email address. That is how you convert leads into sales.
Why Are Users Not Converting After Visiting Your Website?
A website is only as good as the number of conversions it creates. If yours isn’t generating sales, you need to ask yourself why.
There is a lot of psychology that goes into creating a website. The right colors and images matter. But, when it comes to conversions, content is king.
When a visitor comes to a website, they want to see quality content that provides them with information and builds trust. They want:
- Transparency about pricing and shipping
- A business address and contact information
- Relevant blogs that are well-written and informative
- Reviews and testimonials
- A call to action that tells them what to do next
- Functionality that helps them take that next step
These things give a website legitimacy:
5 Strategies to Convert Traffic Into Sales
Once you have a website up and it is bringing in visitors, how do you go about converting that traffic to sales? Here are five proven strategies worth trying.
1. Create an email list
A lead is someone that provides contact information that helps you further the conversation. An email address is ideal because it allows you to contact them in an unobtrusive way and move them forward in the sales process.
There are a few marketing techniques that can help you get that critical email address, such as:
- Newsletter
- VIP Club
- Giveaways
- Accounts
You can use one or more of these tactics to build an email list and create a marketing campaign to get sales.
2. Do regular website audits
Website audits make sure your pages are up-to-date and working for you. There is no point in keeping pages that do not perform well. Use metrics to determine what types of pages seem to generate the most contact information and traffic.
For example:
- Which blog topics stand out?
- What pages rarely get clicks?
- Which ones get the most attention?
Try to determine what works on the pages to convert traffic into sales and what doesn’t. Is the design out of date on the pages with high bounce rates? Check the copy on the pages, too. Are there grammar issues?
3. Add that trust factor
Things like reviews, testimonials, and portfolios help build trust. There is a reason Amazon lists reviews on its product pages: because people trust them. Consider adding them to your landing pages to remind visitors that your brand is trustworthy.
Also, generate top-tier content that provides your viewer with valuable information. That builds trust, as well.
4. Use A/B testing
A/B testing allows you to try different versions of your marketing assets to see which leads to the most conversions. For example, you might set up one landing page with an invitation to join a discount club and create a second with a call to action to sign up for a newsletter.
By monitoring the metrics for each page, you can get a sense of which is the most productive. A/B testing can relate to anything as long as you compare two similar strategies.
5. Put a prominent call to action on every page
A call to action tells the visitor the next step and encourages them to take it. For instance:
- Sign up for our newsletter today!
- Check out our newest products!
- Get your copy of our e-book!
- Sign up for an account and get started!
A call to action should be an actionable step the viewer can take to move them further down the sales funnel. There should always be a next step, regardless of the viewer’s action.
If they made a purchase, the call to action encourages them to buy a compatible product. If they read a blog post, they should visit the main website or sign up for an account. Every page should have a call to action that keeps that viewer engaged.
Once you start thinking about creating conversions, you’ll take your marketing to the next level. Content marketing drives conversions, but only if it is done right. You can elevate your content marketing efforts by exploring the Content Cloud today.
