Small Steps Deliver Big Increases in Your Sales Conversion Rate
Sales conversion rates are vital to the success of your business. Without a good conversion rate, all your marketing and sales efforts are wasted. In this email, we will look at some simple steps you can take that will impact your conversions right away.
Identify your ideal customer profile
The first step to increasing your conversion rate is to identify or review your ideal customer profile. If your business offerings have evolved over time, your ideal customer profile has also evolved. Answer these questions to create a customer profile:
- What do your customers look like, age-wise and gender-wise?
- Where do your customers live, and what kind of lifestyle do they lead?
- What challenges do they face that you can help solve?
Gather this information from various sources, including conversations with your employees and customers, industry publications, and general news.
Understand the customer journey
The next step is to identify the touchpoints in the sales process where you have an opportunity to engage with customers, starting before they are even aware your business exists. What triggers might lead a customer toward finding your business? Are there predictable personal or business milestones when customers require your product or services? Where will they look for information about your business when they need what you offer? Is your business visible — and are you telling an engaging story that hooks them — at those touchpoints? Are you visible to future customers who don’t have a need for your business at this moment but may in the future? Is it easy for current customers to refer you to new customers — and do you acknowledge the referral?
Identify opportunities for improvement
Next, evaluate your marketing and sales messages for clarity. Consumers are frustrated when they can’t figure out what a product or service includes. Don’t make them work harder than necessary to grasp the essentials of what you offer and how it will change their lives for the better.
Have you been using the same marketing message for years? Think about how you might refresh your message while keeping a familiar identity. Don’t be afraid to try out different approaches and see what works best.
If someone wants to buy something from you, is the process as streamlined as it can be? Is every step relevant and essential or are there steps that may make it seem as though you’re wasting the customer’s time?
Are you taking advantage of technology to automate some aspects of your sales process?
Test and measure results
Lastly, as you fine-tune your marketing and sales process, look for opportunities to measure impact. If you’re trying a different approach with email campaigns, for example, check the open rates for a series of new emails against a series of emails you sent a year ago.
Even a percentage point increase in your conversion rate can mean more customers and greater revenue for your business. The important thing is to start now and keep testing new strategies until you find something that delivers the results you want.
If you would like to learn more about how this might apply to your business, let’s talk: