Conversion Strategies

Most metrics and analytics efforts look toward one primary goal –conversion improvement. For the sake of clarity, let’s define conversion here as anything that leads to a goal action – be it a lead, a sale, a newsletter sign-up or a registration.

First and foremost, keep your conversion strategy simple. The best way to improve conversion is to steer clear of confusion. Be the horse with blinders on. Keep attention focused on the core message from initial brand touch (banner, search result or other contact) through their action.

It’s natural to want to tell the whole story, and you will get an opportunity to do that once your conversation begins, but for right now you have the fish on the hook and throwing more bait into the water won’t help you land it.

Keep your message/creative/branding consistent from touch point to landing page or microsite, and create simple form-integrated landing pages (often centered forms have the best conversion.)

Create stepped forms for long sign-up processes to gather core initial data. At a minimum, get first name, last name, email, and opt-in permission. This allows you to market to that individual later even if they get distracted or disenchanted with your sign-up process. If you need to provide more information than a landing page to convert the user (depending on the value you are looking to pull from the consumer), then develop a concise microsite around the offer or value proposition. But be careful not to stray from the offer and don’t put too much information out there prematurely. If you must drive users to your main site, make sure there is a clear path with a call to action that is relevant to your primary driving message and make sure that message supports a specific user goal.

Another way to improve conversions is to keep as tight a profile as possible around the personas that you have predetermined. By doing this, your message will be more concise and the value that much higher for each user.