CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION STRATEGY. White Paper

Transcription

1 CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION STRATEGY White Paper November 2013

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2. WHY DO BUSINESSES STRUGGLE TO CONVERT? 3. LAYING OUT THE FOUNDATION OF A CONVERSION GENERATING INFRASTRUCTURE 3.1. VISITOR SEGMENTATION 3.2. CREATING A BUYER PERSONA 4. DEVELOPING A CONVERSION PATH 5. REACHING THE ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH 6. CONCLUSION 7. ABOUT PAYPRO GLOBAL

3 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Software enterprises concentrate considerable time, substantial effort, and big dollars for customer acquisition efforts that don t bring significant results. According to IAB s Internet advertising revenue report 2012 full year results, internet advertising revenues totaled $36.57 billion, up 15% from the $31.74 billion reported in This indicates that there s no slowdown of digital advertising spending. Yet enterprises are still stuck below 5% conversion rates, widening the gap between acquisition efforts and ability to convert online. The tactics marketers use today to increase brand awareness and attract new visitors are often inconsistent with conversion optimization efforts. The fact is that despite big spending used to attract new visitors, prospects that arrive at destined websites or landing pages are not welcomed into the conversion process with the same luxury budgets. Enterprises neglect the fact that attracting visitors is only half of the process, only the top of the funnel, that converting customers online is equally, if not more difficult than getting visitors to their websites in the first place. Consumer behaviour is suffering seismic shifts, this is triggered by omni-channel commerce and proliferation of digital channels. Customers are now overwhelmed by an abundance of information and shopping options, amplified by shorter attention spans to navigate them. This means that marketers need to adapt to a new reality. This reality means that the traditional sales cycle we once knew is disappearing. Consumers spend most of their purchase-decision time doing research online, prior to contacting the vendor. It is now the task of modern marketer to educate and guide these consumers during their research process with content that addresses their personal challenges and provides solutions. "Industry research indicates that for every $92 spent online to acquire site traffic or build awareness, only $1 is spent to proactively convert this traffic," said Gail Ennis, SVP of Marketing, Omniture. "Advertisers are spending huge sums to get traffic to their sites and we have seen that by focusing on increasing conversion, online marketers can have a tremendous impact on the bottom line." 03

4 This informative white paper will give you an insight on how to understand your customer, engage him and bring them to conversion point at an accelerated pace. It will give an understanding of the deepening relationship between product content and conversion, as well as provide strategies and practical advice on how to engage the modern customer. 2. WHY DO BUSINESSES STRUGGLE TO CONVERT? Somewhere during the development of modern digital marketing, many organizations got stuck in the belief that more website traffic is the key factor of success. Most believers set out to prove it by counting impressions and clickthroughs as their primary metrics. Very quickly, they could prove the exact cost to acquire each of those clicks. Yet often the high bounce rate and link conversion are absent in this type of analysis. A potential customer always has a challenge. Like most people, this person goes online to look for the best solution to his problem. Due to a very short attention span and the abundance of choice found in search engines, social media and PPC advertising they arrive to company homepages unable to find what they are looking for in the first place and hit the back button. The visitor s actions fully justify the acquisition efforts, which are important, but the bounce rate and lack of conversion prove the inconsistency of the strategy and a waste of resources. Companies overlook the fact that the modern consumer demands content that is relevant to their personal challenges and keep maintaining self-centered websites. Too often businesses concentrate too much on what they want to promote, rather than customers needs and goals - a key point of frustration for customers. Putting the customer in the center of the experience and influencing them along the way with targeted content, simplified usability and assurance factors can help narrow the gap, reduce cost and and accelerate a customer s path to the zero moment of truth. 04

5 3. LAYING OUT THE FOUNDATION OF A CONVERSION GENERATING INFRASTRUCTURE Organizations that adopt the conversion imperative use data as a driver for optimization, benefiting their top- and bottom-line revenues. They optimize for specific outcomes that have a strategic impact on conversion and ultimately on customer loyalty. Combined with testing automation solutions, enterprises see increases in revenue as dramatic as % (Marketing Sherpa). A conversion optimization strategy doesn t have to necessarily be radical, it can in fact be low-risk and not require to entirely redesign the company s website. The changes have to be based on incremental results that can escalate over time and by understanding the individual outcomes of the online customer experience. With this in mind, Web Analytics Demystified recommends dissecting the marketing funnel into a series of desired outcomes to examine the individual components that lead to conversion. 05

6 3.1 Visitor segmentation Segmentation is the ideal starting point for conversion optimization strategy. Rather than showing the same content to all visitors, persona-driven segmentation allows companies to personalize their marketing campaigns and website content using the available information about the visitor. Marketing departments already have a wealth of data to identify what type of buyers they serve that will give an insight how to target them in the future. The most common questions to a marketer should ask first are: Demographics: what are the person s attributes? (age, country of origin, language etc) Psychographics: What does the person do psychologically as part of their buying decision process? Topographics: how to the demo- and psychographics mesh with similar selling processes within the company s own industry? Through what channel were they acquired? (SEO, SEM, PPC, Social Media, Blog, Mobile etc) What pages have the most traffic and what is their next path? To answer these questions marketing teams have most of the necessary web analytics data at their disposal. By analyzing such parameters as country of origin, language, platforms and acquisition channels, they can structure content according to the set criteria such as content language, cultural attributes 06

7 3.2 Creating a buyer persona Based on analytics data, marketers need to collaborate with other departments within the company, which serve as touch-points for the customers. These departments are usually sales, account management or customer support. They can provide information about the main customer case, such as: Priority initiatives Perceived barriers Decision criteria Success factors Buying process Additionally marketers can conduct their own research such as interviews or questionnaires through various channels. Having acquired all the necessary information, marketers can easily identify common factors between individuals and group them according to this criteria. According to predefined buyer personas, marketers can create personal and engaging content for each category that drives conversions and ultimately sales. 07

8 4. DEVELOPING A CONVERSION PATH Driving traffic through blog content, PPC campaigns, social media or other acquisition channels to a website s homepage is not feasible. The homepages are usually made very general and hard to direct a visitor to a certain path. Especially this is a very problematic effort, considering that homepages are hardly relevant to the content and messaging that drove the visitor to click the clink. Therefore the most efficient way to create a relevant and engaging first impression is creating landing pages that provide digestible, engaging and most importantly relevant content to the user. The landing pages are easy to produce, test and optimize in order to achieve the best results. The landing pages need to have visible call-to-actions, clear copy and powerful value proposition. Aligning acquisition with conversion this way provides a more fluid online experience to the prospect and deliver a more precise insight on acquisition ROI. 08

9 Web Analytics Demystified recommends the following conversion optimization roadmap for developing a company strategy: 1. Become a conversion concierge - Aligning the visit with the referral source and employ technologies that work to understand what visitors want by taking cues from behavioural inferences, ultimately guiding them through desired outcomes towards conversion. 2. Make on-site search smarter - Poor navigation negatively influences the bounce rate. Organizations can minimize site abandonment by testing navigational elements and optimizing on-site search technologies to streamline conversions. 3. Offer helpful recommendations - Forty-six percent of organizations do not use recommendations as a method for facilitating conversions. Dynamic recommendations can leverage visitor and segment behaviours to increase conversion effectiveness. 4. Testing hypotheses - Testing is probably the most well-known tactic within the online conversion quiver because it can be used in so many different applications. This represents the launching point to conversion optimization. 5. Target profitable customers - Targeting is the next evolutionary step after gaining ground with testing. While most organizations aspire to target their online experiences, only about one-fifth are doing this today. 6. Validate results - Every test initiative must have a plan for measurement and documenting results. Without these data elements to verify the lift and revenue contributions, you will fail at convincing your audience that optimization is moving the needle. 7. Solicit customer feedback - Often overlooked, but one of the best methods for quantifying the success of conversion programs, is to simply ask the customers. By deploying online surveys to site visitors, marketers can amass a wealth of anecdotal evidence and heuristic results that illustrate what their digital visitors like and which roadblocks exist in their paths to conversion. 09

10 5. REACHING THE ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH The checkout process is the most vulnerable momentum in the whole conversion path set to ultimately achieve this goal. Many software enterprises rely on the service of an e-commerce provider when it comes to the process of software sales. It is vital that the software vendors choose the e-commerce solution that provides advanced checkout customization. It needs to offer A/B testing facilities, graphic and web design assistance that would enable enterprises to remove unnecessary roadblocks in the conversion process. This is where the provider has to stay invisible only making sure that it s there when the customer needs assistance. This means that the e-commerce provider needs to serve as a partner, rather than a service provider, as a close and dynamic collaboration is required between the organization and the provider to streamline many important processes. In the era of borderless digital commerce it is vital that the checkout offers geolocation capabilities that would deliver the customer the information in his own language and currency, as well as provide those payment methods that he is most used to and removing cluttering irrelevant information out of the way. 10

11 6. CONCLUSION Software companies need to stop hemorrhaging money. By developing a cost efficient conversion optimization strategy, organizations can justify the efforts and resources spent to acquire every visitor and reduce costs in the end. Marketers need to constantly mine data from internal and internal sources to track the shifts in user behaviour and swiftly adapt to the new evolving empowered customer. This will eventually lead to a better product display and a more fluid, user friendly online experiences to the visitors. Creating long lasting pleasant impressions with tailored content that feels the pain of the visitor and instantly soothes it with the particular gain the visitor was looking for. This process will improve the overall product and brand perception, as well as create an impacting online presence for the company. It will help online merchants obtain better ROI, a more precise evaluation of marketing team productivity and ultimately get more sales from the whole process. It will produce a significant change in the quality of leads acquired for longer sales cycles for B2B marketers. Ultimately, enterprises need to turn to e-commerce solution providers that are flexible, agile in providing feedback and serve as a facilitator in the process of closing a sale, rather than impediment. 11

12 7. ABOUT PAYPRO PayPro Global provides flexible e-commerce solutions that enable software and SaaS companies of all sizes to build and grow their online businesses, reduce costs, minimize risks and enter new markets. The company s offer includes flexible subscription billing, real-time business reporting, software protection tools, 24/7 customer support, assistance in web design, sales and marketing. For more information about PayPro Global, please contact marketing@payproglobal.com Website: PayPro Global Inc. Berkeley Square House, Berkeley Square London W1J 6BD, United Kingdom 225 The East Mall, Suite 1117 Toronto, ON, M9B OA9 Canada marketing@payproglobal.com 12