A Plan of Attack For Maximizing Your Conversions
Don’t Be Coy. Get Straight To The Point!
Remember the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz? Your purchase path SHOULD DEFINITELY NOT look like that. Customers don’t want a buying experience fraught with perils, dense forests, lions tigers & bears, forked roads, poppy fields, twists, tangents or turns. To boost conversions your purchase path should be straighter than an arrow and smoother than day-old pavement.
One Thing Leads To Another
Step one of creating a high-converting purchase path starts with your PPC ad or whatever method you’re using to make initial contact with the consumer, such as email or banner ads. Your first point of contact has to then lead to a landing page that supports and elaborates on the message communicated in the ad/email, and should ideally close the sale right then and there. On occasion you’ll need to ad steps for the purposes of consumer need variance (e.g., detailed product descriptions or feature lists), but as a general rule try to keep your buy path simple and linear in 2 to 3 steps.
If you’re using an entire website or mini-site to sell your product, each page has to offer a first, middle and end step that ultimately leads to conversion. Treat each page on a site as an “independent agent” which provides the necessary steps to conversion all in one place.
Cover All Your Bases
It’s simply smart business to take into account the differences in consumer needs and behavior. Some consumers like to buy right off the bat while others need more information and time to make their decision. Some want to read lots of feature/benefit details about the product you’re selling, while others want to see testimonials or customer support and warranty information.
Your path to conversion should provide each of those different users precisely what they need in order to take the next step. And that means walking the razor’s edge. On the one hand you have to keep your visitors’ options open, and on the other hand you want to be aware that too many options can create confusion and stop them from choosing any path at all.
The trick is to focus enough to be compelling and still be broad enough to attract an increasingly profitable audience. With this in mind, try to narrow your message down to a common-denominator so you can reach the largest majority of your visitor’s needs without becoming too diluted in your pitch.
Use The Third Degree
Once your purchase paths are built out, review them. Put yourself in your consumer’s shoes and take a real live walk-through of every aspect of the path you’ve carved out. Does each step link to the next? Are the questions being answered in sequence? Does the copy anticipate potential objections that come into your head? Is the flow of the pitch seamless, natural and compelling? Are there redundant steps in the process? Are there obstacles to conversion? Is key information missing?
As you review the purchase path look for broken links, grammatical errors, and most importantly missing calls-to-action. Patch holes, fill cracks, take out superfluous steps and add missing ones. Use your analytics to identify problem areas and test different versions to see which perform better. And never lose sight of your goal – to always ensure that each visitor finds exactly what they’re looking for.
Create and Test New Paths
Your initial phase of creating optimized purchase paths is be designed to hit the majority of your target audience. After that perfect trap has been set, it’s time to accommodate the fringe audience and pick up some of the extra loose change jangling around in cyberspace.
This means creating alternate purchase paths tailored to the “atypical” consumer of your product; anyone who is in the market for what you’re selling but whose buying pattern deviates from the norm. For these visitors you’ll want a slightly different content or messaging, which you can provide them by tweaking and modifying your original purchase path.
Don’t Stop Never Stop!
Never stop looking for new opportunities to improve your conversion process. Test, test, and test some more. Sometimes adding new steps in the process can help improve conversions among specific audiences. Just be careful to keep an eye out for any negative effects that your changes incur. The goal here is improvement, not to undermine the quality of work you’ve already done.
Pick The Right Cart
One last point. The shopping cart you use to finalize your transactions is absolutely essential to your success as an affiliate. A shopping cart with a single page, that has minimal steps and uses clear and concise fields always work best. Trust badges and other certification are required to establish trust with the consumer. High-converting carts are an art form so look into a number of different ones to compare conversion rates. If you’re cart doesn’t close the sale, all your hard work to get them there will be wasted!
3 Responses to A Plan of Attack For Maximizing Your Conversions
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Hey , i would like to say thank you about this amazing post, very helpful to me, Thank You.
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This is something that I feel I needed to read and am so glad that I came across it.
I have made a few sales but I’m at a very low conversion rate of 4%. I know my pre-selling is good, but the landing page seems to be my problem.
As an affiliate marketer promoting Clickbank products, I build review sites and write articles to direct to my review site. I have had no problem taking number 1 spots for the product, but still don’t have the conversions I would like.
This article has given me reason to go back to where I started and find improvement. I’ve been hoping I could have a one and done. Sealed and ready to go. Not the case and this makes it seem like it never is.
I feel like I’ve taken a step forward after reading this article. One more thing I need to do, test my stuff with different versions to find the best.
Thank you for all the help here.
Anthony Luth