Although the term “conversion” is typically considered synonymous with sales, on the Web the concept covers plenty more. Understanding how to recognize, encourage, and measure nonsales conversions can be a major boost to marketing organizations.
Broadly, a conversion is a measurable event that moves a subject toward a desired goal. It can happen on a Web site, Facebook (such as a “like”), Twitter (retweeting), or a non-online medium, such as a newspaper or magazine (sending in a response card). But however a conversion happens, it can be both tracked and analyzed, with the resulting information used to improve a marketing campaign.
In some cases, the purpose of a campaign isn't to generate sales, but to encourage some other form of action. “Blood banks recruit donors,” Tom Williams, founder and president of Inno Gage, a Columbus, Ohio-based consulting firm, told CMO.com. “They never know when the blood bank is going to need help. Their blog is there to generate top-of-mind in potential donors.”
This is only one example of a nonsales conversion. Others include getting people to sign petitions or volunteer for a political campaign.
And in some cases, online sales aren't practical. “For many of our clients, online sales just isn't an option,” Alex Hanson, PPC manager at Needham, Mass.-based marketing consultancy inSegment, told CMO.com. “For example, a B2B software company might have multiple licensing structures, modular software to create a custom package, and different pricing for virtualized machines. The sale can only happen over the phone or in person. Web site conversion becomes about lead generation in these cases.”
As a result, getting and measuring conversions is not easy. “There are so many different types of conversions that matter, and you have to keep all those things in mind,” said Ada Pally, digital marketing manager at Shopify, in an interview with CMO.com. “It's not just a single funnel. People might convert through a Web site, Facebook, or a brick-and-mortar store. Now they have those different options.”
And even on sales-oriented Web sites, conversion might mean more than a purchase. Many sites have a multistep process—the proverbial “funnel”--that the typical customer goes through before purchasing. This could include requesting more information, signing up for a newsletter or whitepaper, or even calling the company.
Getting Conversions
No matter how you define conversions, the first step is, of course, getting them. Companies put a lot of time, money, and ingenuity into getting people to convert. But it's not easy.
Part of a successful conversion strategy, especially on the Web, is to make the desired action as easy as possible. “Contact forms should exist on the page,” said Matt Fogel, vice president of Agendize Services, in an interview with CMO.com. “It's also important to reduce the clicks necessary to get to the conversion. One click if you can do it, but not more than two. We're a very impatient society these days.”
In Agendize Services’ work with clients, it has found that offering users different ways to convert helps to increases the rate of conversions, Fogel said. “In giving different ways to covert, you produce a greater opportunities for that ultimate sale,” he said.
With a Web site, in particular, this means the design has to be a balancing act. Not all visitors to a Web site are immediately ready to move to conversion, and it's important to provide paths for both the conversion-ready and those who are looking for more information.
“A lot of folks focus on transactions and making the path to purchase as short and sweet as possible,” David Nickelson, director of digital engagement at Siteworkx, a Reston, Va.-based consultancy, told CMO.com. “They have as few clicks as possible and as little information as possible.”
But, Nickelson said, “That presumes your visitors want to buy or are easily persuaded to buy by making the process easy. [That’s fine] in cases where you've got folks who have done a lot of research on the product that works. But a lot of times that's not how people really shop. They're generally starting somewhere closer to a learning process. You need to build a level of trust and information.”
Part of this preconversion process is building trust with the visitor. “One of the most important factors is trust,” Williams said. “At the end of the day, people buy from people. Especially in business-to-business situations, the trust factor is absolutely enormous, and building that credibility and trust is vital.”
Next: How to build that trust.
