Understanding Conversion in Online Marketing

by Maria Reyes-McDavis

Convert is far more technical and strategic than any other part of the IMPACT Marketing Formula. It’s made up of the strategies, measurements, and fundamentals of converting your ideal audience into a qualified lead and/or purchase. It’s the point at which all your Target, Engage, and IMPACT efforts culminate and you either see results (ie the purchase) or you don’t.

Note: This post is an excerpt from the 30 Days 30 Ways Free Online Marketing Program

Activities in Convert cover everything from your copy, to your landing pages, your lead generation forms, to how your sales or point of purchase is setup. The point of Convert is to optimize your ability to collect leads and make the sale. It also focuses on gathering the information you’ll need to make this process as optimized as possible.

Why Convert is Important

Without Convert, you’re eventually out of business. You need to convert your audience into leads that turn into sales. Period. You need to be systemized and purposeful in everything you do to convert leads into sales. Slamming an optin form on your blog/website and hoping it catches leads is not going to cut it. There’s really not much more that could be said here

Understanding the components of Convert

Convert is made up of all components of your online presence that do one of two things:

Collect lead data;
and/or make the sale.

Note: If you’re wondering why analytics and tracking are not included in this, stay tuned for Monitor Convert considerations that will need to be made…

How should I use landing pages to collect leads?
What types of lead forms should I have on my website and/or blog?
What information should I collect when getting the lead?
When should I collect the lead?
How do I optimize my lead and sales pages?
What are the “friction factors” on my forms that reduce lead generation and how can I fix them?
How do I know if my forms and sales pages are collecting the most leads possible?
How do I optimize the sales experience to increase buyer confidence?

Convert is the first part of optimizing, testing, improving… over and over and over. You have to understand what stops your audience from becoming a lead/sale and what motivates them. You have to understand how to setup a system of collecting leads that takes your audience through a process which ultimately leads to the sale process. The good thing about Convert is there are best practices and standards. There will also be testing and data, in Monitor, that will help you optimize your conversions — if your systems are setup right.

What Convert means for your business…

Convert will help you optimize your lead generation and sales. Without it, you’ll likely determine success or failure based on activity or non-activity, making decisions based solely on immediate returns rather than the entire picture. There is so much more you can do to make sure your process and experience for the customer/client is optimized to get the lead/sale. With proper consideration, you’ll be able to collect data on your performance, look at that data and spot opportunities that will increase your bottom line. As well, you’ll know what’s not working and those things that are ultimately hurting your bottom line.

About the Author...

Maria Reyes-McDavis is a colossal geek brainiac, certified genius IQ with university degrees in Finance, Economics, Business Management and an MBA. Maria has served over 300 pro-level, digital marketing clients as founder of online marketing firm Digital Peas & Carrots. Maria is Founder and Editor of Hyphenated Americans, a conservative politics blog and Proverbs 31 Project an online women's ministry. Most importantly, Maria is a wife to her king, mother of 3, lover of basketball (Go Lakers & Clippers!), classic cars and is currently training for professional women's roller derby!