You made it your life’s motto to launch your product — followed all design and copy ‘best practices’, listened to every podcaster, and nailed your traffic numbers. Still, instead of the chiming sales notifications, all you hear are crickets every morning.

While you have read numerous good ideas about converting your traffic, the truth is you cannot just tell someone that you are the best and expect them to become your customer. You need to optimize your marketing strategy for conversions. 

In this article, let us explore the miracle tactic called conversion marketing and see how you can use it for your business. 

What is conversion marketing? 

At first glance, ‘Conversion Marketing’ as a term might look like an inflated and glorified version of marketing. But there is more than what meets the eye. 

Conversion marketing is a mix of tactics, approaches, and strategies specifically aimed at increasing the percentage of people who convert from being a visitor to a buyer on your website. 

Technically, it pushes users further into your buyer’s journey to complete your desired action — buying something on your website, filling out a form, or downloading a lead magnet. 

In the simplest terms — it is like grabbing the attention of pedestrians walking on a sidewalk toward what is good on the inside. One can do this by giving them a glimpse of the beautiful experience on the other side. 

Read More: What is Conversion Strategy?

Why do you need a conversion marketing plan? 

No one needs to tell you how important converting your traffic into sales is. Without it, you do not have a business; you have a hobby. 

Conversion marketing helps you turn a vanity metric into tangible results like sales revenue or warm leads, and here is why you need a plan: 

• Your industry is highly competitive — Every day, thousands of entrepreneurs plunge into launching their businesses. 
• User attention is at an all-time low — Your audience can barely focus on a website or landing page for more than a few seconds. 
• Test hypothesis about the product, pricing, or feature — If people buy a product at a price and leave positive reviews, more people in the same category will buy too. 

How are conversion marketing campaigns created? 

You have just read about the importance of conversion rate optimization (CRO) and building a conversion strategy. You also read how more companies plan to spend more or the same budget on conversion marketing campaigns. 

All the hype and discussion around conversion marketing got you thinking — how do these people set up conversion campaigns? Well, here is a simple process: 

• Find the culprit — Why are people not converting on your website? 
• Make changes — A/B test elements to check if that has any impact on conversions.
• Record, analyze, and repeat — Record and analyze the results to improve conversions. 

In a recent blog about Voice of Customer examples, we covered how Taskworld used heatmap analysis to find out why people are not signing up. That helped them improve conversions. If you are also thinking about how to improve your conversion metrics, here are a few ideas:

• Always have an easy-to-navigate website with prominent CTAs.
• Use high-converting landing page templates with value-add elements. Here is an example that I like from CI CD Consulting.
• Add videos and social proofs to your landing pages.
• Try and test various combinations of elements like button colors, banner texts, page copy, product descriptions, etc., to improve conversion rates. 

Fun Fact: Google tested 41 different gradations or shades of blue to decide which color would generate maximum clicks on search page results back in 2009. 

You do not need to be so ‘intense’ at your conversion marketing tactics like Google. But if you want to make an impact, here are a few helpful articles: 

Conversion marketing best practices. 

If you are in a hurry or do not feel like reading a bunch of other blogs, here are a few proven best practices to help you improve your conversion strategy: 

A/B Test Everything: Never assume the impact of any element on your landing page or website. Instead, A/B tests everything from the color of your buy now button to the headline text. 

Personalize: Personalize every part of your customer experience — from website copy to email campaigns, even chat conversations. Segment your users, and send them personalized campaigns because customers choose to buy from businesses with a personalized shopping experience. 

Optimize for Mobile screens: Always use mobile-responsive websites and email templates because 60% of customers prefer brands that allow direct checkout via their smartphones. Bad user experience on mobiles can reduce your chances of conversion. 

Add High-Quality Product Images: Never compromise with product image quality. Always use high-quality visuals that accurately represent your product on the website. 

Use compelling call-to-action buttons: Your call-to-action copy and buttons should be really strong. A lazy call to action can fail to grab attention toward completing the purchase. 

Interested in best practices + real-life examples? Check out this blog on conversion optimization tips.

Tools to boost conversion rates.

Looking for some software assistance to help you maximize your conversion rates? Here are some of our favorites:

• Unbounce: Build and test high-converting landing pages with ease.
• Hotjar: Find where your customers spend the most time on your landing or product page.
• Vwo: Experiment and A/B test your content, product features, and other elements.
• GapScout: Get access to the voice of customers and gather insights to validate your hypothesis for improving your conversion funnel. 

Drive sales and revenue growth with research-backed conversion marketing plan. 

Your conversion marketing plan is incomplete without paying attention to customer insights. You need to understand what your customers want before trying your hands on optimizing conversion rates. 

GapScout helps you research your competitors, customers, and find what they really want, even when they have not visited your website yet. Get insights to power your conversion strategy with GapScout. 

What’s next?

If you are interested in having a conversion marketing strategy for your business, then take the following steps:

1. Read the blog about building your conversion strategy.
2. Pick the right tools to get started with conversion rate optimization.
3. Listen to the voice of customers about what they expect from the online checkout experience using GapScout. 
4. Implement changes to your landing pages and most-active pages and see conversion rates improving.