It is extremely important to help your customers find the information they need to make an informed purchasing decision. Often I see websites who are extremely focused on pushing customers down the standard conversion funnel that has been set up within an analytics package.
Whilst this is a nice (and essential) thing to have which allows you tobenchmark different time periods, it is also important that the majority of people will never run through your conversion funnel step by step in the way that you would like.
The general approach by many websites is to push people down the standard conversion funnel to increase the amount of people who ultimately buy. Often this includes removing any ‘distracting’ areas on the pages so that a customers focus is purely on making the final purchase.
I tend to see this in a different light since most customer journeys aren’t quite as straight forward as that and can often look similar to the image below.
Whereby a customer is flicking backwards and forwards between different pages whilst trying to double check things or look for moreconfirmation that they are doing the right thing by purchasing your product.
So how can you get more people convert without forcing them down the standard sales funnel? Simple really, help them find the information they need and overcome their fears of purchasing.
Put yourself in the customers shoes and understand what they really need when purchasing a product. Also understand where they are in the greater purchasing funnel, are they just in the research stage of their purchase or are they ready to purchase immediately?
An interesting quote from Google recently was that customers who book a hotel room check, on average, 15 other travel websites prior to making a booking. 15 other websites! Try tracking that in a normal conversion funnel. Another quote was that 70% of people who book a hotel view a map of where the hotel is located prior to booking.
When trying to increase conversion the question should be asked, “Why does someone go to 15 other websites before booking? What information is missing from our website that a customer feels they have to go elsewhere to find?” When you can answer these questions and incorporate the missing content on your website I can guarantee that your conversion will increase.
If you have great content that is not available on competitor websites then a customer is going to perceive you as the more knowledgeable brand who will provide a better service. This is going to make people want to order with you.
Summary
Stop pushing people down your standard conversion funnel. Instead start to create some great content which answers customers queries. When customers see how amazing and detailed you are at providing the answers they need then conversion will increase by default. Why would a customer buy a product from someone else who doesn’t have a great website/detailed information if the cost of the product is the same?
Yes it is important to track everything and I am not saying not to do that, but understand that the buying process does not happen by someone visiting page 1, then page 2 then purchasing. The buying process for any product is complex and you need to be offering information every step along the way.
Purchasing is a multitude of different browsers, multiple tabs, multiple devices, various research on your site and off your site, then coming to an informed decision that you are the best option for them to purchase from you. Give customers what they need at every step of the process and they will buy.
Michael Cropper