How to convert website visitors into customers
Getting 10,000 hits a week on your website may be huge accomplishment for your business (and it is), but if at the end of the week none of those hits turn into a lead how do you measure your business’ success?
Knowing which metrics you need to be paying attention to is a crucial task for your marketing team. Whether you’re using Google Analytics or another custom web application, the data that you can learn about your customers – based on their actions online – is priceless. This data will help you create the kind of content that will convert your website visitors into customers, all in good time, of course.
Here are five metrics you should be looking for and measuring in 2014:
1. Customer Engagement
How do your customers interact with the content you digitally share? Do your customers frequently engage with your company’s LinkedIn page, respond to or retweet your tweets, or comment on your blog? If the answer is yes, you have a high level of customer engagement. It’s important to stay engaged with your customers (and potential ones) through these different types of media. The more your customers are engaging with you, the better.
Ignoring negative feedback on your Facebook page, Twitter or blog can be greatly detrimental to your engagement, however. Use these platforms as a customer service tool in order to leverage them to take full advantage of the power of your channels.
2. Conversions
Driving a high volume of traffic to your site is a great way to improve your SEO ranking, build brand awareness, and most importantly, sell your product. Create a definitive way to measure your website analytics and traffic in order to track conversions from your website. If you’re not seeing as many conversions, you may need to take a step back and reevaluate your website. Keep in mind that 55 percent of customers commit to a company because of the ability to find the information or help they need. Are there calls to action on your homepage? Is there easy to find content for consumers to download? And most importantly – how prominent are these calls to action for the untrained eye of your customer to locate?
3. Profit vs Revenue
Many companies generate a significant amount of revenue over the course of a fiscal year but still find themselves coming up short and often times operating at a loss. Expenses over the course of a year may outweigh the actual net profit the company earns. Throwing money at improperly used marketing tools and signing contracts can ultimately be a waste of money. Measure the ROI of these tools to make better buying decisions and save some money.
4. Customer Satisfaction
While this may be a difficult metric to gauge, there are several ways to measure customer satisfaction, both organically and through paid tools. Customer satisfaction is also one of the most important metrics businesses need to consider in order to promote a successful business. Create surveys for customers to provide qualitative and quantitative feedback. Follow product reviews and utilize your social media channels to keep an on what your customers are saying. The value of this type of data is priceless and will help your business plan for future product launches and train customer service representatives.
5. Returning Customers
The success of your business lies on the shoulders of your customers. If your customers are happy, they will keep coming back for more. But how do you ensure that your customers remain in your sales funnel until they are ready to make a purchasing decision again? Keep in touch with them! Send special offers, newsletters and create and distribute content that will keep your customers informed about your products and your industry in order to maintain a level of engagement with them, even when they are not interested in buying something. Businesses with a high number of returning customers will ultimately experience success and growth.