The Beginner’s Guide to
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: Why You Need Conversions Before the Checkout
CHAPTER 2: What Is a Conversion Before the Checkout?
CHAPTER 3: How Can You Prompt a Conversion?
CHAPTER 4: Real Life Pre-Transactional Content Examples
CHAPTER 5: How to Create a Conversion Path
CHAPTER 6: Following Up and Nurturing Into a Sale
CHAPTER 7: Ready to Get Started?
CHAPTER 1: Why You Need Conversions Before the Checkout
By the time a visitor is getting to your website, are they actually ready to buy? In fact, 99% of first time visitors are not ready to purchase. They’re on your website to research and explore the options available to them. But, it’s likely that all of your marketing is focused on the 1% of people who are ready to make the purchase.
OF FIRST TIME VISITORS ARE NOT READY TO PURCHASE
Instead of trying to increase your traffic, what if you focused on converting just 1% more of that traffic? You’d probably see a significant impact on your revenue and bottom line. By expanding your marketing efforts beyond just that 1%, you’ll be able to build your pipeline of prospective buyers. How are you engaging with the 99% of prospective customers who aren’t ready to buy? Are you capturing their information so you can follow up? Are you giving them any opportunities besides adding an item to their cart and checking out? If the answer is no, your bottom line is losing out. If you focus on capturing the information of these prospective buyers, you can follow up with them. And if you can follow up with them, you can nurture them into a sale (or sales!).
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CHAPTER 2: What Is a Conversion Before the Checkout?
A conversion before the checkout is also known as a pre-transactional conversion. Pre-transactional conversions are an opportunity for you to gather contact information from your prospective buyer on your site before they purchase. Simply, it’s any conversion on your website prior to the purchase. You’re trading something that the prospective customer thinks is valuable, whether it’s a discount or content, for something that you think is valuable (their contact information and preferences). You need to think about it like an exchange – there’s no incentive for a visitor on your website to provide their information to you, unless you’re giving them something equally valuable in return.
PRE-TRANSACTIONAL CONVERSION: An opportunity to gather contact information from a prospective buyer on your site, before they purchase.
You can create a framework of these pre-transactional offers that appeal to visitors who are not ready to buy, but would like learn more. By placing these offers on highly trafficked pages on your site, you can cultivate a database of contacts to engage with via email marketing or enroll into automated email nurturing to continually drive revenue.
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THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT PARTS OF PRE-TRANSACTIONAL CONVERSIONS: 1. VALUE AND ENGAGEMENT
The content in pre-transactional offers needs to be both valuable and engaging enough that someone is willing to exchange their information for it. The more valuable the content, the more information you can ask of your prospective customer. Additionally, the content or offer needs to be engaging. If it’s an extremely dry whitepaper or an uninspiring infographic, no one is going to want to engage with the content and continue to share it!
2. CAPTURING INFORMATION
Additionally, any pre-transactional content needs to have some way to capture this information exchange. Essentially, this means having a form to collect the information that prospective customers are offering you. The more information and value you’re providing, the longer your form can be. Initially, for a less valuable piece of content, you may only ask for email, but on a later or more extensive piece of content you can ask for more specific pieces of information, like preference data or phone number.
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CHAPTER 3: How Can You Prompt a Conversion?
THE THREE STANDARD CONVERSION OPPORTUNITIES: The majority of ecommerce websites rely on three specific conversion opportunities:
1. Sign Up to Receive Our Newsletter
2. Subscribe to Our Blog
3. Add to Cart
The issue with only providing these three conversion opportunities is that they are at the exact opposite ends of the marketing funnel. Signing up to receive a newsletter and subscribing to a blog are at the very, very top of the funnel and early on in the purchasing process. Adding something to a cart is at the very bottom of the funnel, since it is the step immediately before purchase. To increase your bottom line, you need to be engaging with the 99% of first-time visitors who aren’t ready to purchase through a framework of offers.
TO DISCOUNT OR NOT TO DISCOUNT? One of the ways that ecommerce merchants often provide value for this exchange of information is through discounts. “Subscribe for 10% off your next purchase” or “Subscribe for free shipping on your next purchase.” While this is one way to provide value to prospective customers, you need to go beyond the discount code. You can provide value through engaging content instead of discounting, and you aren’t forced to take a hit on your average order value or customer lifetime value. The same applies for product giveaways. Often times, product giveaways will have a high rate of submission, but fewer sales. When you think about it, people hunting for the biggest deal and wanting free stuff might not be the most likely to purchase. Content offers typically lead to loyal customers that are more likely to make a purchase. That said, if you’re offering product samples at a low price point or included in purchases over a certain amount, you can drive product adoption for higher value items or items you’re trying to clear from inventory. The Beginner’s Guide to Conversions Before the Checkout
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CHAPTER 4: Real Life Pre-Transactional Content Examples
Let’s take this from the abstract to the actionable with real-life examples. These are common types of conversion opportunities that we’ve seen ecommerce companies have success with: •
Newsletter Subscriptions
•
Buying Guides
•
Blog Subscriptions
•
Beginner’s Guides
•
How it Works
•
Recipe Books
•
Design and Style Guides
We’ll go into each and identify examples from a variety of companies, so you can determine which of these types of content might be a good fit for your own company.
NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTIONS: Newsletter subscriptions are one of the most common pre-transactional offers on ecommerce websites. Frequently, these offers are shown interstitially upon first visit. Many companies trade a discount on a first purchase or free shipping on a purchase for an email address. Newsletter subscriptions are a natural fit since the expectation of follow up is baked into the offer. By giving your email, you’re expecting to be contacted by that company. Managing expectations around the type of contact visitors are opting into (e.g. a weekly newsletter, tips, product suggestions, sales, etc.) is helpful in ensuring that visitors are expecting this follow up, and reduces friction on the form.
On an interstitial pop up, Bonobos (an online menswear retailer) offers free shipping and 20% off your first order, which is a clear value add for the prospective shopper. To try and close the visitor into a customer more quickly, the offer is time-limited – prospective shoppers have to purchase within 48 hours of signing up to be eligible for the discount.
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Similarly to Bonobos, DENY Design (a home accessories and décor company) offers 10% off your first order on an interstitial pop up. But unlike Bonobos, the offer isn’t time-constrained. DENY Design also goes a step further by asking for both email and zip code. But, to balance the increase in information they’re asking for, they also add additional value by mentioning that subscribers also get access to “first peek for sales” and “décor ideas.”
Birchbox, a subscription beauty company, offers a discount off your first purchase over a certain value in their interstitial pop up. This is one way to ensure that while you’re prompting the purchase, you aren’t also taking a huge hit on revenue generated from these customers. Because Birchbox does have some low price items, this ensures that the average order value is high enough for this initial purchase, even if the customer does not return. Birchbox also collects preference information with the subscription prompt. Subscribers can opt into hearing more about beauty or grooming. With this information, Birchbox can tailor the newsletter subscription by including the most relevant products to their interest. Finally, the thank you for the interstitial pop up immediately gives subscribers the opportunity to subscribe to the monthly subscription service that Birchbox offers. Even in these two screens, Birchbox creates a clear hierarchy of their desired outcomes. The first is to capture the information of the visitor, and the second is to get them to subscribe to their monthly offering.
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Instead of going immediately for the discount, J. Crew’s interstitial pop up emphasizes that signing up will allow you to get their “style news before anyone else.” As an apparel company with a broad base of interested visitors, focusing on the value that the newsletter will add to the visitor’s inbox reduces friction on the form. It also helps that other promotions that J. Crew is running are visible in the background of the page.
Similarly to J. Crew, Sperry (shoes and nautical gear for men and women) emphasizes the value add of their newsletter. The newsletter includes the opportunity to win free shoes every month, seasonal offers, special promotions, as well as inspiration. While the visitor isn’t immediately receiving something, like the earlier examples that are offering discounts, the post-conversion follow up path is very clear.
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BLOG SUBSCRIPTIONS: Slightly less common than newsletter subscriptions is the opportunity to subscribe to a company’s blog. Like newsletters, blog subscriptions are convenient because visitors who subscribe are expecting to get valuable content from their subscription, so it is natural opportunity to follow up with that content. There are two big challenges with blog subscriptions. The first is that blog content needs to be compelling so someone would want to trade their information for it. The second is the frequency of blogging efforts needs to be consistent so visitors who have given you their information hear from your company with frequency.
Maggy London is a women’s apparel company and offers the option to subscribe to email updates from the blog. Their blog contains Q&As with bloggers and trendsetters, style guides, and detailed pieces on specific topics, e.g. “Your Guide to Necklines.” Their blog also has a lot of multimedia that features their products prominently, like GIF header images, videos, and even illustrations. They post about twice a week, so they’re engaging with their subscribers with a variety of valuable content with regular frequency.
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Honest Kitchen is a human-grade pet food company. Signing up to receive blog updates is extremely prominent on their blog. In fact, to reach any blog posts you have to scroll past the blog navigation and subscription module! Their blog features DIY projects, recipes, and tips and tricks for pet owners.
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HOW IT WORKS: How It Works content goes a little bit further than just sharing and collecting an email address, it starts to collect more in depth information about visitor’s preferences. Instead of an FAQ, which can be dry, you can create a How It Works page, that is an interactive way to enable visitors to highlight different products based off their own preferences (and capture that preference information for follow up). While this can require a bit of coding, the result is a quick and easy way to give “tire kickers” a taste of what they would be purchasing, while gathering their email address and some preference data. This preference data is valuable because you can use it to personalize your email marketing by sending nurturing emails and content based on preferences. Engaging with potential customers based off products that are relevant to their interests, rather than a generic promotion, makes them more likely to purchase.
Citrus Lane is a subscription box company for children’s goods, and they have created a How It Works page for potential customers to preview sample boxes based on their preferences. Once you enter your email and your child’s birthday, based on the age of your child, they show some of the products that have recently been included in boxes for those age groups.
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DESIGN AND STYLE GUIDES: Overall, guides are a great pre-transactional conversions opportunity, since they lend themselves to being informative and helpful, rather than being too sales-focused. Design and style guides in particular focus on showing potential customers how they can use your product, which enables them to understand how they can benefit from it.
Linda McDougald Design, an interior design firm, puts together a seasonal guide to preparing your home for fall. Since the guide has a seasonal focus, it opens the door for other seasonal guides on how to prepare your home, as well as other short guides focusing on specific areas of the home. Additionally, they can update the guides each year to be focused on that year’s trends and products.
BUYING GUIDES: For larger or more complicated purchases, buying guides can be a fantastic way to engage with your customers. As potential customers are searching for more information on these larger or more complicated products, they’ll find your helpful and informative buying guide with the details they need to make a purchase. Based on the guide they download, you can collect preference information (and ask for more information from them since the guide is valuable). Additionally, having a library of guides sets you up as a trusted advisor to these potential customers and an authority on the subject matter. Yale Appliance has an entire section dedicated to appliance guides that they’ve built up over the years. You can see their general appliance buying guide here. They also go into greater depth, with multiple refrigerator buying guides – one focused on the different types of available refrigerators, the other taking an even deeper dive into a specific type of refrigerator. Because these are larger purchases, buyers are more likely doing research before taking the plunge, and these guides can easily be found online. Once Yale Appliance knows the appliance a potential customer is interested in, they can send them relevant and timely content to help them with that purchase. The Beginner’s Guide to Conversions Before the Checkout
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BEGINNER’S GUIDES: Similar to buying guides are beginner’s guides. Instead of focusing on what attributes a buyer is looking for in your product, it takes it a step further back and demonstrates how a buyer would use your product and why they would need a product like yours. This is a valuable piece of content to help buyers get started with your product or the types of products that you’re selling, since someone who is already familiar with your product will not be downloading a beginner’s guide.
How to Succeed Using Market Research
by Ashlan Bonnell
Here’s a B2B example from MarketResearch.com, a business intelligence vendor. They put together an ebook on “How to Succeed Using Market Research.” One of the types of buyers they’re trying to reach are people who are not familiar with market research and may be interested in getting started with it. This guide is perfectly positioned to identify these potential customers and share a piece of informative content that highlights the value of the market research to this curious buyer. Additionally, because the ebook goes into great depth about market research, MarketResearch.com can ask for more detail on the form in front of the download and learn more about their potential customers.
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Greens+ Guide No. 1
Beginner’s Guide to Superfoods
For Healthier, Happier Lives
A
Today, everyone has heard of the healing power of Superfoods: from the antioxidants in blueberries, to the heart benefits of dark chocolate and the healthy omega 3’s found in chia seed. But what are superfoods? And how are they different from ordinary foods? All foods can be placed into one of three categories: Junk foods, Common foods or Superfoods An analogy we use to compare the 3 categories of food is the octane rating for gasoline. A measure of the rate that fuel burns in an automobile, octane determines the efficiency and power output of the engine.
common foods
The higher the octane rating, the slower the fuel burns. Regular, low-octane fuel burns too fast for high performance engines, resulting in engine ‘knock’ and accelerated wear and tear. High-octane, slower burning fuel provides better gas mileage, more efficient exhaust elimination and greater engine output.
super foods
junk foods
advanced multis
green foodometer
TM
Your body’s trillions of individual cells contain little engines called mitochondria. These tiny powerhouses ‘burn’ or utilize the nutrients absorbed from the foods you eat to create energy. Just like an automobile, your body’s mitochondria will produce more energy and more efficiency with premium quality fuel. Junk foods are highly-processed products loaded with calories, unhealthy fats and tons of sugar. Foods such as candy, chips and soda contain very little nutritional value apart from the energy released by ‘empty’, low-octane calories. Synthetic chemicals used in processing create a toxic ‘exhaust’ when burned by the body, resulting in poisonous by-products that must be eliminated. Regular consumption of junk foods promote long-term deficiencies and cause many health problems down the road.
JUNK FOODS
LOW LOW
candy sugar octane trans fat chipsnatural octane FUEL 100% FUEL soda high-fructose corn syrup
Common foods are considered regular dietary fare for most people, and include such run-of-the-mill staples as bread, rice and pasta. Common foods contain important nutrients such as dietary fiber and some vitamins and minerals, but are composed mostly of carbohydrates.
also does a fantastic job with their beginner’s
While not as low-octane as junk foods, common foods are not particularly antioxidant-rich or provide any unique health benefits, and are considered only mid-grade fuel.
focused on buyers who are already interested
Superfoods, on the other hand, are considered high octane and premium quality fuel for human performance engines. In order for foods to be considered ‘super’, they must possess 4 qualities that distinguish them from common foods.
in and engaged with their health and superfoods.
COMMON FOODS
MID MID octane octane FUEL FUEL
bread rice pasta
carbohydrates carbohydrates carbohydrates
SUPERFOODS
HIGH HIGH octane octane FUEL FUEL
B
green foods superfruits sea veggies
chlorophyll antioxidants essential minerals
Not only are all superfoods 100% natural, but many are organically-grown. Contrary to cartoons and comic books, if food is chemically-created in a lab it is much closer to being junk food than super. Mother Nature is the ultimate laboratory, and recent studies prove that organically-grown whole foods are more nutritious as well as healthier for you and the environment.(1)
24 Superfoods qualities of
100% natural
nutrient-dense
health benefits
ORAC factor
Nutrient-density, or a high nutrient-to-calorie ratio, is a good indicator of food’s overall health benefits. While Superfoods can be high in calories, they are always accompanied by rich concentrations of essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants with a high ORAC Factor. Total ORAC, or Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, is the standard testing method used to measure antioxidant-rich foods, and higher numbers have a greater capacity to neutralize free radicals.(2) Superfoods like wheat and barley grass, spirulina, red apple and dark chocolate all have high-ORAC ratings and many antioxidants associated with unique health benefits.
C
As a rule, we should consume as many superfoods in our diet as possible, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices and lean sources of protein. When it’s simply not possible or practical to consume the five servings of fruits and vegetables recommended everyday, superfood powders provide a convenient way to consume our daily requirement.
green foods
superfruits
sea vegetables
herbs/spices
probiotics
D
Greens+, a nutritional supplement company,
multivitamins/minerals
Greens Plus has made it easy to choose just the right superfood for your needs, with 2 high-octane formulas: Organic Superfood, our high-octane product, is an essential blend of raw green foods, superfruits, sea vegetables and probiotics with a certified Total ORAC Factor of 12,712, equivalent to 4 servings of fruits and vegetables. Designed as a pure and simple formula with no bells and whistles, Organic Superfood is a good choice for those seeking a basic and affordable dietary supplement. Advanced Multi, our premium-octane product, is a blend of raw green foods, superfruits, sea vegetables, herb & spice extracts and probiotics, with algae calcium, magnesium, trace minerals and vitamin D3. Featuring a certified Total ORAC Factor of 17,177, one serving of Advanced Multi is equivalent to 6 servings of fruits and vegetables. Formulated as a complete whole food multivitamin, multimIneral and phytonutrient delivery system, Advanced Multi is considered the ultimate dietary supplement for your everyday needs.*
(1)
When choosing a complete superfood, look for products that contain a blend of green foods, superfruits, sea vegetables, herb & spice extracts, probiotic cultures, and whole food sources of additional vitamins and minerals. The best products also feature raw, non-GMO, 100% soy-free, dairy-free and gluten-free ingredients, and contain the minimum ORAC equivalent of 4 to 5 servings of fruits & vegetables.
Organic Superfood (3)
guides. The majority of their content is
But, they also put together a beginner’s guide for someone who may be interested in health and superfoods that hasn’t taken the plunge and explored that interest. Not only does this guide explain the value and importance of their products to someone who isn’t familiar, but it also is a useful learning resource for someone trying to take more control over their health. It also functions by attracting new subset of customers to their website.
Advanced Multi (4)
high
octane rating
premium
12,712
ORAC factor
17,177
4
servings fruit & vegetables
6
yes
greens foods
yes
yes
superfruits
yes
yes
sea vegetables
yes
no
herbs
yes
no
spices
yes
no
multivitamins & minerals
yes
The Quality Low Input Food Project, funded by the European Commisson. Prof. Carlo Leifert, University of Newcastle, UK, 2004-2009. (2) Total ORAC Scores tested by Brunswick Labs, Southborough, MA, 2013. (3) Organic Superfood values for Raw flavor only. Values for Wild Berry and Amazon Chocolate not listed. (4) Advanced Multi values for Raw flavor only. Values for Wild Berry and Vanilla Chai not listed.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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RECIPE BOOKS: Recipe books, like beginners’ guides or user guides, are a great opportunity to show buyers what they can do with your product. Especially when you’re selling ingredients, having a quick guide to recipe inspiration can help you sell more. They’re also helpful because they take the abstract (a single ingredient) and show the scope of what can be created (a finished recipe – with mouthwatering photography!).
Radiant Life, a natural healthy living company, produces a variety of recipes books and guides. This example in particular focuses on making coconut flour breads, using their coconut flour. The recipes showcase the benefits of the coconut flour, while also underscoring the versatility of a single ingredient. The photography inside the recipe guide is critical to helping a buyer visualize the delicious bread they’re going to make with coconut flour!
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THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, TOO: These are just a few varieties of the multitude of pre-transactional content offers you can create for your business. There’s no one size fits all solution. Instead, you need to think about what your potential customers are looking for and how your current customers are using your products.
This is an example of out of the box content from Killerspin, a premium ping-pong table and accessories company. The ebook isn’t about ping-pong, but instead focuses on innovative ways to increase productivity and motivation in the workplace. Ping-pong is one of the ways that you can increase productivity and motivation. Since most companies are trying to ensure that their employees are productive and motivated, so Killerspin is appealing to these buyers for their premium ping-pong gear. Unlike some of their other content, this guide is focused on a different perspective for why you may purchase a ping-pong table, and emphasizes the additional benefits of ping-pong beyond being an enjoyable game.
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CHAPTER 5: How to Create a Conversion Path
Now you’ve seen examples of pre-transactional offers for different types of ecommerce businesses, you need to strategically construct your pre-transactional offer. Pre-transactional offers have to capture the attention of the website visitor to the extent that they will take the next step by filling out a form, and trade their information for your content. Then, we’ll walk through the steps and highlight the conversion path for a single example.
THE FIVE ESSENTIAL PARTS OF A CONVERSION PATH: These are the five essential parts of a conversion path: • Call-to-Action •
Landing Page
• Form
1
•
Thank You Page
•
Follow up!
THE CALL-TO-ACTION: For people to find your offer, you need to have a call-to-action that points to it! Make sure the CTA button that leads to your offer is highly visible – you want the color to pop off the page. It should also clearly state what happens when a visitor clicks on it – for example, “Download Your Free Guide.” Place the CTA throughout your website on highly trafficked pages and at the end of blog posts. You can also use it on interstitial pages on your site.
2
THE LANDING PAGE: You place the offer on a landing page, and use the same landing page best practices that you would on any other landing page! You need a clear and compelling title with a clarifying subtitle, a descriptive image, and a few bullet points on what is contained in the content offer. If you’re using a pop up or interstitial CTA, you won’t necessarily be using a full landing page. Instead, you need to make sure that the copy on your pop up is clear and compelling to encourage visitors to fill out the form.
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3
THE FORM: This is the most important part. Since a pre-transactional offer is a “top of the funnel” offer, this needs to be as short as possible. But, you want to gather enough information to help understand your contacts. For a newsletter or blog subscription, the form could be as simple as one field – email address. For a longer pre-transactional offer, you can ask for more information. The more fields you add to a form though, the likelihood of friction increases and a reduction in completion could occur.
4
THE THANK YOU PAGE: The thank you page is usually where you deliver the content offer (you can also send it over email). It also gives you the opportunity to add the next step towards nurturing the prospective customer down the funnel into a purchase. You can urge them to “Contact Sales” or add something to their cart, now that you’ve captured their contact information.
5
THE FOLLOW UP: The follow up is critical to the success of your pre-transactional offers! After all, there’s no value to you collecting all of this information from your visitors if you aren’t going to do anything with it. Ideally, once your pre-transactional offer goes live, you’ll have email automation in place to enroll new contacts into relevant drip nurturing campaigns. If you don’t have email automation in place, you can gather contacts via your offer and then intermittently send segmented emails. With pre-transactional offers, you’ll be able to get more visitors back to your site, into your store, and spending!
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WALKING THROUGH A CONVERSION PATH Going back to the recipe book example from Radiant Life, let’s walk through the conversion path to download this pre-transactional offer.
On Radiant Life’s homepage, right in the slider, there’s a call-to-action to download the recipe guide. The color pops off the page so it stands out and you know where to click. Once you click on the call-to-action, you’re taken to a landing page that follows landing page best practices. There’s a nice image highlighting the recipe book, bullet points describing in more detail what the recipe guide contains, and an extremely simple form.
Finally, now that Radiant Life has started to build out a profile of your interests, they can market to you based on those interests. In this case, this is an email with a
Once you’ve submitted your email, you’re immediately
promotion that they’re running on frontier products. The
redirected to a thank you page that links directly to
more relevant the marketing to your interests, the more
the PDF of the recipe guide. This is the delivery of the
likely you are to make a purchase.
pre-transactional offer.
Overall, in exchange for your email, you have an entire recipe book about cooking with coconut flour. Even if you don’t immediately purchase from Radiant Life, you’re more likely to purchase from them in the future since they’re done you a service and provided you with inspiration. When you’re considering different brands, you’re more likely to choose Radiant Life because they’ve already provided value.
CHAPTER 6: Following Up and Nurturing Into a Sale
Now that you have a visitor’s contact information, you need to follow up with them! They’ve shared their information, so your goal is to continue to move them towards a purchase. The friendliest way to do this is to draw on the information you’ve collected from them, so they’re getting relevant communications from you. There are three critical things to keep in mind when following up:
1. SEGMENT YOUR DATABASE: You don’t want to send one-size fits all email, especially to people who have shared information with you! You can create segments based on different information – for example, someone who downloaded a specific offer or looked at a specific product page. This ensures that the follow up interaction is specific to that person’s interests. People are more likely to engage with content that is relevant to them (no surprise there!)
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2. PERSONALIZE BEYOND FIRST NAME: We’ve all gotten the dreaded email that starts: “Hi FNAME!” By segmenting your database, you can have increasingly personalized interactions with your database. These pre-transactional conversion opportunities are giving you an opportunity to get to know your potential customer, so you need to react to that. Don’t send someone who has downloaded a specific product guide a blanket newsletter meant for visitors where you don’t have preference information that doesn’t mention the product category they’re interested in. Personalization is key to making sure you’re relevant to your new contacts.
3. LEVERAGE AUTOMATION Automation goes hand in hand with segmentation and personalization since it facilitates many unique interactions. It’s an opportunity for one-to-many personalization, without sending hundreds of individual emails. Through automation you can set up campaigns based on certain triggers, so they are automatically sent, and emails that swap out products and offers based on interests. Ultimately, when following up, you need to segment your database, personalize beyond first name, and leverage automation to do that. Targeted follow up communications are critical to the success of a pre-transactional conversion strategy.
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CHAPTER 7: Ready to Get Started?
Ecommerce merchants are sometimes concerned that if they give visitors another action to take besides the purchase, their sales will suffer. But, the goal of these conversion opportunities isn’t to interrupt the purchase path of prospective customers that are about to buy. Instead, the goal of these conversion opportunities is to engage with the 99% of first-time visitors who are not there to immediately make a purchase. If someone gets to your website with the strong intent to purchase, they aren’t going to be sidetracked or put off by these opportunities. And, if you see content creation as a barrier to entry, you should remember that there are a multitude of ways to get started. You can repurpose popular content or blog articles and put them into a guide, or create a style guide based on your most recent product photographs. Over time it’s better to create new content if you can, but when you’re getting started you should use the content you already have. Once you’ve created a series of pre-transactional opportunities, you’ll be able to make the most of the 99% of visitors. Instead of focusing on increasing the amount of traffic to your site, you’ll be able to leverage your current traffic numbers to generate more revenue.
Created by: Susannah Morris | @swmorris2 | Ecommerce Marketing Manager, HubSpot
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