Conversion rate: Online marketing’s Holy Grail

Jackie Sauter
Daily Record Web Editor
July 31, 2009

 In an earlier column, I wrote an overview of ways you can use social media to support or grow your business. I’ve also written about the basics of calculating social media’s Return on Investment.

 Let’s dig a little deeper here. After all, this is the whole ballgame: Can social media be used to make money? What does it actually contribute to your business goals? If it can’t do these things, game over.

 I said that the first step is to set your goals and document them. Pick realistic ones: to improve your corporate reputation, use social media for customer relationship management or gain e-mail addresses for your e-mail marketing lists.

 Then you need to pick a plan of attack. Will you achieve these goals through a paid search campaign? By “word of mouth” on social networks? Or by promoting Web-only discounts?

 It’s not all about money

 I want to be clear: There are plenty of meaningful business developments in Social Media Land that don’t involve the direct exchange of money for goods. If a follower shares your content on a popular network, actively watches your video or participates in an interactive game on your site, those are important milestones and no doubt helpful to your brand.

 Often the business purpose social media serves is as an avenue to gain insight into buyers’ motivations. When Disney realized that the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie wasn’t attracting viewers based on the action sequences, it turned to a marketing agency, EarthBound Media Group, which turned to social media. Turns out, the movie’s draw centered more on “It” actress Keira Knightley.

 The almighty conversion

 Part of the challenge here is simply getting people’s attention. You accomplish that through solid ad copy (for a paid search campaign), an engaging personality (on Twitter) or an event seemingly custom-tailored for the viewer (Facebook targeting).

 The other — and bigger — part of the challenge is achieving a conversion. Online marketing campaigns are judged by their conversion rate.

 How do you get someone who’s curious about your brand to make a purchase? For those of us in mainstream media, a conversion is (usually) identified as a subscription purchase.

 First, you’ve got to continue the message that hooked the consumer in the first place. If you have a paid search advertisement touting your $30 limited-offer special, you need to direct the customer’s click to a targeted landing page on your Web site that provides details and an easy-to-use order form.

 This also helps you, the marketer, deduce what percentage of visitors to that page sign up for your offer — which gives you another place to experiment with ad copy effectiveness.

 DON’T send the customer’s click-through to your home page. You’ll never see him or her again. Home pages have the lowest conversion rates when it comes to purchasing, because there’s no specific call to action in place and the user quickly gives up the search.

 Finally, make sure your conversion goal is realistic. Asking someone to sign up for a free e-mail alert is a reasonable goal; expecting to sell hundreds of expensive subscriptions is not.

 Indirect business

 If you’re worried that you’ll never make it on social media conversions alone (how much can you really earn off a tiny fraction of your Web traffic?), you’re not alone. What you need to remember is that the primary goal of social media isn’t conversions; it’s hyperlinks.

 While you can’t expect everyone who follows you on a social network to buy something, you can reasonably expect that a number of them will link to your site. This, in turn, will boost your site’s page rank on search engines for quality keywords that bring in quality traffic. So, A (social media) drives B (page rank), which leads to C (more quality conversions).

 I know it can sound like alphabet soup, but these topics are critical for e-commerce success. And while it’s important to keep your ROI in mind, remember those side benefits that come from a strong social media campaign.

 Jackie Sauter is Web editor of The Daily Record. Contact her at jackie.sauter@mddailyrecord.com and follow her on Twitter @jackiesauter and @mddailyrecord.

  
Found:
http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cfm?id=157475&type=Daily

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