Aqueduct: Conversion rates online are falling. What should you do?

We've been noticing a trend with our clients in falling online conversion or sales. Why? There is a saturated, mature digital market and increased economic pressure so customers are looking around more for the best deals. There is now increasing marketing spend accountability. We recommend 10 steps for businesses to tackle this decline.

1. PRODUCT LINE / PRICING

Don’t lose the quality of your brand just to be price competitive
Consider a ‘no frills’ price competitive product offering, separate from your mainstream brand (e.g. enterprise software company Citrix have introduced a new product GoToMyPC for individuals and small business)
Offer unique product ranges with customer personalisation or unique product packages that are hard to compare (e.g. 5 year warrantees, free service) – Dell is a great example of this approach
Move products into a licensing model to leverage ongoing revenues (e.g. office supply companies)

2. OPERATIONS

Don’t just focus on increasing conversion, increase profitability per unit by optimising operations
If selling online, make sure your business is optimised to operated online (e.g. electronic workflow, automated processes)
If you improve back office operations, price efficiencies can be passed on to customers

3. SEEK INCREMENTAL REVENUES

Turn each website visit, conversion or sale into another opportunity for revenue
Consider third-party advertising on your website (e.g. Google ads, related B2B services)
For sales - promote add-ons, upsell, cross-sell and offer third-party products/services (which may be white-labelled under your brand e.g. insurance)

4. ACQUISITION

Monitor the life time of customers per acquisition channel and filter out the costly channels which don't deliver profitable ongoing customers
Make the most of digital marketing channels and latest technologies available such as search marketing, affiliate marketing, display, email, professional marketing, online pr

5. RETENTION

Nurture existing customers and invest in retention
Retention is typically more effective spend than acquisition
Regularly contact your customers, at least every 3 months even if you only need to contact them once a year
Give incentives for loyalty and referrals

6. HUMAN TOUCH

Reassure customers that real people are there to help, customers can talk to agents through the channels in a live environment (e.g. online chat)
Encourage customer feedback (e.g. surveys) and reviews that are published with the products, reassure through evidence that peers are purchasing

7. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Consider the influences on customer decision about the purchase throughout the purchase process i.e. features & benefits, peer review and removing any purchase fears, clear brand positioning (what we call the ‘sphere of influence’)
Acknowledge users' purchasing methods, price comparison, browsing multiple sites as the same time, quick decisions based on features or price, browsers who like to explore the product. Make sure you're catering for this
Make sure your landing page hooks people in, considering the variety of purchasing methods
Is your site search good? Replace with a free alternative (e.g. Google) if users can’t find what they’re looking for
Have an unrelenting focus on customer experience

8. BUILD ON THE STRENGTHS OF DIGITAL

Utilise the web for its biggest strength - speed and agility, respond to market changes and customer feedback, ensure you have mechanism to gather feedback from customers and the market and processes to react to this
Your online product line does not necessarily need to reflect your offline product line i.e. discounts online to encourage customers to interact with a more profitable sales channel, increased product range
If you have a global audience, are you providing a local experience i.e. are you showing US customers UK GBP prices? Are you providing sufficiently niche information for your audience?

9. OPTIMISING / TWEAK N MEASURE YOUR SITE

Small changes may have significant impact on conversion
Use free services to tweak and test (e.g. Google optimiser, and Google analytics)
Do some basic user testing – find appropriate target customers and watch them complete tasks on your website

10. BEYOND YOUR SITE

Many prospect customers are making decisions about your products and service outside of your website
Consider the impact of other channels (e.g. stores, sales, service and delivery staff)
Look at answer forums, review sites, blogs and competitor websites

In summary,