Attracting new visitors and converting them into customers for your brand is no easy task. For inbound marketers, this process often begins by changing website visitors into potential leads by persuading them to submit their contact information. How can your brand capture the interest of website visitors and entice them to come back for more?
That’s where conversion paths come in. In this article, Kissmetrics delves into the specifics of inbound marketing, a breakdown of conversion paths, and how to create your own innovative conversion paths.
What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is the business strategy of enticing potential visitors and customers. By attracting them to your brand instead of simply presenting services or products, you get the customers to invest in learning new ideas and concepts before being pushed into buying something.
Customers are attracted to innovative solutions and ideas. Reeling them in using conversion paths eventually leads to customers who are ready to complete a purchase because they’ve already invested time and thoughts into your brand.
Inbound marketing has changed significantly for the digital marketing world. Traditional inbound marketing relied primarily on advertisements like TV commercials or spreads in newspapers and magazines.
Unlike digital marketing, traditional marketing wasn’t interactive and had to present everything in a limited format. On the other hand, the internet gives brands innovative ways to pursue inbound marketing via social media, educational content creation using educational resources such as Studocu.com, and search engine optimization or SEO.
What Is a Conversion Path?
A conversion path takes a new visitor to your brand’s website and converts them into a potential customer. While the content and brands may differ, some aspects of a conversion path always come into play to entice visitors to register their contact information with your website.
With digital inbound marketing, brands can now interact with customers socially instead of pushing themselves or being “sales-y.” This type of marketing is customer-oriented, so you must understand your customers’ demographics.
Tracking your existing customers by age, locale, gender, and family structure are excellent starting points of information for structuring content.
Depending on your products or services, this content may demonstrate varying concepts, but the key is to relate the content back to your brand. For example, subtly show the reader that your brand is reliable and use a call to action to direct their attention towards your website’s landing page.
As we discuss below, the journey has multiple elements that work together to convert visitors to leads.
How Do Conversion Paths Work?
A conversion path guides the user from casual content reader to registered lead. Though they may not purchase at that time, they have signed up for your brand’s mailing list and will receive access to promotional offers down the line. With the right content and call-to-action, your brand can attract more potential customers.
An example of a conversion path at work may include:
- First, the visitor searches the question, “How do I know if my cat has fleas?”
- Your brand’s SEO content appears high in the search results with the title “How to Tell if Your Cat Has Fleas.”
- The visitor clicks on your brand’s content and learns relevant, accurate information presented in a friendly way.
- At the bottom of the page, there is a button or clickable link associated with a call-to-action that says, “Learn more about protecting your kitties from fleas and other diseases here.”
- Having become invested in the content, the visitor clicks the button.
- They are then directed to a page asking for their contact information to register with your website, where they can unlock a deal for a 30% discount for their first month of your brand’s flea and tick medication.
- The visitor registers and becomes a potential lead.
- The visitor finishes on a landing page thanking them for registering and where they receive a confirmation email with the discount code.
What Are the Parts of a Conversion Path?
There are five main elements of any good conversion path.
Well Written Content
The basic idea of giving a visitor answers to a question isn’t revolutionary. Many visitors will simply click on a webpage to get their answer and leave without giving it a second thought. Your brand’s content needs to stand out from the crowd and keep the reader interested with thought-provoking questions.
Well-written content is the beginning of your conversion path. It’s the first thing your visitor sees, so it needs to be excellent. Be sure to include credible sources throughout the page so that visitors will gain confidence in your brand’s credibility.
At the end of your content, include a call-to-action as their next step of the conversion path.
An Enticing Call-to-Action
A call-to-action turns the visitor from a passive reader into an active participant with more than just “Sign Up.” The best calls-to-action entice the visitor to learn more about the topic or explore products that can deliver the benefits mentioned in the content.
Calls-to-action often appear at the end of your content and feature a clickable button or link that leads to a landing page on your website.
Examples of calls-to-action include:
- Discover more with YOUR BRAND
- Try out YOUR BRAND risk-free!
- Watch YOUR BRAND’s new video
Appropriate Landing Pages
The call-to-action leads your visitor to a landing page where they are asked to input their contact information in exchange for a discount code, access to more information, a free trial with your service, or something else of value.
Of course, your offer must be valuable to them, or they won’t continue along the conversion path.
A good landing page includes a high-level overview of your product or service, as well as the benefits of using them. Be friendly without overwhelming them. Don’t be too pushy, or the visitor may not decide to enter their information. The best landing pages are customized for your customers based on their personas.
Optimized Thank You Pages
Once visitors have finished inputting their contact information, your conversion path will take them to a thank-you page. The thank-you page signifies that the visitor has nearly reached the end of the conversion path.
Depending on the structure of your conversion path and the offer advertised, leads may be able to download their reward for sharing their information on this screen. The thank-you page can also include other items like additional links to related content, products, or complimentary services.
Personalized Confirmation Email
The personalized confirmation email marks the end of the conversion path. If the user has signed up to utilize the website’s services, they may need to click through a link sent in the email, but it could also be another way to thank the customer and link them to related products or landing pages.
For companies worried about users signing up using fake emails, it might be prudent to include a personalized confirmation email that contains the offer advertised in your call-to-action.
Whether the discount code or other offer is sent through the confirmation email or is available on the thank you page depends entirely on personal preference.
Creating A Conversion Path
To effectively create a conversion path, you need to know about your customer personas. One of the main aspects of a customer persona is the channels through which they interact. For example, tracking customer metrics might reveal that your customers primarily click through your brand’s Facebook ads instead of Instagram or Twitter ads.
Understanding user behavior is critical for designing an appropriate conversion path that will initially draw new visitors and make them interested in completing the conversion. For example, understanding what steps the visitor went through, which pages they visited, and how long it took for them to become customers is essential to designing a successful conversion path for customers who follow.
Once you have created a conversion path, it’s vital to monitor the success. It’s best to make adjustments along the way to any of the elements if you don’t see the path living up to your expectations or gain new information about your customer personas.
Conclusion
Inbound marketing in the digital age puts the focus on the customers instead of the brands. By opening up the conversation and including customer preferences in the equation, brands can understand what their customers want and deliver those products and services more effectively.
Conversion paths are one way to take advantage of the social media era by rewarding visitors who want to learn more about your brand’s products.
Kissmetrics can help you track user behavior to craft a more effective conversion path and generate more leads.
Sources:
What Are Conversion Paths In Inbound Marketing? How Do They Work? | Transfunnel.com
