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The BIG Conversion Rate Difference Between New and Returning Website Visitors
“The average website visitor makes at least 7 visits before making a purchase or enquiry”.
It’s one of those oft-quoted phrases on online marketing that doesn’t seem to have any definite source. While I’m not sure about the number 7 (it will in fact be lower or higher, depending on the industry and conversion strategy), I do know that returning website visitors enquire and buy much more readily than new visitors.
So you need a strategy to keep the conversation going with new visitors; to engage them and get them coming back for more. I almost always mention this in reports or presentations, yet a quick show-of-hands at a recent 3-day Exponential Marketing Bootcamp revealed that fewer than 3% of the 150 business owners present had a strategy for turning repeat visitors into returning visitors.
The difference between new and repeat website visitors
Google Analytics provides a useful “New vs Returning” report that allows you to segment a bunch of variables (e.g. conversion rate, average visitor value) by visitor type.
I recently ran this report did this for one of my ebook websites, with surprising results….
Exhibit A – Percentage New vs Returning Visitors
Google Analytics: New vs Repeat Visits for my ebook website
Exhibit B – Conversion Rate of New vs Returning Visitors
Google Analytics: New vs Repeat Visitor Conversion Rates
Exhibit C – Purchase Volume of New vs Returning Visitors
Google Analytics: New vs Repeat Contribution to Purchase Volume
As you can see from the screenshots above, Returning Visitors punch well above their weight, contributing nearly half of all sales on only 11% visitor volume.
But why are repeat visitors really buying?
Are they buying merely because of repeat exposure(s) to the same marketing message, or does the fact that they were interested enough to come back in the first place (i.e pre-qualified) make them a far easier prospect to convert?
In this case, I believe the second factor is more responsible for the conversion leap.
On the other hand, particularly for complex online lead generation scenarios (e.g. B2B, high-end or technical products or services), repeated exposures not to the “same” marketing message but the multiple dimensions of the benefits you offer is the surest way of increasing throughput of qualified, ready-to-buy sales leads.
What this means is: if you want to generate leads online for higher priced / complex / intangible products or services, you MUST have a strategy to get users back to your website again and again (even if your offering is simpler, it is still a very good idea).
In other words, you need an opt in strategy. It may sound like I’m flogging a dead horse, but remember, fewer than 3% of otherwise very switched on business owners in my mini-survey above had an opt-in strategy in place.
After you’ve enticed prospects to opt in, your next job is to provide value to your list, while “dimensionalising” the value of what you offer over multiple communications. The “hot button” that triggers one client (e.g. speedy delivery) may not be important to another – so you need to cover all bases.
The mechanics and “heavy lifting” of this process can be automated using an autoresponder service such as Aweber. But you also need the right strategy, copy and implementation to make the pieces fit together properly.
One of the keys to successful autoresponder sequences is a balance between information and education (content) and compelling reasons to enquire or buy (salesmanship). Most sequences fail to find this balance by being either too “stingy” with usable information or giving too much away without tying the content into the sales process.
Designing an effective repeat visitor strategy is one of the things we can help you with (although a waiting period may apply). But whatever you do, don’t do nothing — get those visitors coming back to your website where they’re 6+ times easier to convert into qualified prospects and clients.
About Marketing Results
As Australia’s leading internet lead generation experts, Marketing Results uses sophisticated web analytics to precisely understand how visitors are interacting with your website, then leverage proven traffic and conversion strategies to cut marketing waste, expand your reach and effectiveness and boost website profits by 2 to 21 times based on over 5 years of documented client results.
How To Use Print Newsletters As A Killer Customer Retention Tool
Although I focus on using the Internet to set up uber-profitable lead generation pipelines for our small business and corporate clients, there is one “offline” client retention strategy that I endorse above all others:
The monthly newsletter.
I’m not talking about the trite B.S. that passes for most company newsletters (if they publish anything at all), but rather relevant information and advice that your prospects WANT to tear open and absorb the moment they receive it in the mail.
ESPECIALLY if you’re in an “information-centric” industry with a high average transaction value, newsletters can add huge value to clients AND stack up well economically for you.
3 or 4 pages of content, plus relevant article clippings or exhibits of interest to your customers (i.e. leveraging other people’s content) is a simple formula that works.
Yes, putting it together involves an investment of time or money, but the returns can be well worth it. One concept I enlarged upon in one of my print newsletters to a client directly resulted in a $72,000 contract. Maybe I would have got the work anyway, but I would rather have it sooner rather than later 
And once the first copy is complete, the marginal cost of printing and sending each additional copy is marginal — less than $5.
Again, depending on your industry, you can even make the whole process cashflow positive by selling subscriptions to non-clients for, say, $37 per month on a good-till-cancelled basis. As long as you can create enough value to make the subscription price pales in comparison, it’s a goer. 1,000 subscribers @ $37 per month equals a $444,000 annual revenue stream. Sure, getting 1,000 people to sign up to your newsletter isn’t easy — you have to be great at what you do and great at marketing what you do.
But even if you only had enough subscribers to pay for the cost of the mailing, wouldn’t that be worth the value of keeping in touch with customers on a regular basis?
Although it sounds like heresy for an “Internet guy” to say this,Email communication just doesn’t cut it. Email is great for communicating with PROSPECTS, but once a prospect becomes a client the economics can usually support a print version.
Your customers can hold print newsletters in their hands, mark them up and annotate them, circulate them around the office with Post-It notes attached, and most importantly, NOT delete them from their overstuffed email inboxes (although the wastepaper basket is always within easy reach, so you have to be good.)
The best way to test this strategy is to commit to a number of issues (say 6 or 12) and follow through on your commitment. If it’s not worth the effort, there’s no harm done and you can stop doing it (though you’ll have 6 or 12 high-quality autoresponder emails in the can for your trouble.)
If you don’t have the time to co-ordinate this, speak to a copywriting or marketing agency who can handle the whole strategy for you. (I’m even considering offering this as a packaged service to clients, but I’m not actively marketing this at the moment).
Give it a try — I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.
Yes!, And Why You Should Endorse Your Own Great Work
I ‘ve just finished reading Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive by Cialdini et al. It’s a followup to Influence and, while not as good as the latter work, is still a worthwhile addition to any marketer’s bookshelf.
The book is organised into 50 vignettes of around 3 or 4 pages each on scientifically validated methods of persuasion. To me, one of the most useful chapters was on the effect that “Third Party Endorsement” can have on persuading others, even when the “endorser” is obviously closely connected with the “endorsed”.
It’s well known that it is more effective to have a third party endorse you than to sing your own praises. But what surprised me is how the “endorser” doesn’t have to be a “separate” from you as you might think. (Psychologists call this the fundamental attribution error: when observing another person’s behaviour, we tend not to give sufficient weight to the role situational factors (e.g. money) play in shaping that person’s behaviour.)
In one study, the researchers had a receptionist in the rentals department of a real estate office handle incoming enquiries in one of two ways:
- The “non-endorsed” version When an incoming call came in, the receptionist would simply respond, “Oh, rentals, you need to speak to Judy”.
- The “endorsed” version When an incoming call came in, the receptionist gave a mini-endorsement of Judy’s skills: “Oh, rentals, you need to speak to Judy, who has over fifteen years’ experience rending properties in this neighborhood. Let me put you through now.
With the second version, the real estate agents reported a signficant rise in the number of appointments they were able to close.
What appeals to me about this idea is its simplicity. It can be implemented into most incoming lead handling processes at no cost and allow you to close even more warm leads.
Gotta love that fundamental attribution error.
“Blue Ocean Strategy” Book Summary
Blue Ocean Strategy is all about creating UNCONTESTED market space in which you dominate the competition because there IS no competition! It is just as viable (and profitable) on the web as it is offline, and I believe it will become more so.
Right now, many companies (especially small businesses) are “surviving” on the web because of moderate traffic costs (particularly PPC) and competitors who, by and large, don’t really know what they’re doing.
As the competition heats up, “me-too” companies will be eaten alive, leaving only those with a well-executed internet strategy and tight conversion funnel will really prosper.
Click here for a useful Blue Ocean Strategy Summary in Slideshare format.
Top 10 Ways To Boost The Credibility And Persuasive Power Of Your Website
Credibility is one of the most important factors in converting website visitors into enquirers. It’s the nature of marketing pitches to make claims or promises about what you do and the results you can achieve. But getting website visitors to believe what you say is the key to generating more leads and expanding your online sales pipeline.
Here are 10 ways to boost the credibility of your marketing message so you can convert more clicks into cash:
Strategy #1: State the rationale (the Reasons Why)
Persuasion expert Robert Cialdini of Influence fame reports that detailing the reasons why your claims are true adds significantly to the believability of your message.
e.g. If you pitch yourself as “The Lowest Priced Luggage Retailer in Australia”, explain the reasons why this is so.
- You buy container loads at a time and take advantage of bulk discounts (show photos of the containers)
- Your warehouse is located in the suburbs, where you have a much lower rent and therefore lower overhead
- Your strategy is to sell more volume at lower margins in order to build a loyal base of repeat customers
- Most of your business comes via the Internet, avoiding the big media costs of your big-end-of-town competitors
Start explaining the rationale behind what you do and watch your credibility and conversions climb. Remember that it’s also important to explain the rationale behind a particular OFFER (especially discounts or sales). A Jay Abraham marketing aphorism that has always stuck with me is “You can’t discount your way out of a marketing problem — you need to educate your way out”.
Strategy #2: Case Studies and Testimonials
If I could only use ONE credibility-boosting strategy, Case Studies / Testimonials would have to be it.
Case Studies can be extremely powerful because they are at once specific, concrete and demonstrable examples of the RESULTS you have produced for customers, patients or clients. Rembember that your clients don’t buy products and services. They buy RESULTS.
It goes without saying that your testimonials need to be genuine. Some sites feature testimonials that sound, well, fake. They use too many superlatives and read like they’ve been ripped from the pages of a Hollywood B-movie script.
One of the best ways to accumulate a file of Case Studies is to provide your clients with a few guiding questions and have them respon in their own words. This will produce testimonials that sound authentic and “ring tue” to the reader.
You should also remember that Testimonials and Case Studies have become a standard feature on many websites. They can be easily ignored by website visitors UNLESS you go to the trouble of “exponentialising” them.
You can “Exponentialise” a Testimonial or Case Study by:
- Adding a headline
- Placing it in a Johnson Box
- Highlighting key phrases and results with bold or another form of graphical emphasis
- Adding a photo, audio stream or video stream from the testimonial provider
- Adding the client’s logo (especially if they are a well-known brand)
- Showing graphs, scanned documents, screenshots or other visual representations of results.
Strategy #3: Association Marks, Qualifications and Certifications
If you’re a member of any professional associations or other groups, place their logo on your website. This implies some kind of standing in your industry and can even constiture a 3rd party endorsement of your company.
Some qualifications and certifications will be well know to your audience (e.g. ISO 9001). Others will be more obscure, so the onus is on you to EDUCATE prospects and clients about the certification. Here are some ideas to do that:
- Explain why you decided to pursue the certification
- Explain the process or what you had to go through to be certified
- Explain the context of the certification (e.g. “Marketing Results is one of only 16 Google Adwords Qualified Companies in Australia)
- Explain the benefit to the customer
Certifications and qualifications are great, because they not only increase your ability to deliver for customers and clients, but they also start to flesh out a “360 degree” view of your company from multiple third-party perspectives that can serve to shorten the trust cycle.
Strategy #4: Awards
Industry Awards can also boost your standing in the eyes of prospects and clients, but don’t go too over the top patting yourself on the back – try to tie the award into how you produce a better outcome for clients.
Here’s a good example of this in practice. Combo IT’s “Awards” page provides details of the awards they have won (including inclusion on the prestigious BRW Fast 100 list). Not ony the prestige of the awards, but the fact that Combo is a multi-award winning company, helps to build an impression of legitimacy and competence — enough, certainly, to shortlist them as a prospective supplier.
Strategy #5: 3rd Party Verification Services
3rd party verification services such as Verisign, the Better Business Bureau and HackerSafe can also reassure visitors that your site is legitimate and that your business practices and customer service policies are sound. The key here is to refer to “industry standard” sources as much as possible – you don’t want to rely on little-known verification services that don’t have enough recognition to reflect favourably on you (although having said that, “official-looking” logos would probably help — that would be an interesting thing to test.)
Strategy #6: Photos, Audio and Video
Good sales copy is one of the most powerful persuasive elements on any sales page, and there are a few high-converting sites (www.doubleyourdating.com comes to mind) that rely almost exclusively on text content to convert visitors, rather than text or fancy multimedia effects.
Nevertheless, in most cases photos, audio and video can certainly add value and boost your credibility. And with broadband speeds getting faster all the time [yes, even in sleepy old Australia ], there is no excuse to limit rich content for bandwidth reasons.
HOWEVER, coming from the direct response school of marketing as I do, my only proviso is that audo-visual content should be used to enhance and reinforce your selling message.
The following types of photos work well: product images (especially with relevant close-ups), author images, team photos, photos of your premises, plant or equipment, graphs and charts. Wherever possible, you should add effective captions — they invariably attract the eye and have been tested to increase response, both in the direct mail world and online.
Audio and video content can also provide a conversion boost. Audio testimonials work well, and audio programs are easy to record and publish online (the open source Audacity recorder is a good place to start for PC users and I hear that Garage Band rocks for the Mac people out there).
Direct response video can also drive increased conversions – though not always, so you have to test – and Camtasia screencaptures area great way to deliver visual content.
Strategy #7: Reprints PR Articles and Media Comments
Press releases and media comments can produce enormous traffic spikes in a short period of time (one article in the Brisbane Courier Mail drove over 1,000 opt-ins in a few days to one of our clients, an independent real estate agent.) But the buzz tends to die down just as soon as it began.
You can make it last longer by “reprinting” articles as images or PDF documents, and either placing them on your website in an “As Seen On TV” kinda way, or sending key articles to clients in the form of an email autoresponer message. “Official” information coming from 3rd party sources persuades better than anything coming from yourself.
Strategy #8: Avoid Exaggeration and Hype
This is something that’s going to get more important as people everywhere yearn for a bit of authenticity from the companies they do business with. You should check your copy for exaggerated claims that we’ve all indulged in before. If you’ve ever seen one of uber-copywriter Michel Fortin’s video copy critiques, one of the things you’ll notice is that he often tones down over-the-top statements — one exaggerated claim can break your audience’s connection with what you have to say, even if your product or service is very good.
Strategy #9: Speak the same language as your prospects
Use the same words, phrases, grammar, slang and turns of phrase as your target audience. If you don’t know what those words are, you need to hang out more with your customers. The best copywriters really know how to crawl inside the minds of their prospects and talk on the same level but anyone can do the same if listen to their customers and ask the right questions.
Strategy #10: Include “we are a real business” factors
Your website should always include contact details and a phone number that works. Photos of your premises or operations can also help to “tangiblise” your business. In some industries this is more important than others and if you’re selling something more “intangible” such as information, the need to appear “real” to prospects is even greater.
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