Screw-Up Your Conversion Rates? Disconnect with Customers

In the past decade, there have been several changes in internet marketing. but none has made a more lasting impact than conversion optimization. Conversion is a marketing strategy that transforms casual visitors or traffic, into paying customers. It may sound simple, but it isn’t. Marketers must connect with each visitor to convert them. But sometimes, the connection is lost. Sometimes there is a disconnect, between the website and the customers. 

In the latest Convert Academy webinar, we have Wyatt Ernst of Conversion Consulting take on the topic – Speaking to the Customer with no Added Surprises. Wyatt Ernst is the CEO/CRO consultant at Conversion Consulting. He has been focused on internet marketing for over four years now. He has optimized websites like eMusic, OKCupid, ShopAtHome, WarnerBros Music Company, and many others. For the full presentation, you can check it out here.

First off, what does Conversion Consulting do? Conversion Consulting offers strategic consulting for general marketing, branding, web design, website traffic growth, social media, and raising customer’s website conversion rates. They mostly cater to individuals rather than large companies, and are more focused on those who focus themselves to be an individual internet marketer. That being said, Wyatt’s main topic is on how to speak to our customers without adding unwanted surprises. This is one of the simplest things we can test using A/B Testing. Furthermore, we will also talk about the major things consumers’ look for.

The Disconnect with Customers

When people cross platforms, they expect to see the same style and same image as the previous one. For example, a user may be using WordPress, and when he switches over to Magento, though he’s still in the same site, one specific section looks completely different; and that may worry him and give him reason to hit the back button and leave. This is where the disconnect with your customers usually occurs. They expect to see the same as the previous, yet you gave them a  unwanted surprise.

[Tweet “How can we speak to our customers without giving them additional surprises? Simple; By giving them the same thing”]

Remember, you have to have an actual connection between platforms. Some people say that the scent is transferred between two pages. You can either place the same picture or have the same wording and/or buttons on both pages. This creates a connection.

Unexpected Events

There can be many reasons for a disconnect with our customers. Some are design flaws while some are untimely events. Wyatt cited one untimely event that happened during last year’s Super Bowl. The game experienced a 34-minute power outage which caused a huge disconnect to all our customers. We had millions of customers just sitting around wondering what was going to happen. However, one particular company saw this as a great opportunity to highlight their product. Through social media, Oreo posted on Facebook and also tweeted one simple phrase – You can still dunk in the dark. This was something very simple but they knew the opportunity that would present. The customers now had something to do and this made a huge impact to Oreos. They received 20,000 likes, almost 7,000 people shared the post; and 15,000 people re-tweeted it. Now that’s a lot for just a short span of time. The average commercial cost in the Super Bowl was 4 million dollars for 30 seconds. And well, Oreos got theirs for free.

So there can be different reasons to be disconnected to our customers, but keep in mind that lessons can be learned from this experiences. And the best way is, to adjust to what our customers will understand. As mentioned in this article by Business on Main:

“Let customers know, step-by-step, important things such as how to order–and where to go and what to do should something happen out of the ordinary.” – Business on Main

What Consumers’ Look For

Knowing what consumers’ look for in a product often helps us to avoid a disconnect with our customers. They often look for four big things, which is:

1. Consistency
2. Pattern
3. Schedule
4. Predictability

Generally, we like consistency, we do like routine, and we do like schedule. We do like being able to predict what’s coming next. McDonald’s is a good example for consistency. No matter how many times you go there you’re going to get the same service and the same quality of their products. There’s no disappointment there because you know where your expectations are at. This is the same with patterns. When you pass by the McDonald’s routinely and see it’s logo, it becomes a pattern. And you will eventually just stop thinking about it because it’s already ingrained in your mind, and you’re able to memorize it and remember it. And for example, when I show you a slide about logos, you’ll be able to pinpoint which is McDonald’s and as with other elements, these things will affect your conversion. The more you know what consumers’ look for, the more you will know how to adapt to it, and with that knowledge you will be able increase your conversion rate. If you wish to know more about the webinar, you can check out the full presentation here.