It's the question on every marketer's mind – “How do we turn these impressions, clicks and conversions into something that drives results for our company?”
The fact is, you have a lot on your plate. From new product launches to generating interest to reaching new markets and paying attention to customer sentiment, there's a lot to juggle. Being able to not just make sense of the data you're gathering, but also turn that information into actionable insights is a must-have skill in today's competitive markets.
The good news is, it can be learned – easily.
The Problem with Reach
In many cases, campaigns are founded with the wrong goal in mind. Everything is measured in “reach”. We look at impressions as the de facto measurement standard when it barely scratches the surface of measuring a consumer's true interest and intent.
The end result, when focusing too much on reach and impressions, is that you might make a boatload of sales, but not be able to map them definitively to any specific campaign or strategy. Even if people first hear about your product through traditional media (TV, print, newspaper), they're very likely to go online and do some more research – and that's where things like reviews, ratings and testimonials can make a significant impact.
Another issue is that most advertising programs assume a straight path to conversions, when the result is anything but. The customer could go from print awareness to online research at your website, but then go offsite to look up user reviews, do some comparison shopping, seek out coupons, watch a product unboxing video, look over the company's Facebook page to see what people are saying, double-back on the comparison shopping engine to find the best deal, and so forth.
The fact is, the conversion path isn't pretty and that's because it's too often tied to wisps of numbers that don't make any meaningful and measurable impact on the bottom line.
Mapping Campaigns to Results
So how do you tie your campaigns into the kind of insights that deliver the results you need? Let's take a look at some common types of campaigns and how they can be adjusted:
E-Commerce Sales
E-Commerce relies heavily on the power of reviews, testimonials and coupons – so combining these in a way that makes sense (such as putting reviews of that particular product below the customer's item when they go to view their cart) will help reduce cart abandonment rates and seal the deal.
Automatically adding in a coupon (especially for free shipping) only serves to sweeten the deal, and greatly reduces the risk that the customer will go offsite to search for coupons – and potentially to a competitor.
Don't forget the service after the sale either. Following up to inquire about how the customer likes the product, if they've used it yet or have any questions are crucial for keeping your brand front-of-mind in a way that's helpful, not intrusive.
New Product Launch
New product launches are by far the easiest processes to map. Since initiatives are just getting off the ground, you can more easily segment and monitor them across all channels. But even with that kind of segmentation in place, it's worth noting that few customers who “Like” a particular brand (for a discount, sample or whatever) seldom return to that page.
Your main goal in measuring results with new product launches should be to get customers to visualize their lives made better as a result of having your product in it. Your best customer may not say a lot or interact a lot on social media, but they will tell friends and family about you – and that speaks volumes more than any advertising can.
Brick and Mortar Sales
If your product is featured in traditional storefronts, there's a lot you can do to help increase conversions. Create a coupon code for a specific retail chain or even a specific locale so that you can tie results directly to that specific campaign.
Help thwart showrooming (where customers browse in store but buy online) by price matching. Don't force customers to jump through hoops to get the advertised price, either. Move the conversion needle even more by offering users a social coupon. This is one that can be shared with friends, but must be printed and brought to the store to redeem. You can track the success of the campaign through social analytics or the number of coupons redeemed.
There Is No Best Choice
One of the most common questions from the C-Suite with regard to conversions is “which channel drives the most?” Here again, there's too much of a focus hinging on pure numbers and not more valuable (but intangible) things like customer sentiment, recommendations, brand awareness and so on. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to discovering which channel brings the greatest ROI – because there isn't a single channel that does this all the time, for everyone, with every product.
Oftentimes, it's a mix of initiatives that drive the best results. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Look at the mixes of what's driving the most engagement or converting the most first-time users into paying customers – that's the avenue you want to improve conversions on.
How Kissmetrics Can Help
If you're using Kissmetrics, we've made it incredibly easy to see which marketing channels are sending the most profitable visitors.
We do this by using different channels. These channels include visitors who are referred directly to your site, who come by way of a third party, by email, and much more. But simply knowing where they come from is only part of the equation.
What you really want to know is - which visitors are bringing in the revenue?
And because Kissmetrics tracks users, not sessions, you can easily tie revenues to people. This is done by setting up the Revenue Report. Set it up once and let it start tackling the data effortlessly. You can even import your existing sales data if you wish.
An example of a Kissmetrics revenue report segmenting revenue by product category
The most valuable aspect of the Revenue Report is seeing which channels drive your biggest profits - not necessarily the most traffic or even the highest quality traffic - but pure revenues. As stated, you can even segment by marketing channel, so you'll learn not only which campaigns resonate with your target audience, but what that means in terms of your bottom line.
Map It Out
Some of us marketers are just visual learners who perform best when an idea is fully mapped out – so don't hesitate to do this if you feel it will give you a better idea of how to move forward. Draw a horizontal “timeline” showing the different touch points where your customer interacts with your product or service in any way. Then, draw a vertical line showing the stages of the sales funnel.
Now look at it carefully and see where and how the different areas intersect and mingle with each other. Are there areas where customers are dropping off considerably? Are there touch points where the customer isn't getting the help or clarification they need? When you map out the process, it's amazing the findings that will suddenly come to light!
No matter what, going from campaigns to conversions isn't about looking at the raw data as win or lose. It's about looking at the big picture of which campaigns cultivated the kind of customer sentiment and brand awareness you want while minimizing friction or cart abandonment. And more often than not, these kinds of results will come from many different campaigns and channels.
It requires a shift in how you think about conversions and how they tie into overall customer retention, to be sure, but making that shift and looking at initiatives in terms of wide-reaching strategies rather than one-off campaigns can make a significant difference in all areas of business.
Have you integrated any of these ideas into your own campaigns? What kind of results have you gotten? Share your thoughts and comments with us below!
About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!
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