Are you struggling to generate conversions and sales through your website?
Here are eleven possible reasons your online revenue is missing the mark.
Do you know your target market?
Many business owners think they know their market, but end up targeting the wrong people through inconsistencies. If your branding and marketing efforts conflict, the inconsistency could be the root of your low sales.
For example, say you run a fitness coaching business and market research tells you that your target market is women.
So, you target women through your PPC ads and speak to women through your sales copy.
Based on your copy and ads, you think you’re targeting women, but what about your brand image? Your brand is more than just an image – it’s your identity and it’s how people think of you when they see your branding across online platforms. If your brand doesn’t match your market, your sales will suffer.
If your brand name, logo, and taglines are all oriented toward men, you’re not going to reach most of your female market.
For example, if your logo depicts a male athlete, your female market won’t identify with your logo.
If your business name, logo, or slogan implies power, size, and strength, you’ll lose the larger part of your female market that isn’t interested in getting bigger muscles.
Revisit your brand image from top to bottom as well as your target market. It’s possible that your sales copy and image conflict in terms of the target, and that could be why you’re not getting the sales you’d like to see.
Don’t hesitate to completely rebrand if your brand doesn’t speak to your target market.
When you start getting into DIY marketing, it’s tempting to start targeting everyone you possibly can. It seems like targeting more people would be better than maintaining a narrow target market, but that’s a deceptive perception.
Even if your product is perfect for every household in the world, having a broad market limits your ability to generate sales. The reason marketers tell you to narrow down your target market is because you can speak more strongly and persuasively to a narrow market.
When your target market is broad, your messages have to be generic to avoid losing people when you say something unrelatable. For instance, once you start talking about a specific problem, people who can’t relate to that issue will think, “this product isn’t for me” and they won’t buy from you.
Say you sell running shoes. Your product is technically perfect for anyone who runs. However, you need a narrow group of runners to speak to in your ads and sales copy. For instance, you could target high school athletes and speak directly to their struggles, frustrations, and needs. With this market, affordability will likely be your top selling point.
Another narrow market would be professional runners if your shoes are good enough to compete with popular brands. You could also target casual runners. Different markets will have different pain points and needs, so your messages can be detailed and specific.
You can market your products and services to multiple markets. The key to doing that is to create separate marketing campaigns, one for each market. This way, you can create highly targeted messages that get seen by the right people.
Persuasive copy is a requirement for generating sales. Even the best products in the world don’t sell themselves. People need to be convinced that your product is the answer to their problems.
How persuasive is your copy? Does it connect with people emotionally and move them toward making a purchase? If your copy wasn’t written by a professional copywriter, chances are, it’s not persuasive enough.
In a nutshell, persuasive copy moves the reader emotionally and convinces them that your product is what they need.
Persuasive sales copy is not the same as copy that reads well. Generally speaking, to be persuasive, copy needs to be written at about a 6th grade level so it can be understood by everyone. Sales copy is no place for obscure words and fancy adjectives.
Often, persuasive copy even includes incorrect grammar, incorrect punctuation, and a casual tone – things that would drive your English teacher crazy. To understand the difference, check out these examples of persuasive copy in action.
You can hire good writers, but that doesn’t mean the copy they produce will be persuasive. The only way to truly get the persuasive copy you deserve is to hire a professional copywriter who has experience speaking to your market.
Have you been focusing on generating website traffic? Sure, you need traffic to make sales, but traffic won’t automatically produce sales. In fact, if your traffic isn’t targeted it’s useless. Valuable traffic comes from your target market and nowhere else.
Your best traffic will come from a targeted content marketing and link building campaign. When you build strong, targeted backlinks, you’ll start generating organic traffic from people truly interested in your content.
Don’t get caught in the marketing gimmicks online that promise to bring you tons of traffic. If it’s not specifically targeted to your market, you’ll be wasting your time and money.
The key to balancing your focus on traffic is to keep your focus on targeted traffic. Stop pursuing anything that isn’t producing targeted leads. For instance, don’t use service that promise traffic to your website for a monthly fee unless you know for sure they are targeting your exact market.
At the same time, start looking for opportunities to generate traffic from your target market. You can do this with content marketing and PPC ads if you aren’t already using these methods.
Part of increasing your sales requires testing individual elements on your sales pages and ads to continually make it more effective. This is accomplished through split-testing, or A/B testing. With A/B testing, you’ll figure out which elements support conversions and which elements are making people bounce.
Take advantage of split-testing whenever possible because it’s the only way you’ll figure out which major and minor elements support more conversions. For example, you could generate more sales just by changing the color and typeface on your “buy now” button.
If you’ve never looked into it before, check out Neil Patel’s guide to split testing to see how it’s done.
Not having an email list means you’re losing sales by the day. Having an email list gives you a captive audience for marketing your products and services. You’ll always get website visitors who won’t make an immediate purchase, but might be interested in signing up for your email list in exchange for a future discount or a freebie.
If you don’t already have an email list, get a free account with a company like MailChimp or AWeber, and start creating your list. You can always sign up for a larger account as needed, but it’s nice to start with a free account so you can learn your way around the software.
If you have an email list, but you aren’t working it regularly, you’re losing sales. Data shows that aggressive email marketing gets sales, and people don’t hate email as much as it seems.
Sure, people complain about getting spammed, but those are emails from brands they’re not interested in or emails they didn’t sign up to receive. When someone signs up to receive your emails, you need to be communicating with them often.
However, there is a fine line between effectively marketing your brand and being annoying.
Are you segmenting your leads? If not, you’ll want to start right away. According to data published by Hubspot, marketers who segment their email marketing leads see up to 760% increase in revenue.
Segmenting your leads allows you to create custom emails that speak directly to each of your segments. It works just like marketing. You need to have specific segments in order to craft specific messages.
PPC ads aren’t as easy as they seem. You can get people to click on clever headlines and images, but if they aren’t your target market you’re wasting your money.
What is your PPC conversion rate? If it’s below average (2.35%), you might be targeting too broad of an audience. Start fine-tuning your audience to narrow down who sees your ads and see if you get better results. A broad audience may not be the only thing suppressing your sales, but every tiny change helps.
Not using retargeting/remarketing is only letting leads slip away. Since not everyone is going to buy your product or service the first time they encounter your brand, you need several methods for bringing those people back to your brand. An email list is one way, but you also need to leverage remarketing.
Retargeting is when you serve PPC ads only to people who have interacted with your brand before, or visited your website. This ensures your ads will be placed in front of people who are already aware of your existence. This repeated, targeted exposure increases the likelihood of those people making a purchase.
Experts recommend allocating between 20-30% of your total ad spend for retargeting because that’s where you’ll get more conversions.
If you’re not using remarketing, or if you haven’t started using PPC ads yet, you’ll want to get started as soon as possible. Every day you don’t run ads or take advantage of retargeting, you’re losing sales.
Did you build your website on a DIY web builder that doesn’t allow you full control over your code and databases? While web builders can make an excellent platform for personal and informational sites, they’re not ideal for generating a high volume of sales and leads. When your goal is to generate sales, you need a website that can be fully customized and optimized for SEO purposes.
When revenue is your goal, you’re better off using WordPress, Shopify, BigCommerce, or having a custom content management system (CMS) created from scratch. If that’s what you’re missing, we can help you get a professional website.
When you don’t have full control over your website, your revenue will remain limited. You need a website that will serve as your foundation for generating revenue, collecting leads, and supporting your marketing strategies.
At Dev.co , we’ll create a custom, professional website for your business, regardless of your industry, that will help you generate the sales and conversions you’re after.
Want to learn more about our design and development services? Contact us and tell us about your project. We’re excited to hear from you!
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