Let’s suppose you have taken a few marketing courses and have created a fundamentally sound webpage with all the bells and whistles . . . clear headline, natural eyepath, low friction, credibility indicators, etc.
And let’s suppose with 2% conversion, your sales are at an all-time high. Should you accept this as the best you can do or is it possible to achieve 10% conversion?
Think of it this way, if only 2 people out of 100 who entered a retail store actually made a purchase, we would naturally assume something is categorically wrong. Whether it be the products, customer service, or overall appearance, this store will be going out of business soon.
So why are online marketers content with such relatively lower standards? The answer to this question is complex and far reaching. But I can say with confidence that the buyer’s motivation and trust play an important role.
Someone who spends time driving to a store is usually much more motivated than a person who simply types in a search term and clicks a mouse a few times. It’s also much easier to click an exit button than it is to leave a store and navigate back through traffic.
Not only does physically being in a store signify a high buyer motivation, but it also makes it much easier for a customer to trust the merchant. Holding a shirt in your hands, trying it on, and knowing there will be an immediate exchange of ownership effectively makes trust a non-issue. Whereas when you order a shirt online, you can never be sure it will fit, if it will be delivered to you, or if it is even there at all.
As marketers, we unfortunately cannot control a buyer’s motivation. But we can effectively use incentives to keep visitors from leaving our store. To learn more about using incentives, take a look at our research brief “Creating Effective Incentives.”
Unlike motivation, we can control a buyer’s trust by using credibility indicators, testimonials, guarantees, and other anxiety reducing techniques. To learn more about reducing anxiety, take a look at our research brief “Optimizing Site Design.”