To Boost Conversions, Think Conversely

A recent study found that 65% of online shop­pers are “win­dow shop­pers,” and take on aver­age up to 33 hours to make a pur­chase — often over secu­rity concerns.

Some inter­est­ing find­ings show that most peo­ple who aban­don their shop­ping carts don’t do so permanently.

They tend to return within the first day to com­plete their pur­chase, likely after they had a chance to shop around, review their secu­rity, or prac­tice some due diligence.

Accord­ing to WebProNews who reported on the study, “65% of all shop­pers will wait a day or more to com­plete a pur­chase.” The most notable find­ing was the idea that just increas­ing secu­rity and buyer con­fi­dence can increase con­ver­sion by 11%.

Inter­est­ing, yes. But far from surprising.

In fact, I often tell my clients and stu­dents that, in order to boost sales, you should be a “con­ver­sion con­trar­ian.” In other words, don’t focus on increas­ing con­ver­sions. Not at first, any­way. Instead, you should focus on decreas­ing some­thing else…

… You should focus on decreas­ing non-​​conversions.

In recent times, I’ve been ham­mer­ing home the idea that:

• You should focus on build­ing trust,
• You should add more ele­ments of proof,
• And you should reduce bot­tle­necks.

The lat­ter of the three — i.e., reduc­ing fric­tion in the sales and order­ing processes — has become a chief focus in my recent split-​​tests. With dra­matic results.

More impor­tant, you need to bring those non-​​buyers back to the saleslet­ter and get them to com­plete their order, and a mech­a­nism that allows you to do so. As the last para­graph in Chris Crum’s WebProNews arti­cle about the study clearly states:

That’s not to say that if you are sell­ing things online, there isn’t a good chance you are miss­ing out on a sub­stan­tial amount of money you eas­ily could be mak­ing, if you only exam­ined why peo­ple are leav­ing the shop­ping cart. Just focus on the ones who aren’t com­ing back.

For many years, one of the cen­tral teach­ings from my friend, Armand Morin, a top Inter­net mar­keter who gen­er­ates mil­lions online, is the idea of “forced optin,” i.e., a manda­tory form where peo­ple must join a list before they see the salesletter.

“All saleslet­ters should be pre­ceded by a forced optin page,” says Morin.

A forced optin page — also known as a “squeeze page,” “namesqueeze page,” or “fly­catcher page” — is no longer con­sid­ered an add-​​on strat­egy, an extra step, or even a bot­tle­neck (which is why some peo­ple refuse to use it), but a neces­sity.

And these recent find­ings under­line this prac­tice, as it goes to prove that you need to, and must, have a way to follow-​​up with your non-​​buyers within that first 24-​​hour window.

Those first 24 hours are crucial.

Speak­ing of bot­tle­necks, I agree that, in some cases, a forced optin page can be a deter­rent. But keep in mind, you must use them intel­li­gently for them to work.

An optin form that blocks access to your infor­ma­tion and forces peo­ple to sub­scribe before giv­ing them what they’re ask­ing for is def­i­nitely going to push some away.

Granted, if your vis­i­tors are already on your list, you don’t need one — although it might prove itself to be effec­tive in seg­ment­ing your list. The key, in either case, is to use them prop­erly, effec­tively, with the right mes­sage, and with the right audi­ence.

If your traf­fic is tar­geted, you can use…

• Per­sua­sive teaser copy that’s infor­ma­tive yet incomplete;
• A strong incen­tive or bribe, per­haps with a cer­tain exclusivity;
• Reg­is­tra­tions to events, such as tele­sem­i­nars or webinars;
• Mul­ti­me­dia, such as videos, demon­stra­tions, inter­views, or samples;
• A noti­fi­ca­tion process for when the con­tent or prod­uct is made available;
• Con­tin­u­ous con­tent, such as newslet­ters, courses, or peri­odic updates;
• A mul­ti­step process where con­tent is bro­ken down in parts or layers;
• Or sequen­tial con­tent deliv­ered over a period of time.

There are many cre­ative ways to get legit­i­mate, qual­i­fied optins, and this list is by no means exhaus­tive. Inci­den­tally, the sec­ond half of that list is based on a tech­nique that’s becom­ing more and more pop­u­lar these days, which is the reverse optin process.

Nev­er­the­less, forced optins are pow­er­ful tools for a num­ber of rea­sons — not the least of which is the abil­ity to follow-​​up with them, par­tic­u­larly within that first 24-​​hour window.

But a forced optin also helps you in qual­i­fy­ing vis­i­tors more effec­tively, starts the relationship-​​building process, fos­ters trust and cred­i­bil­ity (by imme­di­ately giv­ing them what they’re ask­ing for), and even trains your prospects to even­tu­ally buy from you.

As Armand often notes, “If you can’t get them to give you their email address, chances are you won’t be able to get them to give you their credit card num­ber, either.”

How­ever, forced optins aside, there are many other fric­tional com­po­nents that are killing your sales right now. You’d be amazed at how many ele­ments can impede, slow down, inter­rupt, dis­tract, break the flow, and deter your prospects from buy­ing from you.

These bot­tle­necks are like speed bumps, slow­ing down that greased-​​slide momen­tum that’s often talked about in copy­writ­ing courses — from get­ting them to start read­ing the copy, all the way to get­ting them to fin­ish pro­cess­ing their order. And then, some.

There­fore, rather than look­ing at ways to increase con­ver­sions, you can boost your sales — often­times, dra­mat­i­cally — by first look­ing at why peo­ple are leav­ing, address­ing those rea­sons, and focus­ing on ways to decrease your non-​​conversions.

In short, you need to start look­ing at how can you reduce the num­ber of non-​​buyers rather than, or at least together with, how you can boost the num­ber of those who buy.

Think about this for a moment.

If you have a 2% con­ver­sion rate, and you con­duct a split-​​test that increased your con­ver­sion to 3%, that might be all well and good. You boosted response by a third! Who wouldn’t want a 33% boost in sales? But the prob­lem is, 97% are still non-​​buyers.

You went from 98 to 97% non-​​conversion rate.

Doesn’t sound as appeal­ing, huh?

That’s why one of the best ways I’ve found to increase sales is not to focus on more aggres­sive, or even sur­rep­ti­tious ways to boost sales, such as test­ing dif­fer­ent col­ored head­lines, tweak­ing lay­outs, chang­ing fonts, or adding more copy to the mix…

… But to focus on increas­ing trust, build­ing rela­tion­ships, adding more proof, mak­ing bet­ter offers, and above all, remov­ing fric­tion from the sales process. Such as:

• Mak­ing the nav­i­ga­tion more fluid,
• Com­mu­ni­cat­ing more security,
• Facil­i­tat­ing the check­out process,
• Reduc­ing any con­fu­sion or friction,
• Pro­ject­ing a great brand and image,
• Hav­ing a cleaner look and feel,
• Being con­gru­ent and consistent,
• Adding more “seals of approval,” etc.

Ulti­mately, don’t stop look­ing for ways to boost your sales. But con­versely, I would def­i­nitely start look­ing at what causes your non-​​sales, such as what pushes peo­ple away or stops them from com­ing back, and address those as well, if not at first.

The worst you can do is to ignore your non-​​buyers altogether.

After all, you might be sit­ting on a goldmine.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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