Increasing Conversion Rates One Step at a Time
PART TWO: THE SALES PROCESS
by Bryan Eisenberg
Regardless of what they might say, typically 3 out of 10 people who are "shopping" online are actually "just looking." That means the remaining 7 are hoping to buy. It has been said, sales is a "transfer of enthusiasm."
But with 70 percent of visitors looking to buy, you have to wonder why the average Web site closes less than 2 percent of sales.
Where's the enthusiasm? If your closing rate is average, then transferring enthusiasm to just two disappointed customers per hundred would double your sales volume - without spending a penny more on marketing costs. Even if your closing rate is above average, the same principle and process apply.
This 4-part series of articles, presented by Future Now, Inc. (www.futurenowinc.com), is designed to help you increase your online conversion rates. Part I, in Klixxx Issue 10, focused on some of the critical ideas that should form the basis of your online enterprise. Part II examines one of the issues central to improving your conversion rates: your site must incorporate the 5-step professional sales process.
The Sales Funnel
Imagine you are looking at a group of people from the top -- the wide end -- of a funnel. As the funnel gets narrower, not everyone can, or will even want to, go all the way through the funnel. In any sales situation, there is a natural attrition that occurs as people move through the process. Sometimes people leave for reasons beyond your control, but more often than not, especially online, they leave for reasons you can control.
Online Customer Conversion Rates (or CCR's, defined as the number of people you convert into buyers divided by the total number of visitors to your site) are appallingly low. On average, fewer than 2 percent of online shoppers actually make a purchase, compared to a real-world retail rate of almost 50 percent. Even those e-commerce sites with higher conversion rates still are only scratching the surface of their potential.
If your drop-off rate is typical, that means your funnel is, in effect, "leaky." You're losing a lot more people along the way than you should be losing. The marketing approach to getting more sales in spite of a leaky funnel is to drive more traffic - an expensive and inefficient option that means still more visitors will be subjected to the same leaks. You may experience an overall increase in sales (at considerable cost), but very likely, your conversion rate will remain static. And studies prove people who leak out never come back, so the more traffic you drive without fixing the leaks, the more potential customers you lose - forever. Wouldn't it make better sense to fix the leaks - that is, increase your conversion rate?
You want to get as many people through the hole at the bottom of the funnel as possible, of course. The most efficient way to make that happen is to engage them in a systematic, professional selling process - which is actually called "a buying funnel" in sales circles.
Sales is a Five-Step Process
Would you build a great store, stock it with great products, run ads to drive traffic to your store, but not hire any salespeople? Would you expect your customers to feel comfortable, choose products, and buy them on their own? Well, if your Web site doesn't employ active selling techniques that is what's happening. The best you can do is hope your customers will buy. Can you afford that?
All successful selling, online and offline, follows essentially the same system. If you want your Web site to sell more, you have to construct it so it employs the five-step expert selling process.
The five steps of the expert sales process are: Prospect, Rapport, Qualify, Present, and Close. Notice the process isn't strictly linear. It's like a spiral, each step feeding back and influencing the others as the process overall, moves forward toward the close (assuming you do it right). Any good salesperson knows selling is a process of evaluation and re-evaluation -- for both the salesperson and the prospective customer.
The Prospect step is usually where Marketing does its thing -- delivering lots of qualified traffic (people interested in what you have to offer). You pique potential customers' interest, and once you've brought them to your site, the very first thing you do is reinforce that they've arrived in the right place, by presenting your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
Your USP isn't a slogan or phrase designed for your advertising, although that's one potential use for it. Rather, it is the concise and memorable phrase that powerfully describes the unique value of your business and creates excitement in the prospect. Its purpose is to answer the question always implicit in your visitors' minds, "Why should I do business with you and not somebody else?"
Once your qualified visitor arrives, your site must immediately begin the process of building Rapport. Lacking the nose-to-nose (N2N) element of the real world, you develop rapport online in many other ways:
- through the speed of your download
- through the appearance of your site
- through design elements that promote trust
- through ease of navigation
- through the power of your copy
- through the relevance of your images
- through exceptional customer service
- through assurances and privacy policies
You make no assumptions about the customer's prior knowledge, either about computers or products. You offer clear access to help and provide relevant information. You also acknowledge that people have different personality types that influence how they shop, and you use that information to adapt your sales process to the individual, so you can sell to customers in the way they want to be sold to. People do want to be sold to; they just don't want to be pushed.
Qualifying is the key to eventually closing the sale. After all, why wouldn't you buy if you were shown exactly what you wanted? It must be handled skillfully. This is where your site must help customers identify the best product or service for their needs. Yet discovering exactly what your prospect wants is your biggest challenge.
In the bricks-and-mortar world, you would begin a dialogue. Online, since you can't "ask" the questions, you make them implicit in the hyperlinks you offer. In general there are three types of prospects: those who know exactly want they want, those who know generally what they want, and those who are browsing and need some direction. You need navigation and information architecture that addresses each possibility.
As you work through the process of Qualifying, you present, offering products or services that are suited to your prospects' "answers." And although it might seem "early" in the process, you also must begin to close the sale. You answer the prospect's concerns about doing business with you, resolve objections, encourage the close, detail service plans, offer payment options, and explain your guarantees.
These critical assurances cannot be placed randomly throughout your website, but must appear specifically at the Point of Action (POA), where it matters most to your prospects that you stand behind your products or services and care about their security and privacy. These reassurances inspire trust and confidence, and make a huge difference to your prospects' decision to complete the Close.
Your entire Web site must recognize every step of this process. Remember, too, that each step feeds the others, so it's not unusual to have two, three, or even all five steps on a single page. Think of the process as operating on both a micro level and a macro level at the same time: the micro level is the individual page; the macro level is the entire online experience.
Always keep in mind that buying is ultimately an emotions-based process. When you employ the 5-step professional sales process, you engage your shoppers not only in the physical dimension of colors, shapes, sizes, and prices, but you also appeal to the critical emotional and psychological dimensions that underlie every decision to buy. In B2C or B2B you may not be N2N (nose-to-nose) with your online customers, but you can make them feel as though you are. By doing so, you can increase your conversion rates not just by increments, but in many cases by 50%, 100% and even more.
In Part III, in Klixxx Issue 12, we will examine some fundamentals of consumer psychology in relation to the online conversion process and discuss how applying them will increase your sales.
About the Author:
Bryan Eisenberg - One of the principals and CIO of Future Now, Inc. (www.futurenowinc.com), Bryan is an expert at bridging the gap between technology and the real world. He has been helping companies realize that to maximize results it is essential to incorporate expert persuasion techniques into Web site design, development and implementation. He is the co-inventor of Future Now's proprietary Digital Salespeople process, is the author of Future Now's award-winning newsletter GrokDotCom (www.grokdotcom.com, is the author of the weekly ClickZ column "Converting Web Site Traffic" (clickz.com, has been a featured speaker at numerous e-business events both in the United States and overseas. The application of his vision and processes has helped Future Now clients increase their conversion rates, not just by percents, but by multiples.
In addition to his background in both e-commerce and in technology, Bryan also has proven expertise in e-commerce customer service and support solutions, as well as consumer psychology, education and motivation. His eclectic background includes thought leadership in the critical area of Web site branding and positioning, and membership in the Usability Professionals' Association. A successful entrepreneur in his own right, he has also consulted to, and run seminars for, numerous corporations, large and small, both on-line and in the real world. He holds a B.A. from Brooklyn College, CUNY, and did graduate work at The Wurzweiler School. Bryan is also a graduate of Roy William's Wizard Academy.
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