Increasing Sales: How to Increase Conversions on Digital Platforms

Running a Business is hard.

Amongst the many other challenges businesses face, one of the few ones I come across very often is a negative ROI on ad spend or a plateauing of Revenue.

While there may be a number of causes resulting in a lack of sales, some of the common ones I often see are found by analyzing the 4 areas of a businesses marketing collateral.

Once the ineffective AREA of collateral is identified, we can quickly take steps to improve it and you’re likely to see an uplift in your conversion metrics.

So, if your a business owner who is frustrated with the lack of sales on digital marketing platforms despite your best effort, this post will offer insights into WHAT to look for and WHY you may not be converting effectively.

The 4 Key Areas to Analyze for effective Marketing

The Product and Related Offer(s)

The Product is the primary reason for any purchase. If your product doesn’t provide some form of value to the customer AND the offers around it aren’t communicated effectively, then they will not convert and you’ll have an underperforming marketing campaign.

The reason that I put the product and offers on top of the list is if your trying to sell bad products or have poorly sculpted offers, then you won’t be in business long.

And, no amount of marketing can help make a bad product a success in the long run. 

Now, I realize that as a business owners you are human and therefore will have biases where it’s really difficult to objectively see how your customers view our products.

The best way to mitigate your own bias is to see what the market is telling you about your product.

Reviews, surveys, focus groups and even customer complaints are all great sources of feedback that can help you see the good, bad and ugly about your product.

Some other good questions to ask yourself are

1. Is your pricing correct?
2. Are your sales seasonal and are you new in the business to realize that?
3. Is the competition doing something that you are not?
4. Have you been running tests to see if there is something that can be improved about the product or offer
5. Are you targeting the right audience for sale? For example, trying to sell a high priced art on Tik Tok which have a primary demographic which tilts toward younger audiences who are usually not so affluent may lead to assumptions that the product or your offers are not working – but in reality, it’s improper targeting.

Once you’ve analyzed that the product is not the problem, the good news is that there are a number of other factors associated with it that can be tweaked to improve your bottom line.

The other 3 areas to analyze are

The Content

It may seem obvious that effectively communicating your offer to your audience is essential.

But, the reality is that so few businesses do this well.

To the untrained eye – copy is just copy – but to someone with a good understanding of marketing, they understand that even seemingly simple word choices can change the way an offer is perceived and can impact sales.

The goal of good content is to be informative, insightful and interesting enough to make the user want to read more from your blog or engage with your page on social media.

Your copy needs to be succinct and clear so that you are not asking more than what’s needed or confusing your audience with too much information.

It should be engaging, highlight the benefits of your product or offer and come across as credible and authentic.

In a nutshell, to create great copy that converts you must follow three rules

Have great headlines, use persuasive words & phrases and

Tell a story for the reader. In order to create an effective headline

Some frameworks you can learn about to understand how to write it evaluate copy better are

The AIDA Framework

The PAS Framework

& Feature vs Benefits (especially useful for product-oriented businesses).

The Design

Working in tandem with copywriting – Design also plays a major role when it comes to higher conversions.

While your copy should be able to communicate a message with clarity, your designs should attract attention and make the user feel comfortable about consuming your content.

While there are many aspects of design that you should be aware of, some important ones that you should observe are

Overall Layout – Layout is how you arrange things on a page (e.g., headings, images) Your Layout should be intuitive and easy to navigate. Using whitespace, contrast, alignment and other design fundamentals will help keep your content organized as well as add personality to your content. Your layout can create a mood for readers which can make interaction with your brand an engaging and pleasurable experience.

Images – Images are a key aspect of any content marketing plan. However, not all images will make the same impact on your audience. The type of image you use can range from simple to more complex depending on what kind of industry you are in and the kind of offer you are promoting.

Consistent Design – For example, the use of similar patterns throughout the site or similar illustrations across similar content pieces. 

The Color Pallete – While there are many colour schemes to choose from, you should make sure that your colours do not clash and all have a harmonious effect.

The Typography – Typography refers to the style of text (fonts) used. While some fonts might be popular for headlines or sub-headings, others may work well in the body copy. Make sure your fonts are readable, appealing & catchy. Avoid using too many fonts in a single piece of content as it can lead to confusion or distraction for the user. There are three basic kinds of typefaces: serif, sans-serif, and decorative. You should use a maximum of three fonts in a design project, and two is often enough. It makes your design simple and clean. Try pairing serifs with sans-serifs (putting the body text in a serif font) or vice versa (having the title be in a sans-serif font). Use decorative fonts minimally since they often have low readability and just won’t look right most of the time.

I often use fontjoy at fontjoy.com to see which fonts complement each other well and to see which font pairs best with a specific text.

Your Systems

Great Marketing does not work in isolation.

One of the things a user may not realize when they make a purchase is the number of marketing platforms that may be successfully connected in the back-end and interacting seamlessly to create a conversion.

The marketing systems you use to guide your campaigns should be integrative, meaning that they can work together in a seamless way and talk with each other properly.

For example, if you are using Facebook as well as your website to collect leads, you should have a CRM connected to it so that the CRM know where the customer is in the customer journey and you can then craft your marketing messages (cross-sales and upsells) accordingly.

Summary

• The first step in increasing sales on any digital platforms is to make sure your product and offer are right.
• Next, you need to ensure that the content or copy is top-notch so that it can be shared through social media channels and hook customers into purchasing.
• Design plays an important role because people are less likely to buy from a website that isn’t aesthetically appealing or looks insecure.
• Lastly, ensure that your systems are in order so that you can find the right audience and warm them up to buy from you.